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Now for the fightback
Learning the lessons of the 1980s, unity in action against the shock treatment that is about to be unleashed has been recognised as the only way forward if the workers and working class communities are to have any chance of avoiding the decimation promised them by the Tories and their Lib Dem patsies in government.
Moreover, the extremism of the Coalition is confirmed by the IMF’s recent announcement that drastic cuts now will bring with them the near certainty of a double dip recession and, more, the likelihood of social unrest. This latter proposition has also been articulated by the police, who rightly anticipate a spike in crime, public disorder and other social maladies which will come as a consequence of the Government’s attacks on the working class and the poor under the smokescreen of deficit reduction. So intoxicated by the prospect of wielding the knife to the very concept of society, the Tories and their Lib Dem cohorts (in years to come hopefully people will look back and describe the Lib Dems with the same nostalgia as railway enthusiasts today wax lyrical over the passing of the steam train.) are also intent on also cutting spending on the police.
They crucial point with regard to the aforementioned is the fact that Britain now has a government that sits to the right of the IMF and regards the police not as the last line of defence against the vile multitude, but as just another wasteful institution eating up money that could be put to better use funding tax breaks for the rich or making Britain a more attractive proposition for international speculators and investors.
Not only the IMF, the OECD has also released a prescient warning of the dangers of cutting too hard too soon while growth continues to remain elusive within the eurozone, and stunted elsewhere throughout the G20. With increasing clarity we are seeing the fruits of the economic illiteracy which pervades the government’s front benches. Far be it from me or anybody else to cast aspersions as to the efficacy of academic standards at Eton, but it would appear that Gideon and David spent more time fagging for Boris than they did in the study of macroeconomic theory.
Unsurprisingly, the tone adopted by the Tory press in its reports of this year’s TUC in Manchester has been hostile verging on apoplectic. In today’s edition of the Daily Telegraph, for example, in an opinion piece headed 'The TUC still has its head in the sand', we are assured that: "There is a clear disconnection between the level-headedness of ordinary workers who understand that in tough times hard decisions are necessary, and some of the more militant public sector union leaders."
So there we have it. According to the Telegraph, the unions no longer represent the needs and wishes of their members, the so-called 'ordinary workers', no doubt those salt of the earth types so loved by the rich, who remember to doff their caps and say a prayer at the dinner table of an evening giving thanks to their esteemed employer for the food on their plates.
The use of the adjective 'clear' to add emphasis to the assertion made in the Telegraph piece is especially interesting, suggesting that the individual who wrote it polled every worker in the country beforehand. If not then we can only assume that he or she is a lying bastard.
I know which of the two my money’s on.
This comes hard on the heels of another report in the Telegraph, this time on just released figures by the Office of National Statistics which reveal that on average (note to the Telegraph- use of the term 'on average' in support of statistics on pay is about as accurate as a clock with one hand), public sector workers are paid £74 per week more than their private sector counterparts. This revelation resulted in the predicable frothing at the mouth on the part of various right wing commentators in the same report, which went by the dramatic title: 'Myth of the underpaid public sector worker'. Mark Littlewood, director-general of the free market Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, said: "The idea that the public should rally round these 'oppressed' workers is ludicrous. Why should their higher salaries be paid for by waitresses and hairdressers? An attack on public sector pay is not an attack on the poor but the privileged."
Why of course, why should workers expect more than immiseration and poverty in return for their labour? After all, they’re only workers at the end of the day. Let the slovenly beasts eat cake!
Mark Littlewood’s scintillating contribution was followed by that of Ruth Lea, economic adviser to Arbuthnot Banking Group and doyen of the right wing establishment. She said: "It’s a useful and timely piece of research. The private sector has taken a real beating in the recession and it should be share and share alike. It’s a challenge to the public sector why they should be treated so differently."
Yes, Ruth, a real challenge, though perhaps it might have something do with the fact that your average public sector worker happens to be a member of a trade union, while your average private sector worker does not. In the world you inhabit trade unions are anathema of course. In the real world, however, and as revealed by your own words, they are an absolute necessity.
Which brings us back to the TUC and the heartening news that the need for a united and determined fight back has achieved consensus across the entire movement, with hardly a dissenting voice raised in opposition. Even more encouraging is the acknowledgement, voiced most strongly by Bob Crow of the RMT, that any fight back must involve the unions joining with community campaigns in a mass movement along the lines of the one that succeeded in defeating the poll tax and taking down Thatcher.
Industrial action, protests, pickets, sit ins and other forms of civil disobedience, all must be on the table in the months and years ahead if the Government’s plans to destroy untold thousands of jobs, savage public services, and assault the bonds of solidarity that underpin society are to be defeated.
It is this very prospect of a united and mass campaign that has the Tories and their supporters worried. Now perhaps they begin to understand that working men and women in this country refuse to be trampled into the dust.