CHANCELLOR Darling yesterday warned Britain’s public sector workers that they must follow what he called the example of the private sector, and accept wage cuts, if they want to keep their jobs.
He observed cynically in the Sunday Times that ‘What is being paid has sometimes lost the relationship it ought to have with what someone actually does. Once that happens, it’s not only unfair, it’s actually grossly inefficient.’
He, meanwhile, is on his huge parliamentary salary, with its ample expenses, signing off money should he lose his seat at the next election, plus a final salary pension.
These must be calculated as totally out of line with what he does, since he produces nothing of any value at all.
Darling said that two thirds of private sector firms are planning wage cuts this year, adding that ‘There’s a lot of evidence that people in the private sector have taken pay cuts and held on to their jobs.’
He did not state whether he agrees with the Tory leader Cameron that new anti-union laws should be brought in to make it illegal for public sector workers to take strike action against government-declared wage freezes. Presumably Cameron is one step ahead of him!
Meanwhile, the inflation rate is surging upwards and has reached 2.9 per cent and in the months ahead is expected to reach five per cent.
Gas, electricity, rail and bus fares and food prices are shooting upwards, cutting wages on a daily basis. On top of this, Darling now wants wage-cutting to save jobs!
Workers in the private sector have learnt a big lesson from this propaganda that they should have wage cuts to save their jobs.
Many took the advice of the trade union leaders to do this.
It turned out that first of all they had their wages cut and then they lost their jobs. This is what happened at JCB, LDV, and is now happening at Corus, and is threatening to happen to BA cabin crew if BA boss Walsh has his way.
The wage-cutting is in fact to try and save capitalism, and as well to pay back the huge debts involved in Labour propping up the big banks!
Darling is very hard on the working class and the middle class – but he dotes on the bankers whose debts Labour has guaranteed.
These very same bankers, whose vaults are stuffed with public money handed to them by Darling and Brown, are about to make record profits of up to £25bn!
The profits announcements will include £10.6bn for Barclays, HSBC is expected to deliver pre-tax profits of up to £10.42bn on March 1, while Standard Chartered is expecting pre-tax profits of around $5.3bn.
The bankers are behaving like modern-day Marie Antoinettes, flaunting their wealth, with the encouragement of Darling and Brown to do so. They are in fact the representatives of a completely bankrupt and out-of-date social system. Their profits must be sequestrated and they must be completely taken over by the state, and consigned to the dustbin of history.
Even Obama, who has been deeply stirred by the revolt of workers in Massachusetts, has said that the US banks must pay back every dime that has been handed to them by the government, and that banks that were too big to be allowed to fail should be broken up. He announced a levy last week specifically to recover the cost of TARP, the American taxpayers’ life support system for the banks.
This course is far too radical for the bankers’ men Darling and Brown.
They are acting for the big banks to make the working class pay for every penny of debt that the banking crisis has created.
Workers must organise in their trade unions to fight any attempt to impose public sector wage cutting with a general strike. This must bring down the Brown government and bring in a workers’ government that will nationalise the banks and the major industries under workers’ control and bring in socialism.
