No cuts in public services

PCS workers go on strike to protect our services, photo by Peter Haddon (Click to enlarge)

"Not content with yearly pay-cuts, repossessing our homes, trying to rob us of our measly pensions and consigning our kids to the next 'lost generation' unemployment figures, this government of parasitic hypocrites, happy in its world of bonuses and backhanders, is now coming with a hatchet for our jobs.

These cuts will be in the very services that are needed now more than ever, as the recession turns our lives upside down.

How many times over do they expect us to pay the price for this mess of theirs?

We will fight to defend our jobs, conditions, vital services and our children's futures. We'll make Brown and his cronies wish they'd never tried to make us the scapegoat for a system in crisis."

Vicky Perrin, teaching assistant, Halifax

"Along with my union members, I am not surprised that all the political parties are saying the same thing - that public sector workers will have to pay for this economic recession. But we are angry!

How dare they spend millions of pounds on bailing out the banks with our money, as taxpayers, and then still want to attack our jobs, wages and pensions - a double whammy! How have they got the nerve?

The union leaders should be railing against 'the market' and demanding the things that we want - jobs, decent wages, homes and pensions, instead of cowering in front of the great god 'the market' that brought us into this terrible economic recession."

April Ashley, housing worker, Southwark, London

"It is an outrage and tantamount to theft on a grand scale that health workers and other Unison members are expected to suffer service cuts, job cuts and exploitative working conditions to pay for the capitalists' economic crisis. We both provide and depend on these very services.

A mass campaign of coordinated action by the public service trade unions should be called urgently, linking up with service users, to answer these plans of this parliamentary cross-party coalition of the greedy."

Len Hockey, porter, Whipps Cross Hospital, London

"We are all busting a gut in Jobcentre Plus to deliver services to the public in this recession so Brown's speech at the TUC came as a real slap in the face.

Public and Commercial Service union members are essential workers and we would be in a far better position to support people if the government hadn't slashed 30,000 staff and 700 offices.

Brown should remember the mess that his last assault on the civil service caused and think before doing it again. He should scrap Trident and close all the tax loopholes.

Billions of pounds are going uncollected because of the cuts that have been made to PCS members working in tax offices."

Katrine Williams, Department for Work and Pensions union activist

"It's a disgrace that public sector workers are expected to pay the price through cuts in jobs, pay and conditions. The three main parties all say cuts are inevitable after the election. In reality cuts are already taking place. At our hospital there has been a recruitment freeze in domestic services since January, putting extra strain on existing workers to make up for the resulting staff shortages."

Domestic Assistant, Glan Clwyd Hospital, North Wales

"Gordon Brown's comments that frontline services won't be hit are just not true. At the end of last term, thousands of schools throughout the UK laid off teaching assistants.

Social care services remain chronically understaffed and experienced social workers are drowning in paperwork, not allowing them to provide safer environments for vulnerable children and adults.

There is a huge amount of resentment and anger being stored up which eventually will explode to the surface as public sector workers defend their services against Brown, Cameron or whoever."

Dave Gorton, a trade union worker in the east midlands

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.