The Sequel: Unsustainable Cuts II. Swansea's Labour Council comes back for more!

Today I received an e-mail from the Council. It invited me to take part in helping Swansea's Labour councillors decide whose jobs and services to axe next.

Anybody who hoped that after Labour’s cabinet coup there would be an end to doublespeak about improving services through cuts will be disappointed because we are being invited to,

“have your say about the council's plans to create smarter, leaner and more efficient services in the years ahead”

The Council presumably had my e-mail address because I responded online to their ‘Sustainable Swansea’ consultation last year, demanding that the Labour Council refuse to implement Con-Dem cuts. Ignoring what I wrote, the e-mail thanked me for helping to slash millions of pounds from services in Swansea:

“With your help last year we were able to identify millions of pounds of savings and begin to change so that our services can be sustainable in the years ahead.”

If Labour councillors are going to vote through destructive cuts to services then they shouldn’t try to make the rest of us collaborators in their betrayal. You will never get my help in making cuts to jobs and services. TUSC supporters will fight every cut.

Those cuts were so successful in making services sustainable that they’ve come back for much, much more! A throwaway comment at the end of the e-mail informs us how much Labour councillors intend to slash from services,

“The challenge is even greater than last year because the savings target has risen from £45m to at least £70m in the next few years.”

That’s not a challenge; that a disaster! It’s a disaster that spells destruction for council services and council workers and devastation for the local economy.

 

If you’ve had enough of being made to pay for a crisis that we didn’t cause, while the rich get richer then..

Vote Ronnie Job, TUSC Against Cuts, today in Uplands Ward today (November 20) and..

Join with us in building the Trades Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) as the socialist, no-cuts alternative for the general election and beyond.

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.