Outrage at the council revelations

Originally written for the Socialism in RCT blog

SP member of the ponty anti-cuts demo

On March 17th an article appeared on the WalesOnline website explaining that far from being in huge debts Rhondda Cynon Taff council actually had a £2 million surplus. This is the same council who only weeks ago, threatened the entire workforce with dismissal unless the excepted worse pay and conditions, the council claimed they had no other choice but to do this in order to balance the budget and many workers have signed the new contracts through fear of loosing their jobs.

The fact that this Labour council has forced through these savage cuts to the pay and employment conditions of its 10,000 strong work force whilst maintaining a surplus of £2 million shows exactly how sincere the Labour Party is to opposing cut backs!

The revelation of this surplus highlights the betrayal of the Labour councillors, who shed crocodile tears over the cuts they voted for whilst all along leaving the council with an incredible surplus. In reality it just confirms what we already knew - Labour don't represent us anymore!

It is true that whilst there is a surplus currently of £2m but cuts in wages have 'saved' the council £5.6m leaving an obvious gap of £3.6m. This does not mean that cuts have to be made, rather on the contrary this presents a real alternative to fight and defeat the austerity measures driven by central government.

The council could use the current surplus as a temporary measure in order to avoid the cuts for now. This would make the council extremely popular amongst the workers and the community in general. (A far cry from the harsh reality of the feelings towards the council at the moment) The council could then use this popularity to build a mass campaign throughout the county to defend the council against any attack from the Assembly or Westminster and to demand the money necessary for all the jobs and services needed within the area.

If the council was willing to set a 'needs budget' - a budget based on the needs of the area, rather than based on the forced cuts budgets of central government, then they would easily gain mass support - and rightfully so from whole sections of working class people in the area. This is exactly what happened when the Liverpool council did this in the 1980s. If the council was to do this then the Socialist Party would through it full weight behind the councillors to defend them and the budget from attack.

Unfortunately, we feel that this scenario is extremely unlikely. We saw 13 years of a Labour government committed cuts and privatisation of public services and where they are still in power, in the Assembly and in councils they are willingly carrying out cuts today. In Cumbria the Labour councillors are even in a formal coalition with the tories! If that doesn't demonstrate whose side they are really on then nothing will. The Labour Party has shown itself to be a party fully committed to rolling back the welfare state.

This is why the Socialist Party will be standing in the Welsh Assembly elections and next years council elections as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, standing on a platform of opposition to ALL cuts and for a united fight back to defeat this government. If you are interested in getting involved with the election campaign in RCT then you can contact us here.

A day trip to Birmingham, but for what?

Last Sunday saw a demonstration of somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 people in Birmingham to protest outside the tory party conference. An impressive turn out with all things considered, the rain probably damaged the turn out and the governments spending review has not taken place yet. The demonstration also displayed a great cross section of working class society with banners displaying various campaigns to stop cuts in services, with various trade union banners, student groups, political organisations and a sizable amount of disabled people in attendance as well, fearful of the cuts in Disability Living allowance. All of this shows the potential is there for a united campaign against cutbacks but it wasn't all positive and I am not just referring to the rain.


Despite such anger against the cuts you would be forgiven for not realising this demonstration was against cuts, in fact I am not entirely sure myself if it was or if it was simply against tory cuts! The Right to Work posters read 'Protest against Tory cuts' and there was nothing said about anyone else but the tories. Whilst some may say this is pedantic it is not at all. Travelling on a coach from Cardiff we were well aware that the Welsh Assembly government is run by Labour and Plaid Cymru whilst Cardiff Council is run by the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru. Do the cuts they will carry out not matter? With any of the 3 main parties and a 4th in Wales in power they have all committed themselves to huge public sector cuts. But there was no mention of this throughout the demonstration simply stating that 'tories are scum' whilst I completely agree lets have some clarity and make it clear that all the main parties are committed to making to working class pay for the capitalist crisis.


