On-going job and wage cuts: we can and should stop them!

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Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
16 March 2009

The latest figure for unemployment, out this Wednesday, is said to be at, or above, the 2 million mark.

Of course, what such figures actually mean - and what they conceal, is another matter. Especially when reports published over the weekend reveal that there are at least 10 applicants for every job vacancy advertised across the country.

So much so, that having cut thousands of jobs in Job Centres, the government has no choice but to transfer hundreds of civil servants from other departments (where jobs have also been cut!) in order to deal with the ever-growing tide of applications.

Probably an even more accurate indicator of the unemployment situation is given by the bosses' apparent confidence in conducting their attacks against workers' wages and conditions. Officially it is admitted that wages have been frozen in 10% of all companies - but that is probably the understatement of the year!

It is certainly not the case that companies have suddenly run out of cash, though! Take BT. It announced it is freezing the pay of 100,000 workers - after sacking nearly 10,000 agency staff last year. But that hardly reflects the state of finances of this company, which even after losing in other parts of its business recorded £113m profit just in the last 3 months. After all, phone calls are so much part and parcel of day-to-day life that they are unlikely to decrease due to a recession.

As for top-of-the-car-heap, Toyota, its wealth has not prevented it from forcing wage cuts down the throats of workers, threatening to cut jobs if they do not swallow.

Union leaders dividing our ranks

Not many workers will be surprised at the fact that union leaders have become more and more invisible while these attacks against workers have increased.

And when they do propose some form of action, as the postal workers' leaders did last week, they seem to make a point of depriving workers of any chance to measure their own strength.

A "National March and Rally" against postal privatisation was hidden away in the Bilston (Wolverhampton) constituency of the post office minister Pat Mc Fadden, and there was no general mobilisation at all. So, although the vast majority of workers, beyond postal workers themselves, would agree that "the post should be kept public", how were they even to know about this protest?

Another example is the half-hearted strike ballot called by the RMT against job cuts, which are happening in all train companies - but only members in a third of the affected companies get a vote!

They aren't as confident as they seem...

The recent saga of the pay deal at Fords, where the company managed to trade 850 jobs against a wage increase shows something else, though. The fact that Ford actually conceded a 5.25% increase in the end, after the mildest of strike threats, means that the last thing that Ford wanted was to have a fight on their hands. And the same goes for the rest of the capitalist class.

And all the more so, when their only possible source of profit these days is the direct exploitation of our labour! After all, the financial markets are hardly a viable option any more!

This is why we can and should organise ourselves to resist now. What we need is a programme for action, which builds up progressively, so as to rebuild our own confidence. And we certainly need a policy which calls the bluff of the profiteers - instead of joining in their demands for state funds, as Tony Woodley and Co., are doing!

Workers are the real economy!

The capitalist class may have lost part of its wealth when its funny money vanished from the stock market, but its real wealth, the productive facilities it owns, and its control of natural resources and means of distribution are all still there. And they are out to squeeze as much profit as they possibly can out of our labour - to produce a lot more of this "real" wealth.

This is precisely where our strength lies. And it far outweighs anything the capitalist class can muster, provided we organise to use it - all of us, together!