14 March, 2011
The Con-Dem coalition government in the United Kingdom is forging ahead on a raft of cuts to public spending which threatens to cause permanent damage throughout the welfare state. Under the argument of reducing the public financial deficit within four years, the right-wing Cameron government is using the cuts as a cover to fundamentally weaken the active state system of fairness and equality.
Under serious threat are public services, the education system, pensions, and the National Health Service (NHS).
Unions are fighting back. An alliance of unions and social groups will march to London’s Hyde Park on 26 March, under the banner: “March for the Alternative, Cuts are not the Cure”. The March is organised by the British Trade Union Congress (TUC), and was announced by TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber last October.
Alternative measures to Cameron’s cuts are a crackdown on tax avoidance, a Robin Hood tax on banks and finance, and policies and time to let economic growth and full employment raise the tax that will close the deficit.
Debate continues within the movement on the best policy combination alternative to the damaging cuts, but what is undisputed is that the cuts must be stopped.
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda wrote in a letter to the TUC and ICEM’s UK affiliates, “As the trade union movement of the UK manifests on 26 March against the cuts, we want your members and all British people to know that they have the support and solidarity of 20 million union members across the world, trade unionists that the ICEM is proud to represent”.
The movement against the cuts is gathering momentum. Thousands of workers, students and anti-cuts campaigners marched through Cardiff on Saturday 5 March as the Welsh voted to increase devolved power of the Welsh Assembly, responding to Westminster’s imposition of cuts throughout the UK.
Tag line: 5 March Demonstration against Cuts, Cardiff
10,000 protestors descended on Sheffield last week for the Liberal Democrat Party Conference. Party leader Nick Clegg has betrayed the electorate by changing policy on University tuition fees and is being targeted now to not allow the sale of the NHS, after Lib Dem members at the Conference voted to reject the government’s reforms.
Join the London March. Assembly at 11:00am, Victoria Embankment, and march to a rally in Hyde Park.