Finding it harder than usual to get back into things. I feel it isn’t only me. The prospects for the next year look grim. Who wants to leave the quiet, restful days of August to get stuck into this? Nevertheless, as people meet to plan and organise, with the conference season under way, there is a smell of blood in the air, suddenly Clegg and Brown and Osborne are all talking about cuts. The cartoon in today’s Guardian sums it up well.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/cartoon/2009/sep/19/labour-government-spending-cuts
For all the talk of cutting Trident, ID cards, putting up taxes, when the knife goes in it will be into the poor. Who pays for the crisis remains the big question. Graham Turner shows that public spendiong is hardly up at all. The crisis in government finances is because of the fall in tax revenue. He proposes therefore that taxes should rise for those that can afford it. As Britain has become more unequal than at any time in the last century, taxation seems a sensible way or killing two birds with one stone.
Actually August wasn’t as restful as usual. The Vestas battle kept us busy in Manchester, not counting the two comrades who went to camp for six weeks outside the plant. Two weeks ago we had a meeting with Jaymie from Vestas, the third Vestas worker to come to Manchester and Thursday just gone we had the picket of the Warrington HQ and the solidarity leafleting and petitioning in Piccadilly with about 15 of us there. The meeting at the end of July with Matt from Vestas was one of the best solidarity meetings any of us can remember with the Mary Quayle room packed, 60 plus. It was particularly good to have Steve from RMT to talk together with Matt about the RMT’s role. It isn’t quite the same as Big Bill Hayward going as IWW organiser to a dispute in the Deep South but it is in the same tradition. I think this couldn't have been done without the Trades Council which is a compliment but also a warning. The scale of the solidarity is modest, we have a lot of work to do. It's important to se that it is based on a political understanding of the state of the planet, the role of Ed Miliband, the importance of occupations. Political trade unionism is the key.
And what better example that the TUC vote to boycott goods from the occupied territories labelled Israeli. The TUC managed to take a stand that impressed me. I can’t remember when that last happened. It’s also the first time the new UCU has been vindicated so publicly on a political stand it has made.
