by Richie Venton
The thousands who join the Scotland United Against Austerity rally this Saturday, 20 June, in Glasgow’s George Square will be united in sending a simple, stark message to the Tories: you have no mandate to rule and ruin Scotland, and we’re not going to lie down and accept your butchery!
Only 10 per cent of Scotland’s voters backed the Tories. Yet Cameron, Osborne and their Old-Etonian bootboys plan an assault on our lives that surpasses even the Dark Ages of Maggie Thatcher.
In this issue, the Scottish Socialist Party’s John McAllion – former Labour MP and MSP – explains why he thinks the Scottish Labour Party is a shadow of its former self. This theme is also taken up by Labour for independence’s Allan Grogan, and SSP workplace organiser Richie Venton in his piece ‘Ructions after the referendum’.
In this issue, the SSP’s national workplace organiser Richie Venton asks why, when it comes to reporting the stance of trade unionists on the referendum, the picture is consciously distorted in the mainstream media by announcements of national union leaderships declaring their adherence to Better Together?
Inside this issue of the Voice, we look at the impact of cuts at home and abroad, on the future of the Tory-led Westminster coalition and its survival prospects.
by Richie Venton
With 630,000 members, the Scottish trade union movement makes up a huge slice of the population, both when it comes to fighting attacks on our lives and conditions right now, and in shaping Scotland’s future.
So it’s encouraging that the recent STUC conference in Perth agreed a whole raft of progressive policies which, if implemented, would offer stiff resistance to the plunder of our communities by Westminster, and help shape a fairer, less unequal and more secure future for the next generation.
But this also raises the issue of where the unions stand on the Referendum – an issue which the same conference smothered in fudge.
One of the central battles facing workers and their communities is the mind-boggling savagery of cuts to jobs,
It’s Scrap Trident’s weekend of action. We need a massive redistribution of wealth, not weapons of mass destruction.