THE GMB warned yesterday of 200,000 council job losses in England, with many more to take place in the rest of the UK.
GMB national officer Brian Strutton rightly claimed the size and speed of the cuts could be unprecedented and that they will be rushed through before the beginning of the new financial year.
The union correctly fears redundancies will be across the board, with entire council services being wiped out.
The Unite trade union has warned that the Tory led coalition is moving as rapidly as it can to slash and cut back the Welfare State ‘before the British public wakes up’ as to the consequences.
There is no doubt that the ruling class is going to hit the working class hard in the next three months.
Even before the 20 per cent VAT takes effect huge companies such as HMV have collapsed. It is to close 60 stores after a 21 per cent share fall because it is unable to repay a bank loan to one of the UK’s bankrupt but state supported banks.
HMV also owns Waterstone’s bookshops which will now come under the hammer facing closures and sackings.
HMV is not alone. Clothes chain Next revealed that it had lost £22m in sales. Another retailer Games Workshop also saw its share price dive and warned that ‘difficult trading conditions mean that this shortfall is unlikely to be recovered by the year end’.
The 20 per cent VAT rate will mean a further crash amongst retailers as their sales nosedive.
The Centre for Retail Research has predicted that retail sales will decline by about £2.2bn in the first quarter of this year.
These failures and the consequent job losses will be accompanied by big price rises following the massive increases in the price of basic commodities such as oil, petrol and cotton to record highs.
Even bourgeois analysts are pointing out that a very large number of companies are taking advantage of the VAT rise to increase their prices by between five and 20 per cent.
Fitness First, the gym company, has written to many of its members saying that it is increasing monthly membership rates by up to 25 per cent.
The price of clothing increased by 11.3 per cent on an annual basis in November, the ONS said, the highest level since records began 30 years ago.
Primark, Next and other leading clothing retailers have warned that the escalating cost of cotton will force them to increase prices, regardless of the VAT rise.
As well as the VAT increase, the petrol price rise and above-inflation train fare increases, there are the higher energy bills. Npower has become the fourth of the ‘big six’ energy suppliers to implement a price increase, adding £60 to the annual dual fuel bill taking it from £1,196 to £1,256.
Massive job losses at the same time as there is a galloping inflation, will lead to the nightmare of a major rise in bank rates, which will see hundreds of thousands of mortgage holders lose their homes.
2011 will be a year of unbearable changes for the working class and the middle class. The trade union leaders instead of pretending that the workers are being taken by surprise should be providing leadership for the growing mass anger and fury against the coalition, by calling a general strike to bring it down and bring in a workers government and socialism.
However the gentlefolk of the trade union bureaucracy fear revolution and are incapable of leading the workers revolution that is developing under their noses.
They must be removed and be replaced by the revolutionary leadership of the WRP so that this backward out of date capitalist system is buried and humanity is able to go forward to a socialist society.