THE national demonstration and march on Parliament called by the TUC on Saturday June 18th has met with a massive response throughout the working class.
This national demonstration started as a vague promise by the TUC leaders back in March in order to placate the growing anger of workers at the inflationary crisis driving the cost of living at that time.
If the TUC leaders hoped that a three-month breathing space would provide any relief from the demands by workers for action, then they have been seriously mistaken.
The crisis has, in fact, intensified to the point where mass actions are breaking out across the country, as workers demand their unions take a stand and fight for increased wages and an end to the attacks on their working conditions.
The June 18th march and demonstration takes place as the RMT transport union is preparing for a national strike across the entire rail network, in the biggest action against the Tory government and the private companies that the country has seen.
The CWU telecoms union is currently balloting its members for a national strike over pay and jobs, while university and college lecturers are striking over the same demands.
Across the country, workers are pushing for strike action over wage and job cuts and refusing to accept being driven into poverty by a capitalist system that is crashing into recession, presided over by a Tory government led by Boris Johnson, a convicted criminal that Tory MPs are on the verge of dumping.
With Britain in the grip of a political and economic crisis of epic proportions, the mass demonstration on June 18th has become a revolutionary focal point for workers and young people.
With the class struggle erupting around their ears, the TUC and union leaders are in the position of having to show they are responding to the anger of the workers while at the same time holding back the movement from the political struggle against the Tories and the capitalist class.
This dilemma for the union leaders is made clear in an email sent to members of the giant Unite union this week, headed: ‘Demand better – march and rally 18.06.22.’
Unite writes: ‘Inflation is at a 40-year high, billionaires are getting richer, our elderly can’t keep warm and children are going hungry.’ It continues: ‘We didn’t cause this crisis – and we won’t pay for it. In the sixth richest country in the world, we demand better. It is time for Unite members to march.’
Inflation out of control, children going hungry millions going cold while the capitalist class makes billions, and all Unite can do is to say it is time to march!
Marching alone won’t feed and clothe millions of workers and their families and the Unite leaders and the TUC know it. What has got them really scared is that the working class is demanding not more marches and demonstrations but action.
In the days before the June 18th demonstration, the TUC has called meetings across the country ostensibly to galvanise support but really to try and drive home that all their demands are in reality a begging appeal to the Tories.
The TUC organiser of the TUC ‘Summit’ in Blackpool on June 15th spelt this out when after detailing all these demands, concluded: ‘The government must do more to help working people keep their heads above water.’
The Tories have no intention of helping the working class – they are only concerned with keeping the sinking capitalist system from drowning by making the working class pay for this crisis.
The working class has had enough of marches that go nowhere – the TUC must be forced to make June 18th the start of a general strike to force the Tories out, bringing in a workers’ government that will seize the profits of the bankers and billionaire bosses, nationalise the banks and basic industries, placing them under the management of the working class.
These union leaders who refuse to organise this struggle must be removed and replaced with leaders prepared to take the mass movement developing around June 18th forward to put an end to capitalism forever and advance to socialism.
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