This week’s edition of the right wing Economist magazine surveys the response of trade unions across the world to the economic crisis. It notes the general decline in union membership and corresponding fall in levels of strike action in the past 30 years.
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15955386&fsrc=rss
The Economist acknowledges that ‘the public sector that will bear the brunt of the coming crunch. By 2014 the public debt of the leading rich countries will reach an average of 110% of GDP, up by almost 40 percentage points from 2007, says the IMF. Reducing these levels, some of the highest ever seen in peacetime, will be a brutal job. Taxes may be part of the mix, but in most cases, spending will have to be slashed.’
The example of resistance to job cuts in France, Greece, the Netherlands and Portugal signal that ‘worse unrest may be looming once spending cuts begin.’
