THE coalition, as expected, has signalled to the bankers that their multi-million bonuses are safe, emboldening the head of Barclays to tell the House of Commons that the days of bankers making apologies are over. They are back to being the masters.
In what was a response to the Downing Street statement that the government did not intend to intervene in the pay of the UK’s top bankers, Barclays arrogant boss Diamond spelt it out that ‘the time for apologies from banks is over’.
Diamond is due a £9 million bonus and he was brazen enough to face out MPs, refusing to say whether he will be accepting it or not.
In fact, the total banks bonus pool is to be £7bn!
This largesse is to be distributed to a relative handful, at the same time as hundreds of thousands of workers are to be sacked early this year, and when millions of families are facing wage cuts, and benefit cuts and huge increases in the cost of living as inflation rockets upwards, out of control.
Mass anger is now sweeping through the working class and the youth. There will be a pale reflection of this anger next Thursday at the Oldham by-election where the coalition is in for a thrashing.
However, the working class is not looking towards parliament. It is demanding action from its trade union leaders and demanding that the TUC takes actions to put an end to this coalition.
This rising tide of anger is forcing the trade union bureaucracy to call minor actions, while acting desperately to limit them, and to prevent the emergence of the revolutionary struggle to bring down the coalition.
In the course of this the trade union bureaucracy is making a complete ass of itself.
Speaking to the Today programme yesterday morning, Unite’s new leader Len McCluskey stressed that workers have a ‘right’ to protest against spending cuts and to defend their jobs, however, hastily adding that it was not his union’s aim to bring the coalition government down.
McCluskey added that he continued to believe that the coalition’s cuts programme was ‘ideologically driven’, with the implication being that a show of strength will be enough to send the Tories scuttling with their tails between their legs, or even force them to change their policies.
McCluskey continued that the financial crisis had been caused by ‘spivs, speculators and greedy bankers’, adding: ‘We are already back to business as usual, with the prime minister saying we should stop bashing bankers, but he has no problem bashing workers or communities.’
He added: ‘Their cuts agenda is morally wrong and economically dangerous. It is our duty to protest if we feel the government is doing something wrong . . . ‘It’s also about protecting our members’ jobs and terms and conditions. The cuts agenda that the government has unleashed upon us is going to put 1.5 million on the dole.’
The crisis of leadership in the working class is being exposed at point-blank range.
The same Tories who are okaying £7bn of bankers bonuses, and are ‘going to put 1.5 million on the dole’ are going to change course after a bit of a protest – this is a TUC-sponsored fairy story!
The problem here is that the trade union movement is led by dyed in the wool reformists who are incapable of carrying out a serious struggle against capitalism, and in the last analysis are prepared to return the working class to a modern version of the ‘hungry 30s’, rather than take action to defeat the Tories and bring down the coalition.
This kind of misleadership cannot win the war that the Tories have just declared.
A new revolutionary leadership must be built in the workers movement and the trade unions without delay, to organise the general strike to bring down the coalition government, and bring in a workers government that will carry through a socialist revolution.