Where's our recovery?

The week that sees the official announcement of the election has also seen the announcement of another food bank opening in a working class community in Swansea.

http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Plans-open-food-bank-Port-Tennant-offer-provision/story-26254270-detail/story.html

Conservative and Lib-Dem politicians keep telling us that things are improving but that's not the experience of most of us. If just heard on the radio that disposable income went up 1.9% per household in the last year. Not in my house it didn't nor in the household of anybody I know!

TUSC asks "where's our recovery?". The profits of the bosses and the bonuses of the bankers may have recovered and passes the levels they were at before the economic crash that their greed was trigger for. But for workers there's still too much month at the end of the money and  increasing numbers of homes in working class communities struggle to even put food on the table.

That's why TUSC representatives are socialists; we want to use the vast resources in society for the benefit of the masses not the profits of the minority at the top.

Swansea Labour Council's Cuts are taking us backwards

"Time stands still" reads the article in the Evening Post, in a story about how council  cuts have led to a number of publicly visible clicks around the city being set to, and remaining at, 12.00 as they are not being wound.

http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Clocks-stop-maintenance-man-winds/story-26106853-detail/story.html

As far as services are concerned though, Swansea's Labour Council is taking us backwards.

A £27 million cut in funding for jobs and services this year alone (projected £80million+ over 3 years) means everything that isn't a statutory requirement and probably some that are, is likely to be cut.

We must call time on cuts and all parties, including Labour, voting for them. TUSC, with 8 candidates already announced in Wales and more in the pipeline, is the only party putting a consistent no-cuts position in the General Election in Wales. Contact us to find out how you can help build the TUSC alternative.

Labour council cuts make election pledges meaningless

The news this morning is full of Labour Education spokesman, Tristram 'aggressively pro-business' Hunt's pledge that Labour will cap infant class sizes at a maximum of 30.

In Wales there is already a statutory requirement for 5-7 year-olds to be taught in maximum class size of 30.

But this is made meaningless by the Labour Welsh Government and Labour councils passing on Con-Dem cuts.

Swansea primary heads were asked to respond to the draft budget proposals in education, agreed by our Labour Council Cabinet on Tuesday. To a woman and man they stated that the level of cuts proposed, £24 million or 15% of the current budget, over the next 3 years, would mean that they would be unable to meet this statutory obligation.

They went further, with several heads predicting, due to numbers of teaching and other jobs that would be lost if these cuts are made, those pupils not covered by this obligation, 8-11 year olds, would end up being taught in classes of 42+!

Words are one thing but as long as Labour remains committed to austerity that's all they'll remain, hollow, windy, meaningless words.

Swansea TUSC joined trade unionists and worried service users on a lobby of the Council  Cabinet meeting which agreed to recommend these cuts to the full Council.

We will be demanding that so-called 'left' Labour councillors vote against these devastating proposals on February 24. Come along and add your voice to those demanding elected representatives stop making Con-Dem cuts and fight instead. Help us to build TUSC as an alternative to the cuts-consensus.

Labour has given up all rights to be considered the workers' party

Leaflets for Swansea West Labour MP, Geraint Davies, have been dropping through doors this week in the start of what clearly will be a long campaign for the General Election. Perhaps Labour in Swansea West have started early because they fear the challenge from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)?

On the back of the leaflet is the headline "Swansea needs a fairer future not more Zero Hours contracts says Geraint Davies MP"

We completely agree Geraint. We therefore invite you to condemn your Labour colleagues running the Council for their use of zero hours contracts and for outsourcing council services to companies and other organisations that do.

Every promise Labour makes about what they will do in Government  - and there's precious few of them (they have only said they'll regulate, not scrap zero hours contracts by the way) - is undermined by the actions of Labour councils.

Labour-led councils have cut, outsourced and axed council services as much as those led by other parties and Welsh Labour has been no better than their colleagues in England. The way they've treated their workforces is reprehensible.

On the same day that I got my leaflet from Geraint promising a rosy Welsh Labour future, Merthyr's Labour Council was threatening to dismiss it's entire workforce and re-employ them in worse conditions. It's a repeat of the threat made by Swansea's Labour Council to its own workers protesting against cuts in income: "sign or be sacked"!

Sorry Geraint but actions like these mean that Labour has given up all rights to be considered the workers' party. That's why TUSC supporters in Swansea West plan on being part of the biggest ever left challenge to Labour when we stand 100 candidates in the General Election.

Don't let Swansea's Labour council throw you overboard!

Swansea’s Labour Council will make £45 million of cuts to services and jobs over the next 3 years and they want your help to do it!

