28 March, 2011
Upwards of a half million people marched through London on Saturday in a turnout that British trade unions said exceeded their highest predictions. The manifestation, heard around the world, was called “The March for the Alternative: Cuts are not the Cure” and was direct push-back to the deep, rapid, and unfair public sector cuts in the pipeline by the ruling UK Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition.
Turnout for the march and rally at Hyde Park in London’s West End was so massive that the rear of the march had just left the Victoria Embankment staging area when the Hyde Park rally – five kilometres away – began. The front of the march left Victoria and passed by Parliament four hours earlier.
photo: Mac Urata
Using the argument that fiscal austerity is needed to reduce UK’s financial deficit, the right-wing government led by David Cameron wants to cripple a social welfare system that will see cuts to people and curtailment of British services. And both will fall disproportionately on the poor and on the workers of Britain.
Deep cuts to education, pensions, and Britain’s 62-year-old National Health Service (NHS) are being laid out on the Con-Dem chopping block. And Saturday’s manifestation – the biggest in London since 2003 and an anti-Iraq war protest – validated the fact that tens of thousands of teachers, doctors, nurses, police and prison guards, municipal council workers, joined by students, retirees, private-sector workers fiercely resist this agenda.
The 26 March manifestation sponsored by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) was civil and peaceful. But the beat of drums, whistles, and chants of resistance made it clear that anger is real. Anger at the fact that for every £4 in spending cuts, there is a £1 tax hike and that mainly is a higher VAT; anger that 50,000 jobs will disappear when the NHS is cut; anger that the brutal cuts will cost 170,000 public-sector jobs.
photo: John MacLennon
Instead of cuts, the “alternative” should be a crackdown on tax avoidance totalling £25 billion alone taken by City of London operators; initiating a Robin Hood tax on banks and financial institutions over their transactions; a stop to exorbitant executive bonuses; and a gradual, sensible, and sustainable deficit reduction plan based on jobs, growth, and tax justice.
At the afternoon rally, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “We will fight these savage cuts and we will not let them destroy services, jobs, and lives. Today we are speaking for the people of Britain, and David Cameron, if you want to meet the Big Society, we’re here in Hyde Park.”
Unite the Union General Secretary Len McCluskey called it the greatest demonstration in London in a generation, and said there is “palpable anger in the country. If the government was brave enough, it would tackle the tax avoidance that robs the British taxpayer.”
Unite's Len McCluskey, USW's Leo Gerard
photos: John MacLennon
Unison General Secretary Dave Prentis, whose public-sector union chartered 500 coaches to get people to London, told the assembled at Hyde Park that he wants the Con-Dems “to feel the fear and anger of people who have come here today from every part of the UK to vent their frustration and to stand up for a fairer future.”
Another speaker was USW President Leo Gerard of North America who drew the link between the purge of public services in the UK to what is happening in several US states. He said the real culprits are the greedy banks and corporations who pull the strings of politicians.
“It is their reckless speculation that took down the world economy,” said Gerard, adding, The best way to rob a bank is to manage one. We will stand together, we will march together, and we will fight together to demand that our governments protect the rights of public employees and of all workers.”