THE Trade Union Congress is meeting at a very crucial time for the working people of the UK and for the working people of the world.
The current capitalist crisis is the greatest in the history of the capitalist system, and it is still deepening.
This crisis really does constitute the death agony of the capitalist system, a system that must be replaced with a socialist society to ensure that humanity has a future, and not just a past.
The crisis is driving the capitalist class forward to try and ensure the survival of its system by unleashing wars to reorder the world, with no limit to the numbers of corpses that this creates, as in the current imperialist attack on Syria.
At the same time, the UK ruling class recognises that it cannot any longer rely on bankrupt bankers and bosses to sustain its rule at home.
If British capitalism is to survive, it must drive the working class back to the conditions of the 19th century. This, it reasons, is the only way that British capitalism can survive, by becoming the cheapest of the cheap labour economies.
The NHS, the Welfare State, trade union standards of wages and conditions, housing benefits, and disability benefits are all being demolished, and replaced by a target retirement age of 70, by zero-hours contracts, with a Lobbying Bill being pushed forward that will be used to hit trade unions hard.
How are the masses to survive The bourgeoisie says – throw yourselves on the tender mercies of the Wonga loan shark capitalists, and await the return of the debtors prisons!
This crisis is driving the ruling class to demolish every single gain of the working class.
The ruling class understands that its main enemy is at home, and is the working class. It knows that it must be systematically plundered to provide Capital with profits and the finances for imperialist wars.
The ruling class has always believed that its main enemy is at home. The 19th century radical manufacturer Richard Cobden said that he would rather live under the rule of the Bay of Algiers than under a trade union committee. He spoke for the ruling class, and still does!
The more the drive to war develops, the more necessary it is to step up the exploitation of the working class at home to pay the bill for the imperialist slaughters.
The working class in the UK is also now beginning to see that its enemy is at home, and understands that if it is to be able to live a human existence, the bosses and bankers and their austerity drive must be defeated as well.
After experiencing savage attacks on their jobs, wages, living standards and basic rights, teachers, postal workers, firefighters, and millions of other workers, including zero-hours contract workers, have begun to fight for their rights.
In this situation, remarks by the TUC leader O’Grady that the TUC will in the period ahead coordinate strike actions, are just tail-ending the movement itself.
What is required is not just coordination but for the TUC to call an indefinite general strike that will be supported by millions of trade unionists, and millions of cheap labour workers who are on zero-hour contracts and not even in trade unions at the moment.
This TUC Congress must lead. It must call an indefinite general strike for all workers and bring down this rotten house of cards that calls itself a government, and replace it with a workers government and socialism.
This is what must be done, and delegates to this TUC Congress must see that it is done.
The workers are fighting the attacks of the bosses. The job of the TUC is to provide leadership to win this class war, not say a few easy words about coordination.
