The Socialist 6 January 2016

Fight the flood of cuts

2016: Crisis-ridden capitalism will meet with bitter mood of resistance

No retreat on resisting council cuts!

Fight the flood of cuts

Support junior doctors' and student nurses' action

Another black man shot dead by the police

UK's private rail fares six times public rates

Birmingham Labour to axe at least 1,200 jobs in £165m cuts onslaught

UK wage growth will be lowest since 1920s

NHS England chiefs block hospitals from publicising emergencies

What we saw: Sadiq Khan's promises on London transport

Them & Us

Floods, climate change and capitalism

Carlisle Socialist Party's action plan on floods

Profit system exacerbates flooding

Tories' hypocritical green policies pledge

Renationalise the water industry

No government majority as Podemos partially recovers

Union action needed to defeat attack on student nurses

Nationalise rail now! Rail workers strike around the country

Steel: public ownership needed as private buyers threaten pay and pensions

Condescending Tories savage Yorkshire fire service

Workplace news in brief

Dark comic book fantasy throws light on abusive relationships

"I chose to be involved in politics, Michael Crick"

Letters

A 'People's Budget' to defeat cruel cuts

Stop the closure of Calderstones hospital!

2015 marks best fighting fund total this century!

Eleanor Marx: celebrate a life of struggle for socialism

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Birmingham Labour to axe at least 1,200 jobs in £165m cuts onslaught

TUSC seeks joint campaign with Momentum

Clive Walder, Birmingham Socialist Party

Birmingham's Labour council has drafted budget cuts of £90 million in the next financial year and £75 million in the year after. The 9 December announcement came on top of the £560 million cut since Cameron came to power.

1,218 jobs will go in 2016-17, and an unspecified number the following year. Council workers' terms and conditions are also under attack.

The new council leader, John Clancy, talks more left than his predecessor, the unpopular and arrogant Sir Albert Bore. But he has proposed exactly the same budget as Bore would have.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), which includes the Socialist Party, stood candidates against Labour's cuts councillors last year and before. Clancy's budget shows the battle against the cuts requires more than just a change of leader - as do the Blairites Jeremy Corbyn faces in parliament.

TUSC would like to work with Momentum, the pro-Corbyn group, to build the largest possible anti-cuts movement in Birmingham.

Campaign

We will be writing to all Labour candidates to propose a broad, united campaign.

We will back any Labour candidate who pledges to stand with us against the cuts. But we are also prepared to stand against those who support cuts.

Community libraries, school crossing patrols, housing management, youth services and the Connexions careers service will likely be reduced to skeleton staffs. Some will be handed over to private profiteers.

The council proposes to add half an hour on the working week, stop paying sick pay for the first three days, and halve overall sick pay entitlement. Subsistence for those away on business will be stopped and night duty payments reduced. And staff will have to pay for their own annual Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly CRB) checks.

The Birmingham branch of Unison, the largest local government union, is committed to campaigning against these horrific cuts. But it will be necessary for all council unions to come together and build support for industrial action if the council doesn't back down.

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2016: Crisis-ridden capitalism will meet with bitter mood of resistance