THE GMB has warned that 200,000 jobs will be cut by councils in England in the next three months.
GMB national officer Brian Strutton warned that the size and speed of the cuts will be unprecedented as councils rush through redundancies before the end of the financial year in March.
Thousands of notices have already been issued to public sector workers saying their position is ‘at risk’ and Strutton said many more will soon be sent out.
Strutton said that about half of the councils in England have yet to announce their response to the funding cuts, and when they do they will want to get employees out of the door as quickly as possible.
In total, he reckoned 150,000 jobs would go from directly employed council workers, and a further 50,000 among contractors and agency staff.
He warned that the redundancies will be across the board, with entire council services being wiped out.
Unite, which has 250,000 members working in the public sector, has described its written response to the government’s call for evidence on public service reform as ‘highly critical’.
In a press release, Unite said the government’s so-called ‘public service reform’ is a recipe for dismantling the welfare state before the public has realised what has happened.
Unite said that ministers’ push for reform was intimately linked to the £81 billion worth of government cuts which will bear down hardest on the poorest 10 per cent.
Unite said that it was ‘seriously concerned’ that the rushed nature of the consultation – just six weeks, taking into account the Christmas and new year holidays – breached the Code of Practice on Consultation which recommends a consultation period normally lasting 12 weeks.
Unite called for cabinet office minister, Francis Maude, who is overseeing the public service reform process, to provide evidence to parliament that services for the public will become better and more comprehensive under the coalition’s programme.
Unite assistant general secretary for public services, Gail Cartmail, said: ‘The speed and scale of the coalition’s helter-skelter rush to dismantle public services is a cynical ploy to cut back the welfare state before the British public wakes up to the massive and negative consequences.’
However, it is high time that the trade union leaders woke up to how late in the day it is and called a general strike to bring down this coalition and bring in a workers government.
Union leaders who won’t adopt this policy must be removed.
