www.socialistparty.org.

uk | Socialist Party UCU Bulletin | March 2011

UNITED CAMPAIGN
NEEDED TO DEFEND
JOBS AND PENSIONS
T
he ConDem coalition has made
clear that it intends to butcher
many of the historic gains won
by trade unionists using the excuse
of financial necessity. Health,
education and social security are
all under threat, while bankers’
bonuses remain untouchable and
multinationals like Vodafone are
excused multi-billion pound tax
bills.

Clearly, there’s the money in society

to fund free post-school education
for all, decent pay and conditions
throughout post-16 education, and an
expansion of research in all subjects.
But a political decision has been
made to attack higher and further
education for ideological reasons. If
the Browne report is implemented,
this will not only lead to the effective
privatisation of university teaching,
but will also cause several universities
to close if they are unable to make up
funding losses by recruiting enough
paying students. Proposed cuts in
further education have the potential
to devastate the sector, and more are
planned.
The current UCU strikes to defend
pensions, jobs and pay are clearly
an important first step in resisting
this onslaught. Only determined
action can beat the government’s
cuts agenda, but this will need
to be coordinated with other
trade unions with support from
the student movement. The TUC
demonstration on 26 March
should be used as a springboard
to organise a one-day public sector
strike as a step towards a one-day
general strike if the cuts are not
stopped. It would be a mistake at
this stage to rely entirely on action
short of a strike alone (such as an
exam boycott) to further our aims:
Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and co.
are determined to redistribute
wealth towards the fantastically
rich, but they are in a weak position
if faced with a determined, united
campaign of action.
continued over...

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 www.socialistparty.org.uk | Socialist Party UCU Bulletin | March 2011

I
t would also be a mistake
to imagine that a Labour
government would reverse any
cuts made - Labour councils are
implementing the cuts, and their
only disagreement with the Tories
nationally seems to be over the
speed and details of the cuts. Trade
unions like the RMT and FBU no
longer fund New Labour - working
people need to create a new, mass
party that represents their interests
in the same way that the three
main parties represent the rich and
powerful.
The Socialist Party stands for a
democratic socialist society, run for
people not profit. We fight for:
• A decent pension for all, with no
extension of the retirement age.
• Scrap tuition fees and implement
a living student grant throughout
post-16 education.
• End casualisation in further and
higher education.
• Massive investment in
education and research as part
of a democratically planned
economy.
We will work with all others who
want UCU to be a democratic,
fighting union. To find out more,
email us on info@socialistparty.org.
uk or phone 0208 9888777.
FoR CoUnCiLLoRS Who Vote no to CUtS!
Workers need a political voice as well as industrial muscle. In many areas
Labour councils are the executors of Tory cuts. We need a political alternative
that is genuinely opposed to cuts. If Labour were in government they would
be making cuts of their own. We need to build a new voice for working people.
Labour-affiliated trade unions need to disaffiliate and support, alongside
others, the building of a new mass workers’ party.
tRADe UnioniSt & SoCiALiSt CoALition
The Socialist Party played a leading
role in setting up the Trade Unionist
& Socialist Coalition (TUSC). This
important step towards building a
new party is supported by a number
of leading members of fighting unions
such as the RMT transport union and
the PCS civil service union. TUSC stood
for the first time in the 2010 general www.tusc.org.uk
election taking up all the issues that
working people are concerned about. Anti-cuts campaigns are invited to stand
their activists under the banner of TUSC in May’s local elections.
WhAt ‘ALteRnAtiVe’? – SoCiALiSM!
As even Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, has admitted, the people
suffering from the economic crisis did nothing to cause it. The economic crisis was
not caused by the public sector or by working class people; it is a crisis of the private
sector – of the capitalist system. The same bankers and financiers, who triggered the
crisis by gambling vast sums, are now demanding that governments make us pay for
their crisis. Not just in Britain, but across Europe, governments are willingly doing the
financiers’ bidding.
In contrast a socialist society would be run in the interests of the millions, not the
billionaires. For a start it would nationalise the banks and finance sector – not to
prop them up and leave the bankers in charge like New Labour did – but to run them
democratically to help meet the needs of the majority. However, that would only be
the start. Capitalism has led to enormous economic destruction. In Britain around
10% of wealth has already been lost as a result of the recession, due to factories
and workplaces closing, resulting in 2.5 million and rising officially unemployed. That
is why a crucial step towards solving the economic crisis would be to take the big
corporations that dominate Britain’s economy into democratic public ownership. This
would then allow for production to be planned for need and not for profit, protecting
the environment at the same time.
Socialist planning would have to spread internationally to work and survive. But a
democratic socialist government that carried out massive investment in public
services, increased wages and created millions of jobs would have enormous support
among workers across the planet. As the uprisings in the Middle East have shown,
when the demand for change catches on, it recognises no borders.
iF YoU AGRee With US then join the SoCiALiSt PARtY!

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