20 per cent government cuts and wage-freezing being planned
rab
Monday, 6 July 2009
20 per cent government cuts and wage-freezing being planned
THE moment of truth is fast approaching for British capitalism.
The British capitalist economy is in its death agony with falls in
production taking place greater than the 1930s, while the state is
heading for a £1.2 trillion deficit.
Already, giant monopolies like BT are proposing to sack 15,000 workers
and are urging others to volunteer for a one-year 75-per-cent wage-cut
work holiday, or to become part-time workers.
Previously, rail privateers had a perspective that they would be
private empire builders. Now, after National Express has crashed and
its East Coast rail line has had to be renationalised, their future
looks bleak.
Steelmaker Corus has decided to sack over 2,000 workers.
The motor car industry is on short-time working while Business
Secretary Mandelson is preparing sackings in GM Ellesmere Port and
closure for GM Luton.
While capitalist industry collapses, the slogan of the City, after
Labour’s multi-billion rescue of the big bankers, is ‘Bonuses are
Back’.
However, while they are imitating Marie Antoinette and the workers are
suffering, the massive refinancing of the banks carried out by Brown
is creating the conditions where up to £130 bn in cuts will have to be
made.
Britain’s state apparatus is already drawing up the plans. Behind the
parliamentary scene the top permanent heads of the civil service are
planning the bail-out of capitalist Britain by imposing 20 per cent
cuts in every government department, including health and education.
They have decided that this is what the next government of the UK will
have to carry out, regardless of whether it is Labour or Tory. The day
after the next general election they will hand their orders to
whomever is to lead the government.
Devastating 20 per cent cuts will mean the end of the NHS and the
Welfare State, with both being replaced by top-up payments, private
contractors and charities, while hundreds of thousands of NHS and
public sector workers will be sacked.
Meanwhile, both the leading parties are readying for the task ahead,
with the Tories calling for 10 per cent cuts in government spending,
while Labour’s Darling said yesterday that Labour has not ruled out a
public sector pay freeze.
The Civil Service is quite cynical about both gangs of politicians.
Lord Turnbull, the former cabinet secretary, said yesterday that ‘The
civil servants will have to assume that whatever both parties are
saying today, in the end they will have to be bolder. What politicians
say on the record will underestimate the magnitude of the task.’
David Halpern, Tony Blair’s former chief policy adviser, claimed
yesterday in the Sunday Times that savage cuts in public spending of
more than £130 billion will be needed to solve the crisis.
What is being planned is an all-out attack on the working class to
maintain capitalism by turning them into paupers.
In the face of this assault, the leaders of the trade unions are
paralysed. They refuse to oppose the closures, the mass sackings and
the wage cuts.
They have suggested and supported wage cuts throughout industry. The
CWU does not oppose the 75 per cent annual wage cuts plan at BT, while
Unite refuses to call for the nationalisation of GM Luton and
Ellesmere Port.
Workers must get rid of these misleaders and build the leadership of
the WRP in the trade unions. They must refuse all wage cuts and oppose
all sackings. They must occupy the plants and organise action to bring
down the Brown government and bring in a workers’ government.
The only fitting answer to the capitalist crisis is a socialist
revolution.
jh
> The News Line: Editorial
>
> Monday, 6 July 2009
>
> 20 per cent government cuts and wage-freezing being planned
>
> THE moment of truth is fast approaching for British capitalism.
>
> Britain’s state apparatus is already drawing up the plans. Behind the
> parliamentary scene the top permanent heads of the civil service are
> planning the bail-out of capitalist Britain by imposing 20 per cent
> cuts in every government department, including health and education.
>
> They have decided that this is what the next government of the UK will
> have to carry out, regardless of whether it is Labour or Tory. The day
> after the next general election they will hand their orders to
> whomever is to lead the government.
>
> Devastating 20 per cent cuts will mean the end of the NHS and the
> Welfare State, with both being replaced by top-up payments, private
> contractors and charities, while hundreds of thousands of NHS and
> public sector workers will be sacked.
>
> Meanwhile, both the leading parties are readying for the task ahead,
> with the Tories calling for 10 per cent cuts in government spending,
> while Labour’s Darling said yesterday that Labour has not ruled out a
> public sector pay freeze.
>
> The Civil Service is quite cynical about both gangs of politicians.
I have no way of judging the accuracy of the warnings in this scary
piece. Naturally one hopes, for the sake of the English working class,
that the WRP is only crying wolf here, and that England is not yet
reduced to the state of ... California, where at this point we'd be
downright lucky to see cuts in health and education of only 20%, and
the state controller has started to send out IOU's instead of checks
to the elderly in nursing homes.
But I can't help but note that there is no more talk about keeping the
Tories out in this piece. A line change? Have the Newsline editors
been reading my postings?
-jh-