Anti-cuts, public services

A “gender audit” of the budget, commissioned by Yvette Cooper, the shadow welfare secretary, shows it will hit women harder than men. Women will contribute nearly 75% of a net total of £8bn raised by 2014-15 through changes to direct taxation and benefits. The attack is worse when you consider that women are already, on average, poorer than men; that they make up more of the public sector workforce and will suffer more from public sector job cuts; and that the research leaves out the impact of the VAT increase, which is likely to affect women (and the poor generally) more.

A Treasury report released this month suggests that 600,000 public sector jobs and up to 700,000 private sector jobs will be slashed by 2015 as a result of George Osbourne’s austerity budget. We need such a movement now to defend jobs and services, but we need to be armed with the facts and arguments. The goverments say all these workers will be able to find work in the private sector. That claim is nothing more than dodgy guesswork but it also suggests their plan includes a massive extension of the public sector privatisation programme, started by Thatcher and continued by New Labour...

The government has cut central grants to local councils by £1.166 billion. The government say that no council would see their grant drop by more than 2%. But at the same time they have imposed a one-year freeze on council tax rises. That may be repeated next year. In Scotland the SNP-led government froze council tax for three years from 2000. In any case huge cuts are being made everywhere. Some of the councils facing the biggest cuts in central funding are Birmingham (£12.6 million), Liverpool (£9 million), Kent (£8.7 million) Essex (£7.5 million) and Durham (£6.3 million). In many places...

Tower Hamlets unions have held their first anti-cuts meeting in preparation for the anticipated driving down of working class jobs, wages and services in the borough. The Labour-controlled council plans to announce £10 million worth of cuts from its budget at the next cabinet meeting. This will have a devastating effect on both service users and providers. At the meeting some mentioned cuts which were already happening, and without any reference to the unions. Labour’s so-called determination to defend “front-line” services were given the lie. One cut mentioned was to school transport, which...

Anti-cuts committees are now being set up in areas across Britain. The quicker, the better! Local Trades Councils, if they have any life at all, are the best bodies to initiate such committees. If committees are initiated outside trade-union structures, for example by community groups, they should move to base themselves in the labour movement, winning affiliations and delegates from trade unions. The committee must, however, be broader than the Trades Council, drawing in delegates from community groups, ward and constituency Labour Parties, and workplaces, as well as trade unions. The...

Speeches from the opening session of Ideas for Freedom 2010, "How do we fight the Tories' plans for schools?" (10 July) The chair was Gemma Short, a first year teacher and AWL member from Sheffield. Jean Lane, teaching assistant and UNISON activist in Tower Hamlets I’d like to concentrate on the cuts we’ve faced up until now and how they are going to multiply in the coming period, particularly after the October spending review. Turning outstanding schools into academies is going to take money out of the central Local Education Authorities that fund all of the schools in their area and all of...

By Dale Street Only days after the Tories’ ‘emergency budget’, in which benefits cuts and a pay freeze for public sector workers were announced, the Network Rail (NWR) remunerations committee approved bonus payments amounting to £2.4 millions for just six NWR executives. The biggest winner in this bonus bonanza giveaway was NWR Chief Executive Iain Coucher, who had announced his resignation only shortly before the bonus payments were made public. Coucher was awarded a bonus of £641,000, on top of his annual salary of over £613,000. Coucher will be walking away from NWR after having been paid...

An initial organising meeting attended by 19 local residents and workers met today [30 June] at the UNISON office. Representatives of the local Pensioners' and Tenants' movements were present, alongside members of local branches of the University and Colleges Union (UCU), the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and Lambeth UNISON. The meeting agreed the following statement: We, the undersigned resolve to work together to resist cuts in public services in Lambeth and beyond. We oppose: * The cuts and redundancies announced by the Council in May; * Further cuts arising from cuts in Grant Aid...

All the leading figures in the unions and Labour Party condemned the Lib/Tory coalition's 22 June Budget. Almost none, however, said what they will do to combat the wave of cuts due to roll across the next five years. Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Unite, focused on denouncing the Lib-Dems for complicity with Tory policy. "The mask slipped to reveal this government for what it is - Tory slashers of services... If they do not disassociate themselves from this, then the Lib Dems will have to bear the responsibility". A follow-up message from assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail...

Around 30 people attended a “Save Our Services” meeting in Oxford on the 20th of June to discuss how to resist cuts in local public services. Activists from green alter-globalisation activist network People and Planet had provided a lot of the footwork, postering Oxford and leafleting door-to-door. Trade unionists and local activists spoke. A further meeting is planned for 1st July, 6PM, Cheney Community Centre. More information: www.odtuc.org.uk