Resolution for Action to Fight the Cuts

Several thousand trade unionists and others marched through London on Saturday 23 October to join the SERTUC regional anti-cuts rally and to tell the trade union leaders to organise now for action to oppose the cuts and defend jobs and public services.

The resolution below was adopted unanimously by the rally. We urge all trade unionists to take this resolution to their branches and get it passed as far and wide as possible:

We call on everybody on today’s demo to pass the following motion in your union branch, in your workplace, in your student union or anti-cuts campaign as soon as possible. The TUC has stated that joint union action is the way to stop the cuts. This policy needs to be turned into a reality. We should bombard the TUC (info@tuc.org.uk) and union leaders with demands for action now. Send copies to andy.littlechild@ntlworld.com.  

“This (name of TU body etc.) is opposed to every cut in the £83 billion austerity package demanded by this millionaire ConDem government.

We will not accept:

• a million job cuts

• doubling of student fees

• drastic cuts to welfare benefits

• increasing the pension age to 66 and beyond

• mass privatisation of services

We believe that these cuts will only be defeated by powerful union action led by the trade unions, and backed up together with campaigns of service users, welfare claimants, students, pensioners and others.
 

The TUC general council met on the day Osborne announced the slaughter of public services and agreed to call a national demo in March 2011. This doesn’t show the urgency necessary given the scale and depth of the attacks.
We therefore call on our National Executive Committee (or appropriate national body) to call an emergency meeting immediately, to contact other unions to co-ordinate a suitable date for joint action and a national demonstration before Xmas.
 

We also believe it is necessary to prepare for a public sector 24-hour strike. In 2005 public sector unions coordinated strike ballots in defence of pensions; this is absolutely necessary now as a first step to stronger action if the government does not retreat on their brutal measures”.