This is a very important point because it is no good to simply direct the anger at tories (and liberals) when it will be labour/Plaid Cymru/SNP councils as well as the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament carrying out the cuts as well. It seems that the 'keep is so broad it is ineffective' strategy is still in full effect though. I am not opposed to members of those parties being involved in campaigns against cuts, but only if they refuse to vote for cuts and condemn those in their parties who do. Where there are council that refuse to carry out cuts they should receive the full and active support of anti-cuts campaigners but where there is not, then anti-cuts candidates should stand for election, unfortunately this did not feature at all in the Right to Work organised demonstration whatsoever.


Fortunately however Dave Nellist former Labour MP and currently a Socialist Party councillor in Coventry spoke from the platform at both rallies, he made the points which I have made in this article and pointed out that anti-cuts campaigners have had electoral success, in Kidderminster twice winning an MP as well as councillors and councillors won by anti-cuts campaigners in Huddersfield, Wigan, Wallsall and many other places and there is a need to build on this in the next election. This was also made clear in a very good Socialist Party leaflet which to my knowledge was the only material on the day highlighting a real strategy to defeat the cuts which was very will received, after all that was the point of the demonstration was it not?


There were other problems with the demonstration with between 50-100 pseudo-anarchist youth attempted to breach the fence and get into the conference centre, which then led to a long confrontation with the police which was eventually separated off from the main demonstration. This clearly resulted from the frustration at the relative inaction from the demonstration organisers in my view and will only continue and the trend will increase unless a clear strategy to defeat the cuts is put forward.


It is also worth noting that despite all this talk of the Coalition of Resistance on the Internet, I did not see any sign of them existing on this demonstration, which would have been the experience of many others, if they were actually there at all, or does this 'coalition only exist on the Internet? That has been my sole experience with it.


On the day Right to Work gave out a leaflet calling for 'unity talks' on the 5th December, but if they actually wanted unity then two things would have happened differently at least. Firstly when the chair of Right to Work attended the steering committee of the National Shop Stewards Network the day before he would have raised this at the time and secondly they would not have organised a 'unity event' the same time as the already publicised Youth Fight for Jobs national conference. It seems that based on this the 'unity project' is just for show, especially considering Right To Work was set up when the NSSN and YFJ already existed in the first place! Nevertheless unity against cuts is welcome but at the moment I am dubious that Right to Work actually want unity with others, and who could argue otherwise based on the facts.


After this demonstration it seems clear to me that nothing has changed and that if we wish to stop the cuts that the tasks remain the same, to build local campaigns against the cuts!

Campaigning against cutbacks

This article was orginally posted on the GlamSU website, However since publishing some details have changed. The demonstration reffered to October 23rd in Pontypridd is no longer taking place, however there will be a demonstration against cuts in Cardiff on that day organised by the Wales Shop Stewards Network. Below is the article

On the 20th of October the ‘ConDem’ government as it has come too referred as will announce its spending review. In Orwellian fashion this spending review will only review how to spend much less across the entire public sector. In reality this will equate to huge job losses, particularly in Wales where a third of the workforce is in the public sector, along with the jobs cuts will come the inevitable slashing of public service provisions, including provisions in the education system.

In light of this there has been resistance emerging from trade unions, student groups and community campaigners alike. Already several joint initiatives have been announced. The National Union of Students (NUS) and the University and College Union (UCU) (the trade union for lecturers and other academic staff) have announced a joint campaign called ‘Fund of Future’ and have planned a joint demonstration for November the 20th against cuts in university funding.

There have also been moves for a national demonstration against all cut backs. The National Shop Stewards Network organised a demonstration of over a thousand people outside the Trades Union Council (TUC) Conference to put pressure on the TUC to call a national demonstration against cuts. Such a demonstration organised by the TUC which has over 6 million members in Britain could be a huge rallying cry for a campaign to defeat the cuts!

On a more local level in the last week a meeting organised by Cardiff Trade Union Council agreed to set up a campaign against all cut backs. The meeting was well attended by members of a variety of public sector trade unions as well as those working in the private sector. Of note to us as students is that in attendance at this meeting there were staff and students present from both the University of Glamorgan and Cardiff University. At the meeting the need to unite campaigns together soA all the variety of campaigns against these cutbacks was stressed heavily. A sentiment I completely agree with, if we let ourselves get divided into saving our own services and our own jobs then we will all loose out in the end. This was something that Cardiff Council attempted to do a few years ago, when they attempted to divide individual campaigns against school closures. This was done in an attempt to get some campaigners to support the closure programme but campaign solely for their school to remain open. This would have led to smaller sectional and therefore weaker campaigns.

