Back to the future
Government austerity has resulted in spending on public services falling to the lowest share of national income since 1938, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The breakdown of these spending cuts reveals that the government will actually be spending more on debt interest (banking bailouts), and more on welfare payments (because of increased poverty). It means that public services are being pared to the bone.
What the OBR and government don’t mention is that austerity hasn’t actually worked and that the economy continues to flatline at the same level as before the 2008 capitalist crisis.
Fee not free
‘Justice is free to all, like the Ritz hotel’. This seems to be the guiding principle behind the government’s decision last year to charge workers up to £1,250 to bring case against their employer to an employment tribunal. Unsurprisingly, as a result of this fee barrier, the number of employees taking companies to such tribunals has fallen by 70% – from 8,848 to 3,792 in the three months to June, compared with a year ago.
Rob Wall of the CBI bosses’ organisation praised the introduction of fees, disingenuously describing the changes as a “win for employers and employees”.
Poison pill
The privatisation of probation services will undermine a vital public service but will guarantee large profits for the private consortia awarded these lucrative contracts. Chris Grayling, the Tory Justice minister, has copper-bottomed profits for ten years even if an incoming government scrapped these rip-off contracts. True to form, the Tories are extending this ‘poison-pill’ clause to other privatisation contracts in the run up to the 2015 general election.
No justice
Meanwhile, the shameless Grayling has allowed G4S and Serco companies to bid for new government public service contracts despite these companies being criminally investigated over contracts worth more than £200 million. Grayling misled the public when he stated, last September, that these companies should not be awarded government contracts.
Off the beaten track
The super-rich, occupying exclusive sites in cities such as London, may one day not have anyone to service their plush homes and offices as workers are priced out of local housing. The cost of commuting from more affordable towns and cities further afield is also being scuppered as rail companies ramp up prices. Under the newly merged Go-Ahead Group franchise a limited season rail ticket from Brighton to London will reportedly rise from £3,640 to £4,304 – an 18% hike.
What we heard
Striking back against pay cuts and privatisation
I recently spoke to a former work colleague now working in the NHS and asked whether he and his fellow workers had been balloted for the upcoming industrial action, he said that they hadn’t.
I encouraged them to question their trade union as to why not. I said it would be a huge strike of workers against the pay cuts and privatisation. They responded – “an all-out strike, sounds good!” To that I overheard another former colleague in the office give a big cheer at the prospect!
The strike ballot is our chance to build a movement capable of stopping this government of the rich. We all need it, we all want it.
