‘People make Glasgow’- aye right!
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! supporters joined the crowds gathered outside Glasgow city chambers on 19 February to protest against the £29.5m budget cuts being passed by the Labour led council.
Once again the cuts are aimed at the poor and vulnerable. They are the ones being made to pay for the capitalist crisis. £2m will be cut in education services for children in hospital and those with psychological or additional support needs. £1m will come from mental health services, including the controversial cut to third sector body the Glasgow Association for Mental Health (40% of GAMH’s funding). A £1.5m cut from Glasgow Life will affect community and library services. A total of £2m will be cut from grants to voluntary organisations, while the closure of two of the remaining four day centres for learning disability will see the loss of 40 jobs.
Beyond rhetoric the leaderships of the two biggest trade unions in Britain Unison and Unite offer no resistance. They have proved in the last five years that they are content to stand by and watch as Glasgow’s Labour Party council – which they financially and politically support – hammers those in and out of work. According to Unison Glasgow branch secretary Brian Smith future cuts are “on top of over £200mn in cuts in the last five years and 4,000 job losses” (The National, 17 February, p4). They will not risk their millions of pounds of assets to defend workers by breaking the anti-trade union laws. New forces will have to re-emerge.
In the shadow of George square, which witnessed thousands mobilise for a yes vote in last year’s referendum in a clear rejection of austerity, the Labour Party council continue to turn the screw on Glasgow’s working class. The Yes to independence, No to austerity movement is sorely missed and must be rebuilt now. The only alternative to cuts is an independent socialist Scotland. Socialist Cuba has demonstrated to the world’s poor and oppressed that another way is possible but only when the class system is thrown into the dust bin of history!
Interesting fact –
In 1991 with the fall of the Soviet Union Cuba lost its chief trade partner and overnight was thrown into economic chaos in what was called ‘The Special Period’. Despite this the Cuban revolution did not close down a single school, maternity ward, hospital or sports facility; quite the opposite. As one Cuban we spoke to on the 2009 rock around the blockade solidarity brigade to Cuba stated ‘At all times the economy was to be subordinated to social objectives’. Read more at http://www.ratb.org.uk/
