uniteWORKS Comment


Len McCluskey General Secretary


Cameron’s prize-winning bunglers


Be it for the Jubilee or the Olympics, the eyes of the world are on the UK this summer. So what will the visitor or the viewer take as their abiding memory of the UK in 2012?


Behind the bunting there are some shabby images we would rather not be associated with the seventh largest economy in the world.


There are the 1,500 Remploy workers – disabled but full, contributing citizens – facing life on the dole because of a callous government decision to shut the plants. There are the young Jubilee ‘volunteers’ turfed out in a sodden London, told to suffer in silence or lose their benefits.


In the West Midlands, moves are afoot to sell the police force to private bidders, including the very outfit that built Guantanamo Bay. Glad to say Unite members’ efforts to expose this absurd plan are bearing fruit with the force’s head now compelled to ‘consult’.


But the plans remind us of the Britain that this government wants to take shape. Knotted by u-turns on pasties and caravans but deaf to the clamour for growth, if prizes were issued for the bungling and barmy, this outfit would walk away with gold.


As Owen Jones writes for us this month, the Olympics should be an op- portunity for national good. Earlier UK Olympics in 1908 and 1948 both produced dividends for working people. Yet in 2012, the greed that has consumed our economy has engulfed the Olympics too.


For Unite this is most evident in the treatment of those carrying passen- gers to the games. While the Olympic organisations are awash with cash, bus workers are asking for a measly £1.50 or so an hour extra to compen- sate them for the 800,000 passengers they will be caring for. Nine months of campaigning for a fair deal has got them nowhere; little wonder then that they delivered a landslide 90 per cent vote for strike action.


One thing that this failing government will never diminish is the spirit of our movement. That spirit fought – and won – a future for Ellesmere Port. It is the driving force behind our community movement. And it will see us stand together against – and defeat – plans to water down workers’ rights.


Unite members, they are world class.


uniteWORKS Published bi-monthly by Unite the union, 128 Theobalds Road, London, WC1X 8TN. Phone 0207 611 2500. Editor – Amanda Campbell Magazine enquiries and letters to the editor, by post, phone, or email uniteworks@unitetheunion.org Distribution enquiries 020 3371 2039 Available in alternative formats from Martha Campbell 020 3371 2049


Class-y UK voters back French-style fairness


With the clamour for a change of tack from the government on its disastrous handling of the economy mounting, a new organisation has burst onto the scene promising fresh thinking on the country's economy.


New trade union-led think tank, theCentre for Labour and Social Studies (Class), is pushing for the UK government to look across the Channel for ideas on how to restore confidence and fairness to our deflating economy. A poll for Class reveals that UK voters overwhelmingly supporting the anti-austerity policies championed by the new Socialist President of France, Francois Hollande.


Hollande’s approach, in stark contrast to Osbornomics, includes measures to kick-start growth; expand educational opportunities for young people; redistribute wealth; and embark on an ambitious house building programme of 500,000 extra homes.


While 85 per cent of voters polled by Class regard reducing the deficit as ‘very important’ or ‘fairly important’, 95 per cent consider creating jobs and reducing unemployment, and encouraging economic growth as ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ important. Furthermore the results show that 50 per cent of those who voted for the Conservatives at the last election think the redistribution of wealth from the richest in society is important.


The survey set the scene for the launch of Class in May at the London Museum, amid the banking towers of London's financial district. Class has been formed to encourage policy-makers to pursue a braver programme in order to grow our economy back to good health.


With even arch financial hawk, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, complaining that the UK’s growth is too slow and unemployment is too high, steps to restore demand to the economy are desperately needed.


Further, an astonishing 69 per cent of those surveyed are unaware that 90 per cent of government spending cuts are still to come, suggesting that the further five years of cuts to public spending threatened by the government will meet with deepening hostility. Class will be unveiling more over the summer and uniteWORKSwill be reporting developments.


For more on Class visit http://classonline.org.uk/ Follow Class on Twitter: @classthinktank


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