Local government workers in firing line of tax credit cuts

The outrage at Harriet Harman's refusal to oppose outright the Tory £4.5bn raid on tax credits is in contrast to the muted response to Labour front bench's equally unprincipled support for George Osborne's proposed 4 year 1% pay cap in the public sector. But there is good reason to be very angry at the latest capitulation to the Government's austerity agenda. A recent UNISON report highlighted that 'the proportion of local government workers receiving working tax credits at 11.2% is around two and a half times higher than the rest of the public sector.'
https://www.unison.org.uk/upload/sharepoint/Toweb/UNISON%20local%20government%20WTC%20report%2002%2012.pdf

As John Tizard writes on the Home Start blog, there is now a compelling an urgent case for all Councils to pay a Living Wage and to ensure that they 'require all their suppliers of goods and services to pay the Living Wage'
http://newstartmag.co.uk/your-blogs/local-government-must-respond-to-in-work-benefit-cuts/

Public services - more austerity carnage ahead

#Budget2015 The cuts to public services projected in yesterday's Budget speech by Tory Chancellor George Osborne are unprecedented and a timely TUC analysis confirms that 'departmental spending is set to fall by 5.4 per cent in 2016-17 and 5.1 per cent in 2017-18. That’s a rate of spending cuts that is 2.4 percentage points more severe than in any year of austerity to date. Even in 2011-12, when service cuts were at their most significant, spending fell by 3 per cent of GDP.
   The cuts the Chancellor has planned for 2016/17 and 2017/28 are 80% greater than those we have seen before.' Rather than embrace austerity-continuity in 2015/16 and austerity-lite thereafter, Labour must offer a clear alternative to the destruction of public services. And all UNISON branches must get behind the union's strategy of encouraging members to vote out the current Government on May 7:
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2015/03/the-worst-public-spending-cuts-are-still-to-come/

Phoney Deficit Mania

Since the publication of the Con Dem Autumn Statement a new reverse paradigm has been introduced into the economic debate in Britain - cutting the deficit versus borrowing. Self serving Tory assumptions about the need for permanent austerity rule the roost. The deficit must be solved, taxation on big business and the wealthy must be minimised, public services outsourcing should be extended to everything but core functions and, of course, public sector pay should continue to be held down despite 6 years of wage stagnation.

Seumas Milne, writing in today's Guardian, challenges this new orthodoxy using the ample evidence of failed austerity policies since 2010: 'where Cameron, Osborne and their friends have succeeded, of course, is in convincing large numbers of people that Labour spending was somehow responsible for the crisis – which it wasn’t – and in turning the budget deficit into the central issue of economic policy – which it isn’t. In reality, the deficit was below 3% when the crisis was triggered by a financial crash – and up to that point public spending under New Labour, at 38.7% of national income, was lower than under every other government since the 1950s. And the budget deficit is only a reflection of the real problems in the economy and cannot be controlled by the government, as Osborne has demonstrated so comprehensively'
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/17/deficit-mania-political-fraud-osborne-economic-nonsense

Is That It Gideon? Another Budget For The Tories By The Tories

UNISONActive budget analysis: The world that we understand is one where living standards are plummeting as costs increase and public sector wages are deliberately held down, where the greatest growth in trade is in food banks, and where inequality increases daily. In our world, public sector workers are constantly looking over their shoulders to the spectre of redundancy, benefit claimants know that the smallest deviation from the prescribed Ian Duncan Smith regime ends in benefits being arbitrarily withdrawn and an entire generation has been condemned to the horrors of private landlordism.

Invest to grow the economy - UNISON

'In order to provide a positive economic outlook for the country the Government must change its policy towards public spending and investment. Austerity should be ditched in favour of a pro-growth strategy involving job creation and a package of early investment in the infrastructure and services our economy needs. By embarking upon a planned, long-term programme of investment in the housing, infrastructure and green energy production our nation needs we can address the tough fiscal future the UK faces and provide the necessary shot in the arm for British industry' says UNISON in an alternative budget report ahead of today's inevitable neo-liberal chicanery from Tory Chancellor George Osborne:
http://www.unison.org.uk/news/unison-issues-pay-warning-to-chancellor

If you do one thing today, sign the petition for a #PeoplesBudget

There is an alternative to the George Osborne austerity budget. The People’s Assembly has launched a petition calling for a budget for the majority, not the minority. The petition states;-
“Sign the Petition: For a #PeoplesBudget
The Government should reverse damaging austerity, and replace it with a new set of policies providing us with a fair, sustainable and secure future. We will no longer tolerate politicians looking out for themselves and for the rich and powerful. Our political representatives must start governing in the interests of the majority. We, the undersigned, demand:

Enough of Austerity - time for a Labour pledge to change course

Leading UNISON NEC member Jane Carolan takes stock of yesterday’s Autumn Statement on UK Government spending plans: Tuesday’s Guardian featured a tale of two constituencies - Tatton, whose local MP is none other than Gideon George Oliver Osborne himself, and Morley and Ottwood, the constituency of his opposite number Ed Balls.

