Feb 2013 London Calling Newsletter

FIGHT AGAINST JOB CUTS

Members should already be in receipt of the broadsheet, "We Can Stop Job Cuts". This outlines how we lost over 800 jobs between March 2011 & March 2012, while passenger numbers have soared to record levels. The Broadsheet details all the arguments of our Union to maintain a fully staffed, publicly owned and integrated transport system.
Unfortunately those who run Government, in London and nationally, and their highly paid bosses at London Underground are not moved by rational arguments. A fully staffed underground system would offer the World Class service that Londoners expect in return for paying the highest fares in Europe. But our bosses are motivated by profit not the commitment to a public service.
This is reflected in all public services. We are seeing cuts in Health care, Fire services, local government services and the hard won social wage won through trade union struggles since the post war period. Money saved through government cuts is being transferred into the coffers of the super rich, during this recession the richest 1,000 have seen their wealth increase by 5% to £404 billion. In contrast, the poorest 10% in society have seen their real incomes fall, as wage increases have been pegged well below the level of inflation.
We must say enough is enough. We will not accept one more job loss or one more cut in our conditions. We must build the resistance to cuts, in the coming months we will organise mass meeting of all our members to discuss the strategy and action required to organise the fight-back. We need 100% support from our members and we need to build unity in the workplace with TSSA and ASLEF members. Unity is strength, but Unity must be built in the concrete in the workplace.
We will also need to build links, with fire-fighters, local government workers, civil servants and all other workers fighting cutbacks. We will have to take industrial action to defend our jobs and conditions, but we must link with other workers to take generalised strike action including a general strike to fight the onslaught of cuts on working people and their families.
European wide strike action is being put forward for 13/14 March by many unions in different European countries. We must look to ways of taking part in this movement of workers, The Mc Nulty report and the leaked documents outlining attacks on London Underground mean that we will have to look at a national strike of all rail workers to resist the cutbacks in the coming months.