London’s Shoreditch 1908 – reforms included pensions and free school meals
The National Health Service was founded the same year as the Olympics arrived, transforming healthcare for millions of working people. Key parts of the economy – like the railways and the mines – were taken into public ownership. A huge council house- building programme – putting people into work and tackling the housing crisis – was initiated. As Nye Bevan put it, council housing aimed to support mixed communities, replicating ‘the lovely feature of the English and Welsh village, where the doctor, the grocer, and the farm labourer all lived on the same street.’
And Tory anti-union laws – vindictively introduced in the aftermath of the 1926 General Strike – were repealed, allowing the labour movement to grow in the post-war years.
Getting worse What a contrast with today’s Olympics. Rather than a sense of social progress, the conditions of working people are getting worse. For the first time since World War II, the next generation faces a lower standard of living than their parents.
Pensions – secured after decades of struggle – are under attack in both the private and public sector. Disabled people are having state support removed. Workers’ rights are under attack, with multi-millionaire Tory
donors like Adrian Beecroft leading the charge. The NHS is being privatised in defiance of the will of the British people. Five million people are languishing on social housing waiting lists, the right to council housing is being dismantled, and house building is at the lowest levels for nearly a century. Austerity has sucked demand out of the economy, plunging Britain into the most protracted economic crisis since before even the 1908 Olympics.
At the time of the other two Olympics, there was a sense of a coherent alternative to untrammelled free market economics. Though many will cheer on the Games,
millions will still face an increasingly difficult future when the competition is over. That is why Unite has joined other unions in supporting the new think-tank Class, which will bring together leading academics and economists to push policies that will benefit working people. If successful, we can rebuild the sense of hope and optimism the existed in the previous Olympics. It is as ambitious as it is overdue.
For more on Class visit
http://classonline.org.uk/ Follow Class on Twitter: @classthinktank (see page 33)
Torch of ’48 – dreams of a better life were soon realised with the NHS and repeal of anti-trade union laws
29 uniteWORKS July/August 2012
All photographs PA Photos
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