After the TUC march -

where now for the battle against the cuts?

Last October on the day before Osborne announced the ConDems' cuts package, Brendan Barber was asked by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight why British workers didn't fight like their counterparts in France? Paxman pointed to the TUC rally that day of 3,000 while French workers were on strike. Saturday's massive demo should finally dispel this myth. Despite what some in the media and unfortunately even some in the TUC said, at least 500,000 possibly more filled the streets of London in a defiant statement that British workers are prepared to fight Cameron and Clegg's cuts package.

The NSSN played its full part on the march and in the build up to it. We had a platform at the start on the Embankment and a stage at the end in Speakers Corner. We gave marchers the chance to listen to rank and file trade unionists facing the full brunt of the cuts. We also wanted to ensure that fighting unions like the RMT and the FBU were given a platform but in the end the demo was so big, they couldn't make it! We gave out 40,000 postcard flyers and 1500 of our placards were carried - all with the messages "Fight all the cuts" and "Public sector private sector 24 hour general strike to stop the cuts and defend pensions".

The NSSN lobbied the TUC conference last September for them to call a national demonstration against the cuts. Unfortunately, it took them 6 months to take our advice but while valuable time has been lost and thousands of workers have already lost their jobs, the protest confirmed our judgement that it provides a basis for the anti-cuts struggle to move to a far higher plane. The demo showed how the trade unions can lead behind them all the different groups in society. Alongside nurses, teachers and firefighters there were thousands of students and pensioners. The very idea of the trade unions as a national and local force of struggle for workers, their families and their communities can become very attractive as a result of Saturday. It will raise the confidence and the sights of millions of working-class people that something can be done and the government can be defeated.

As workers reflect on that incredible day they will be asking "what next?" Already, once the council cuts start to bite, workers and service users can send the message out that the cuts budgets may have been voted through by all parties but its a different story to implement them. If necessary, we have to fight them library by library, swimming pool by swimming pool if necessary up to and including occupations and local strike action.

We agree with union leaders like Mark Serwotka of PCS and Len McCluskey of Unite who from the main stage supported the idea of co-ordinating strike action to defeat the cuts, particularly the attack on public sector pensions. This could reach out to workers in the private sector who could see their pensions being reduced by 15% because their index linking will also be based on CPI not RPI. This idea must be fought for in every union branch, stewards committee and workplace. The pressure must be forced upwards on to the union leaders to name the day for collective action. If all the public sector unions took national strike action together on the same day it would be a step towards a 24 hour general strike. To concretise this, the TUC should call a national midweek demonstration on the day that a national union next strikes on pensions. Already, UCU have taken strike action on pensions and PCS and NUT have confirmed that they are likely to ballot with action probably being taken in June. Members of all public sector unions including Unison, Unite, GMB and NASUWT will be asking "when are we balloting?"

Whatever the media say, Saturday's demo has shaken the ConDems and the class they represent, including the greedy bankers but we now need generalised action on the biggest scale to defeat their cuts and shatter this government.