No to Birmingham City Council Job Cuts!

Birmingham City Council intends to slash spending by £75 million and destroy up to 2,000 jobs in a cuts package so severe that Thatcher’s spending cuts in the 1980s could seem tame by comparison. Among the services which face the axe are all 23 council-run nurseries, libraries, neighbourhood offices, day centres and care homes for the elderly and youth clubs.

Roger Bannister

The savage cuts announced in Birmingham are being repeated by councils, health authorities and the education sector across the country. While the mainstream parties argue about how deep the cuts should be and how quickly they should be implemented after the election the reality is that the culling of jobs, conditions, pay and public services has already begun in earnest.

Dave Prentis on the UNISON website attacks the Tory’s who run Birmingham Council but Labour councils will be making similar cuts. Is he prepared to attack them?

Why can’t the Labour government bail out our public services as they did with the banks?

UNISON must not leave each council, school or hospital to fight alone. National attacks must be answered with national co-ordinated action. Campaigns against the cuts must be linked up along with other trade unions in the public sector.

The truth is that the UNISON leadership is fighting with one arm tied behind them due to their backing of the Labour Party. The £3 million that UNISON pays to Labour each year could be put to better use by launching a national fight-back against these attacks.

What has this Labour government done for workers? Public sector workers have had to put up with meagre or zero wage increases, worse conditions and now threats to their pensions. The disgraceful anti trade union laws brought in by an enemy of the working class – Margaret Thatcher – have not been repealed in the 12 years that Labour has been in power. Now Labour is promising draconian cuts to our public services. This is despite the millions of pounds that UNISON and many other unions have poured into the coffers of New Labour.

This is why I argue that Unison should break the link with Labour and act in the interest of our members.

If elected to the position of General Secretary of UNISON I would take a workers wage instead of the inflated income of most union leaders and ensure that all union officials are elected.

Nominations for General Secretary candidates close on the 1st April and I urge branches to nominate me so that we can begin to build a democratic fighting union which is essential to the battle to defend jobs and conditions in the worst attacks facing the public sector for decades.