The Socialist 20 January 2016

Unite the fightback

Unite the fightback: Coordinated strikes needed

United workers' action can save NHS

Water firms' £1.2bn in profit off human need

Political policing: Met spy targeted socialists

Trident debate: socialist programme needed

Housing crisis reaches level of 1960s

Civil service: £1bn on consultants

Outrageous attacks on Corbyn for 'sexism'

Them & Us

1986 Wapping strike - Defeat of the print unions

People's Budget meeting success

Carmarthenshire Unison campaigns against council cuts

Unite the Union local government committee votes for no-cuts budgets

Preparing a no-cuts people's budget

Momentum and democracy in Hackney and beyond

Angry Labour meeting puts councillors under fire

Gateshead carers oppose respite centre closures

Celebrating Eleanor Marx's birthday

Nationalise Tata to save steel jobs!

Tube workers to strike again to defend jobs and conditions

Reinstatement victory for John Vasey

Shop workers lobby council against Sunday opening

Workplace news in brief

USA: Fight the billionaire class!

China: Financial turmoil spreads fear across global markets

Northern Ireland: Defy anti-abortion laws

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Angry Labour meeting puts councillors under fire

Nancy Taaffe

My friend phoned me recently to say that he'd been to a Labour Party constituency meeting. There were about 200 people there. Before the meeting started Labour councillors had put a copy on every seat of the letter Corbyn and McDonnell wrote to council leaders saying they must set legal budgets.

The meeting discussed the devastating cuts being proposed in the town. There were members from local authority unions, as well as other trade unionists.

The meeting lambasted the councillors as they justified their decision. Members expressed despair at the devastation that would ensue if the budget was cut like that.

To no avail. The councillors kept on saying there was no choice. The trade unionists asked for support as they would have no alternative but to strike against the cuts. Right wingers said they would be striking against Corbyn's Labour Party, and shouldn't be supported.

The Labour councillors constantly referred to the letter on people's seats, saying to the new joiners 'the leader of the Labour Party believes, like us, we have no alternative.' The resolution to support the local authority trade unions campaign was voted down.

In the pub afterwards many trade unionists sat miserably over their pints. They knew they would have to defend their members' jobs, pay and conditions, and the services in the communities where they live which their own families use.

Corbyn and McDonnell can still make a stand and call for Labour councils to set no-cuts budgets.