Labour's war against public services in Glasgow
by Richie Venton - 28-01-10
The Labour council in Glasgow have launched a savage war on jobs, services,
its own workers and many of the most vulnerable people in local communities.
They want to immediately carry out a devastating £66m in cuts, including:
* shed over 600 council jobs - on top of the target of about 1,500 job
losses through the over-50s redundancy package
* slash grants to voluntary and community organisations by 20% - which
would mean some of them being abolished
* shut down 12 Community Centres, a Library and a Pool
* cut services to the disabled and Home Care services
* wipe out 50% of Community Workers’ jobs and cut Welfare Rights jobs.
On top of this brutality, they expect Arms Length Organisations like
Culture & Sport Glasgow to attack wages, jobs and service levels
- all in the name of “efficiency”!
Labour has the cheek to still call themselves ‘the people’s party’ when
it comes to elections. Bankers’ party more like!
Labour bailed out the greedy, reckless bankers, after their high-class
gambling brought the economy to the brink of collapse. That handout to
the bankers (who are still awarding themselves obscene salaries and bonuses)
has cost the public purse £1.3trillion!
Labour’s London government is making us pay for the bankers’ rescue with
a slaughter of jobs, a pay freeze, price rises, an assault on public
services and public sector pensions. New Labour is the shameless friend
of billionaires and bankers.
But instead of standing up for Scotland, instead of defying London’s
cuts to jobs and services, the SNP Edinburgh government is handing down
these brutal cuts to local councils.
In turn, instead of setting a People’s Budget - with no cuts in community
services and facilities, no job losses, no cuts to community grants -
and putting up a massive fight for extra funding off the government -
the Glasgow Labour council are acting like obedient lapdogs to their
masters in London.
And council leader Steven Purcell wants to make his name as Labour’s
Axe-wielder in Chief!
The Scottish Socialist Party has a track record of standing up for council
workers’ jobs and local community services.
SSP members led the mighty battle to Save
Our Schools, demanding classes
of 20 or less to improve kids’ education and save teachers’ jobs.
We welcome the initiative by Glasgow city UNISON in seeking to build
a united campaign across the workforce and local communities. We cannot
allow the city council to divide and conquer us, with entirely false
‘choices’ between closing one facility and another, between slashing
jobs and slashing services - and in any case they are doing both!
We need a united campaign to Save Our Services with city-wide demos,
direct action to save Community Centres from closure, and industrial
action to defend jobs and services.
The unions should lead a united campaign to Fight for the Funds off the
SNP government, to secure all jobs and services - linking up with union
branches and anti-cuts campaigns across Scotland.
And UNISON, UNITE, GMB and other unions should end their absurd habit
of feeding the hand that bites them - by calling an end to their multi-millioned
funding of New Labour from union members’ subs.
Unite to Save Our Services - demand a People’s Budget - not Labour’s
Cuts Budget.
And join the Scottish
Socialist Party, to campaign for a socialist Scotland
that bails out workers’ jobs and community services, not bankers’ profits
and illegal wars!