‘TODAY’S huge strike of public sector workers expresses the great anger felt throughout the working class at the huge austerity cuts, including pay cuts, the government has imposed on the working class.
‘Now we must go forward and demand the TUC calls an indefinite general strike at September’s TUC Congress, in Liverpool, to bring this hated government down,’ demanded Dave Wiltshire, All Trades Unions Alliance National Secretary.
Joshua Ogunleye, National Secretary of the Young Socialists told News Line: ‘This government is disastrous for young people. Large numbers of us can no longer afford to go to university, and if we do we end up with no job anyway.
We are just offered zero hour contract jobs which is not a life for a young person. We are forced to live with our parents as it is impossible to get a council home or pay the huge rents of private landlords.
‘And thousands of jobs have gone – in the Post Office, civil service, councils, hospitals, and schools. We are either used as cheap labour or if we protest, the Jobcentres sanction us and stop all benefits.
‘That’s why we have called our March for Jobs from London to Liverpool to march on the TUC Congress to demand it takes general strike action.
‘It has been discussing for years the “practicalities” of calling a general strike – now we say – stop playing games, call one!
‘We want an indefinite general strike of the whole working class that will bring this government down.
‘We say support our march, and march with us. This is the only way a generation of youth, and the working class will have a future.’
Wiltshire added: ‘Today, throughout the country council workers, firefighters, railway workers, civil servants, teachers and others are taking a day of strike action against the government’s attacks on their wages and jobs.
‘Its plan for a 1% “pay rise” for some public sector workers is an insult with the cost of living, especially the cost of basic necessities soaring by 35% and more. Encouraging employers to use zero hour contracts is the last straw as far as trade unionism is concerned.
‘Every hard-won service is being turned into a business where profit dominates over “duty of care”. The results are closures of hospitals, GP surgeries, fire stations – all cuts endangering life.
‘Pensions are being destroyed so that after a lifetime of working, many pensioners face years of penury while the age of retirement increases so “you work ’til you drop”.
‘The huge cutbacks in government spending in public sector departments has also created a major crisis.
‘The ending of council housing stock has opened the door to greedy speculators, forcing sky-high rents in London and opening the door to Rachman-type landlords. But even the TUC has had to admit that it is young people who are bearing the hardest attacks.
‘Enough is enough! Workers must march with the Young Socialists to the TUC Congress in Liverpool and insist that the TUC calls a general strike now. We must tell them “Enough of the practicalities nonsense. Call an indefinite general strike and we’re not leaving until you do!” ’