The Council’s consultation on what services to cut, as they attempt to make £45 million of cuts, is called ‘Sustainable Swansea’. I tried the web page advertised in the booklet of the same name that the Council has issued; it didn’t work and I got an invalid website message! Not an auspicious start, especially as one of the ideas they put forward to save money is to “Create online digital services so they can normally be the first point of contact with the council.”

“Should the council reduce the number of people it employs?” is one question posed in the consultation. It is quite clear that the Council sees a large part of its savings coming from cuts affecting council staff. The booklet tries to create the impression that these can be achieved through “..voluntary changes to contracts, early retirement and voluntary redundancy.” The idea that workforce changes would be voluntary cannot be taken seriously when, at the moment, the Council is trying to force through cuts to workers’ terms and conditions and council workers have been told to ‘sign or be sacked’.

Services will also be slashed; the booklet makes clear that “..we will not have the money to continue to do all that we do now.” Those services that survive the cuts could well be a lot less accessible to the people that need them most. ‘Value for money’ is a phrase repeated throughout the booklet and there is a proposal to, “Reduce subsidies to services, increase or introduce charges” for council services.

In his Evening Post column, Labour Council Leader, David Phillips, used a strange analogy; he suggested that if the council now is a super-tanker, after the cuts it will be a speedboat. A speedboat might be faster but it only of use to a select few. Does he plan to throw overboard most of the workforce and council service users? Don’t let Labour cut you adrift without a life-jacket, throw them out instead and get councillors who will represent us and fight cuts not implement them. Build Trade Unionists and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) as an alternative to fight all cuts and march, protest and strike together, council workers and council service users united, to defeat these cuts.
Ronnie Job, potential TUSC candidate in next Council/Assembly elections

This is a response sent to the Evening Post to today's column 'From a tanker to a speed boat' by Labour council leader, David Phillips, outlining the options the council is looking at to make £45 million cuts.

Welsh Labour Council attacks union members - same old story

An all too familiar tale..

The sight of a Welsh Labour Council attacking the trade union members who voted and campaigned for their election is becoming the norm in Wales at the moment.

This time it is the majority Labour administration in Swansea who are trying to force through cuts under the disguise of ‘job evaluation’. Last week Swansea Socialist Party reported on the increasingly threatening noises coming from leading members of the council as they poured cold water on the idea that anything could come out of further discussions with UNISON, despite the overwhelming vote by UNISON members to reject the Council’s proposals.

Now the council has gone over the heads of the union and sent out a letter to all council employees telling them to move over to the new contracts voluntarily or be dismissed and re-hired on the new conditions, “..any employee who refuses to accept the new reward package will be dismissed and offered immediate re-engagement under the new terms”. UNISON has correctly accused the Council of trying to bully union members and issued advice not to sign the new contracts, while they seek advice and consult.

Among the workers who stand to lose out from the cuts to allowances, bonuses, etc., are 2,000 plus workers who will have their retainers removed, effectively reducing the number of weeks a year they get paid for. For many, this will cancel out anything they would gain from the Council agreeing to pay the minimum wage this year (which doesn’t however include a commitment to become a recognised minimum wage employer). It has been estimated by the union that nursery nurses could lose 10% of their income.

UNISON has organised a demonstration outside the Civic Centre, where the Council meets, next Tuesday (27^th August) at 4pm. It is important that everybody who uses Council services understands that it is impossible to make cuts to the terms and conditions of council workers without destroying morale and having a detrimental effect on the quality of service our members provide. In any case, these are just a taste of the cuts in services to come, now that the Labour Council has shown it is just as willing to carry out Con-Dem cuts as the previous Lib Dem-led coalition and just as ruthless in their implementation. It is vital that other trade unionists and anti-cuts campaigners back the demonstration on Tuesday, council workers should not be made to pay, by a Labour council, for a crisis that was not of our making.

It is increasingly clear that the council will not back down unless it meets determined industrial action from the council workforce. Some left Labour councillors may be embarrassed by being lobbied by their own workforce but ultimately Welsh Labour Councils will not baulk at attacking their own supporters and their own workforce to achieve cuts. Labour councils in Neath Port Talbot and Rhondda Cynon Taff after all were pioneers in the early days of the Con-Dem government of using the threat of mass dismissals and re-employment on poorer terms, to drive through cuts to workers’ conditions.

When the Green council in Brighton implemented similar cuts, there was UK-wide trade union backing for GMB members who refused to accept them. The fact that this is a Labour council can not be allowed to hamper the fight and the backing of UNISON members with all the resources they need. These Labour councillors were elected with substantial UNISON support; they have now forfeited any right to further support. UNISON should withdraw funding and support from Labour and instead back candidates who are prepared to vote in the interests of our members; candidates who are prepared to vote against all cuts, like TUSC Wales candidates.