It is therefore important that we as students wishing to defend education cuts should support any campaigns in the area against public sector cuts. There is a demonstration on the 23rd of October in Pontypridd against public sector cuts organised by the Wales TUC. All students at the University should attend that demonstration and campaign alongside public sector workers, but we should also appeal for those on that demonstration to come along with us to the demonstration in London against cuts in University funding.

We have been constantly told there is no alternative to the cuts by the government and the media, and the old saying that “If a lie is told long and loud enough then it will become the truth” is very appropriate in this situation as there is no basis for this assertion whatsoever. The only reason that we have a deficit is because all the money was given to the banks, yet the banks are still able to make millions in profits and still give out millions in bonuses to the top city bankers. So why not demand that the bankers pay for the crisis instead, why not demand that the government nationalises the banks and put the profits into the education system and other public services.

Even if we accept this debt from the bankers it is not true that we need to cut public sector spending at this rate, in fact we do not need to cut spending at all. After World War 2 when the British government was racked by debts much bigger in fact than the current debt crisis it was still possible to invest heavily in public services including the introduction of the NHS as well investment in many other public services, which led to a period of economic boom. Contrast that to the response of governments after the Wall Street crash which was to drastically reduce public spending which led to the great depression, showing that making public sector cuts on this scale can only make things worse!

Cardiff anti-cuts alliance

This Tuesday just gone (21/09/10) Cardiff County Trades Council held a public meeting. The purpose of which was to discuss the impending public sector cuts, those which have already been announced, some of which have already been carried out and those cuts expected to be announced next month as part of the government’s spending review on October 20th.

The meeting was well attended with n seats left over for any late comers. A definite sign of the mood to fight back against the public sector cuts. There were platform speakers from a variety of trade unions including the PCS, RMT, CWU and Unison and speakers from the floor representing a variety of other trade unions, student groups, community campaigners and many others. This alone should reflect the scale and the desire to fight back against these cuts.

Speaker after speaker explained how the cuts will affect them; CWU members spoke about postal privatisation and the need for the whole community to campaign to stop this from happening. Pensioners explained the change that moving pensions from the retail price index to the consumer price index pointed out that this will reduce the living standards of pensioners and stressed the need for trade unionists to fight for pensioners rights. Youth fight for jobs activists stressed the need for all workers to help them fight against rising youth employment which is clearly linked to the fight to stop jobs cuts. The list went on and on.

Throughout the evening it became more and more clear that there was a desperate need to link up the struggle to save jobs and services with other campaigns. Some campaigners pointed out the lessons learned in recent years in Cardiff, when the council proposed to close 22 schools in the city and then attempted to play campaign off against each other, in an attempt to get campaigners arguing for some schools to be closed in order to save their own. It was pointed out that if this did happen and different campaigns were divided then we would all loose out.

More and more speakers were making it clear that there was a need to set up a campaigning body which included all sections of the community to oppose all cuts. Other speakers disagreed, pointing out that we should support cuts to the banks, the politicians, to the replacement of trident nuclear weapons and to the military funding which allows young working class people to be sent to fight a rich man’s war in Afghanistan.

It was agreed at the end of the meeting to setup Cardiff anti-cuts Alliance which will start its campaigning activity very shortly and will aim to unite all campaigns that spring up against cut backs in the area into a united campaign to oppose all cuts to public services. Towards the end of the meeting one speaker from the floor said, I want to see council staff on demonstrations to oppose postal privatisation I want to see postal workers on demonstrations to oppose cuts in education; I want to see students standing side by side with striking workers. Only by standing together and supporting our individual struggles will we be able to stop these cuts.

This is clearly a big step forward for anti-cuts campaigning in South Wales, particularly as this initiative as followed in the footsteps of a recent initiative by Swansea Trades Council.