Saturday 2 July 2011

Where next for the anti cuts movement after June 30th

Many will be thinking what now after a great display of co-ordinated strike action by some not all of the public sector unions over pensions dispute.

So where does the anti cuts movement go next ?

Well for a start i personally feel as good and successful as June 30th was i really do not think it will be enough to defeat this government intent on pushing our living standards back decades. Bigger and wider action will be needed to bring this government to its knees.

I do not think it is quite time for sustained strikes just yet but a 24 hour public sector general strike is not out of the question for the autumn certainly.

The trade unions who were out on strike on thursday now need to go back to their workplaces and start organised for bigger wider action come the autumn.

As far as the movement goes i feel groups such as the NSSN will play a key role in bringing together all of the more militant unions to put pressure on the bigger unions who have yet to ballot for mass strike action such as Unison and Unite and GMB.

The september 11th lobby of the TUC conference by teh NSSN will be key. Putting sufficient pressure on the TUC to throw its weight behind bigger more organised and ultimatly larger widescale strike action come the autumn.

I feel trade unins do need to start linking up with existing anti cuts bodies now and linking together the movement with charities and communitis creating a broad movement against the cuts. Withthe power of the trade union movement now awoken this should be the start of something big now.

One of the key lessons we need to learn from thursdays action is we must keep united, keep up the pressure on other unions but also not think this is just the end. If we win on pensions the government will just come for something else or something else. We need to stand together and firm behind our common goal. To defeat this government which is being driven by a idealology to shrink the public sector as they feel it is rich picking for their friends in the private sector.

The tories who many people think they are in a mess and have no idea what they are doing must be under no illusion they know full well what they are doing.

George Osbourne is at the beck and call of teh city and the banking sector in this country and also on a international stage. His ideas and vision are driven purely from a market position.
We as socialists and anti cuts activists must reject the market as a idea to bring prosperaty to all and instead put ideas forward for bringing the commanding heights of the economy under the control of the common ownership of the workers.

So i think we still have a really long way to go in this fight and we are just in yaer 1 of a 5 year programme of cuts. That's assuming the tories dont get back in in 2015. Even if they do not the Labour party as they have shown are quite ready to take up the mantle and cut into the welfare state and bring about further privatisation . They are not unfamiliar to this as they tried to do many of this whilst they were in government. With the attempts to sell of Royal Mail and introducing PFI - private funding into the NHS therefore opening it up to privatisation further down the road.

So lets be clear Labour are no alternative here. BOth the tories and labour are intent in making the working class pay for a crisis they did not cause and this only strengthens our ideas in the socialist party for the need for a new workers party. To stand up for working peoples interests, to stand with them in times of strike action and not cross picket lines, to give ordinary working people a voice on the political stage.

This is what we need to see but how long it takes could be soon or a way off things can change very quickly in times of economic crisis as Marx quite rightly pointed out. The mass's can shift their thinking from one direction to another fairly quickly and we as revolutionary socialists must be at the front of this thinking keeping ahead of the movement and where it is heading at all times.

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