OVER two million public sector workers walked out yesterday. The message was that the coalition’s savage cuts programme, that was intensified in Osborne’s Autumn Statement, is completely unacceptable and will be fought tooth and nail.
Thousands of schools were closed, and large numbers of hospital workers took strike action, along with over 70 per cent of civil servants. The Department for Education said that more then half (58%) of England’s 21,700 state schools were closed, with another 13% partly shut. In Scotland only 30 of the 2,700 council-run school were open, and in Wales 80% of schools were shut. In Northern Ireland over 50% of 1,200 schools were closed and no buses or trains were running.
The trade unions estimated that over two million public sector workers took strike action in England, while 300,000 public sector workers were on strike in Scotland and 170,000 workers in Wales. There were mass demonstrations in every major town and city in the UK.
Such was the force behind the action that Labour leader Ed Miliband could not condemn it as he had done with the June 30th strike of the teachers.
He had to say that he was ‘not going to condemn the dinner ladies, nurses, teachers who have made the decision to go on strike because they feel they have been put in an impossible position by a government that has refused to negotiate properly’.
In fact the coalition went out of its way to rub salt into the wounds it is inflicting on the working class.
In his Autumn Statement, made a day before the mass strike action, Chancellor Osborne introduced a number of measures that could only infuriate workers, and delighted reactionary newspapers who had headlines like: ‘Pickets he wants your pay too’.
Osborne announced that after the two-year public sector pay freeze: ‘we will set public sector pay awards at an average of 1% for each of the two years after the pay freeze ends.’ He also announced: ‘we are asking the independent Pay Review Bodies to consider how public sector pay can be made more responsive to local labour markets’ – a drive to end national pay negotiations and agreements.
He announced, ‘we will increase the State Pension Age from 66 to 67’, ten years earlier than previously announced, saving ‘a staggering’ £59 billion.
As well he announced, hands off the banks, and that ‘we will not agree to the introduction of an EU Financial Transaction Tax,’ adding ‘we shouldn’t price British business out of the world economy’.
Planning and employment rules ‘are to be reformed’, doubling the period before an employee can bring an unfair dismissal claim and introducing fees for tribunals. The coalition is also ‘Changing the TUPE regulations; Reducing delay and uncertainty in the collective redundancy process; And introducing the idea of compensated no fault dismissal for businesses with fewer than ten employees.’
Additionally he announced: ‘We will cut the burden of health and safety rules on small firms. . . ‘It’s no good endlessly comparing ourselves with other European countries. The entire continent is pricing itself out of the world economy’.
Osborne declared war on the workers on the eve of yesterday’s mass strike, warning that a collapse of the eurozone and the euro would see much more draconian measures.
Yesterday’s action was the first skirmish in what is a class war between the working class and the ruling classes, that is taking place, not just in the UK, but throughout the capitalist world, as the bosses seek to halt the collapse of their system by loading all of its debts onto the working class and the poor.
Before yesterday’s action some union leaders made it known that as soon as it was over they will be rushing to make a deal with the bosses, and surrender.
Union leaders must be told that if they attempt to do this they will be sacked and leaders in line with what is required will be elected.
This is a serious situation, where capitalism is collapsing and is seeking to take the workers down with it. A serious crisis requires serious leadership and a serious policy.
An indefinite general strike must be called to bring down the coalition and bring in a workers government and socialism. There is no other way forward.