More From Osborne... More Pain, More Cuts, More Austerity

There is only so much one person can take of Gideon Osborne live. This year he gets to the part where he talks about the fairness of maintaining pay cuts for public service workers (or an up to 1% pay increase in his world) when the decision had to be made... switch off or put the telly out the window.

Imagine and If Only... Budget 2013: The Speech Ed Balls should be giving

“Mr Speaker, Members of the House. As you know, the economy that Labour inherited when the Tories, sorry con Dem coalition were lately booted out of the Government was one that was stagnant, indeed toxic, failing the needs of our country and our people. On every indicator, from our failing international credit rating even if it is from rather disreputable agencies, to the falling pound in every pocket, from our pitiful levels of public investment to the appalling levels of inequality in our society, we were a country that had substituted ideology for economic policy. No more. This is a government committed to enhancing the lives of the working people of this country.

Solidarity with PCS!

#pcsm20 Today’s Budget Day national strike action by PCS members should be supported by all communities and workers bearing the brunt of austerity. Their cause is our cause. As well as the pay freeze and imposed pension changes experienced by many other public service workers, civil servants have endured a relentless attack on jobs and union rights at the hands of their Con Dem employers. To support lunchtime protests taking place across the country today, check out the PCS website: http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/national-campaigns/action-now/index.cfm

'Ditch austerity & go for growth' - TUC Budget Submission 2013

Next week Tory Chancellor George Osborne will unveil his fourth budget since the Con Dem Coalition came to office in May 2010. In a comprehensive submission to the Treasury, the TUC sets out alternatives to the failed policies of austerity. It provides essential ammunition for trade unionists campaigning for alternative economic policies: The introduction states that the TUC 'has consistently argued that the Government’s approach to deficit reduction would be both socially divisive and economically disastrous. It gives us no pleasure to have been correct on both counts'
http://www.tuc.org.uk/tucfiles/539/Budgetsubmission2013.pdf

UNISONActive instant reaction: Don’t believe the hype – this is a budget by the wealthy for the wealthy

Today’s Guardian has a headline that the “Osborne budget is a Showcase for Coalition Values". Indeed it is. It is a budget based on the values of greed and avarice, displaying the economic sense of the proverbial dead parrot and ignorance of the devastating consequences of Tory policy on millions in this country.

A Budget Bonanza for Bent Businesses

The Guardian reports an under-current running through the budget which exposes the duplicity of the Lib Dems who are complicit in a budget settlement that will take money from the poorest to subsidize a £20 billion tax bonanza for bent businesses that avoid paying UK taxes.

Here’s Why We Are Marching - Budget 2011

Don’t believe stories that Tories never lie to themselves. Headlines in the Daily Mail that the budget was a “tax give away “or in other papers that cuts in fuel duty were a “surprise” tell more about the fact that people are waking up to the level of devastation that this government is carrying out than anything else .

Osborne's 'no budge' budget

Osborne’s ‘no budge budget’ is a missed opportunity to right Tory economic wrongs, UNISON said today. By passing up the chance to scale back the savage public spending cuts, the Tories are condemning the economy to long-term low growth and high unemployment. http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=2232

Invest in getting people back into work - TUC

As speculation mounts that tomorrow’s Con Dem budget will see concessions on fuel and air passenger taxes but no reversal on austerity measures, the TUC has called on the Government ‘to use the budget to boost jobs through well-funded employment schemes and encourage growth through a green investment bank and an ambitious industrial strategy’: http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-19346-f0.cfm

UNISON responds to Scotland budget

"John Swinney spoke about choices today - and he made the wrong ones", says UNISON Scotland convener Mike Kirby. "His pay freeze amounts to a real terms wage cut for many modestly paid people in Scotland. Public Service workers in Scotland face a double whammy, as workers many will see a pay cut. And as service users they will find they are paying more for services that will become ever more threadbare". See the full initial response at http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/news/2010/novdec/1711.htm

Cuts phoney war ends in Wales‏

The phoney war ended in Wales yesterday as the Assembly’s draft budget was announced by Labour’s Finance Minister Jane Hutt. The budget predicted a fall of 10% in real-terms spending over three years with the main axe falling on capital spending with a 40% cut, in effect halting investment in schools, hospitals, roads and rail. http://wales.gov.uk/newsroom/businessandeconomy/2010/101117budget/?lang=en

Spending review will hit the poorest 15 times harder than the rich, says TUC

The poorest ten per cent of households will be hit 15 times harder than the richest ten per cent as a result of service cuts announced in the comprehensive spending review (CSR), according to a new analysis published today (Friday) by the TUC.

Sack half a million: That's the way to create jobs, is it?

Responses from the labour movement to the savage cuts announced by The ConDems today has been swift and unanimous. UNISON's immediate statement that: "George Osborne has condemned the country to decades of hardship and the people to unnecessary wholesale unemployment, with his “ideologically driven, no hope, no ideas, cuts CSR” has been followed by similar reaction elsewhere.