Trade Unionist
and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) challenge in Swansea Council Elections
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)
is to stand candidates in Swansea for the Council elections on May 3rd
on a platform of opposing all cuts, no matter which party is carrying them
through. Our candidates are committed to providing a genuine trade unionist and
socialist voice in these elections as the only party that demands our
politicians refuse to implement all cuts.
For many trade unionists and working class
people now there is very little to chose between the main parties because all
support to one degree or another making cuts in our services, privatisation,
sacking workers and attacking our terms and conditions. More and more they act
like different wings of one, sleazy, anti-trade union, pro-capitalist, party.
13 years of Labour government (8 of them with a majority of over 100) made not
a dent on Thatcher’s anti-trade union laws, leaving us with what many
commentators have described as the most restrictive anti-trade union
legislation in the western world.
Some would have us think that Labour, here in
Wales, is a different animal, despite being elected on the same programme. How
then do they explain the fact that, when John McDonnell moved a motion in
parliament to restore the inflation indexing for public sector pensions from
CPI to RPI, only 2 Welsh Labour MPs were prepared to defy their party and vote
for it? Neither should it be forgotten that using the threat of redundancy as a
weapon to destroy national terms and conditions for council workers, which is
now being used by councils across the UK through the issuing of the notorious
188 notices, was pioneered by Labour councils in Neath Port Talbot and Rhondda
Cynon Taff.
Our candidates include trade unionists that
have fought the same battles against both the current Tory/Liberal Democrat and
the previous Labour government.
“As a UNISON member with a local government pension, I’ve taken
strike action twice to defend my pension; once under the present Tory
government and once under the previous Labour one. I honestly can’t say that it
felt any different. We need a political voice that will genuinely represent
trade unionists fighting to protect services, jobs and terms and conditions.”
Ronnie Job, TUSC candidate, Sketty Ward
The Con-Dems are hell-bent on destroying
Remploy, which provides supported employment for disabled workers. 36 out of 54
Remploy factories are ear-marked for closure this summer, with over 1,700
disabled workers set to be sacked. Remploy workers are fighting this most
callous of cuts, using the experience they gathered in their fight in 2008,
against the Labour government’s own factory closure programme. TUSC candidate
for Gowerton, Les Woodward, who is the convenor of the Remploy Trade Union
Consortium, says that Remploy trade unionists have no choice but to fight.
“With jobs in jeopardy, benefits being cut, and no possibility of
employment, Remploy workers have no alternative but to fight as hard as they
can to protect their jobs and their factories and it is a fight that we will be
taking straight to the Government. Remploy factories are not for sale or
closure.”
Les Woodward, TUSC candidate, Gowerton Ward
The stunning defeat for Labour in the
Bradford West by-election shows that working class people are desperate for an
alternative to the “cuts are necessary” consensus of the main parties. Rich
individuals and big corporations avoid paying tax to the tune of over £120bn a
year so why should working class people pay for a crisis not of our making?
Cuts are not necessary and neither are they inevitable; whatever the outcome of
these elections TUSC supporters in Swansea will continue to build a movement
against all cuts uniting trade unionists with our communities to defeat these
cuts and defeat this government of the rich and for the rich.
Vote Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition on May 3rd!
For further information:
Election agent: Alec
Thraves 01792 476246 socialistpartywales@btinternet.com
Swansea TUSC election blog: http://tuscswansea.blogspot.co.uk
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