SPENDING CUTS in the United Kingdom must be opposed by the “poll tax rebellion” that dealt a major blow to prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s final years in powers, the head of the Trades Union Congress declared yesterday.
The warning came as it emerged that the Conservative/ Liberal Democrats coalition is considering cutting £2.5 billion from sickness pay and not just confining their attention on those abusing social welfare rules.
Speaking on the eve of the Trades Union Congress in Manchester, TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber said the electorate last May had not voted for “a radical and permanent cutback” in British public services.
Urging the creation of a coalition to fight the cuts, the unions’ leader said: “These cuts will make the poll tax look as if it was dreamed up by Robin Hood.
“Each day it becomes clearer there are alternatives to these deep cuts that not only threaten services but risk economic recovery and a double-dip recession,” he said.
Chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne is to announce his comprehensive spending review next month, which could see some government departments having to cut up to 40 per cent of their budget.
Research commissioned by the Trades Union Congress claims that the poor will be hit 13 times harder than those who are better off if the proposed cuts go ahead, with the poor losing one-fifth of the benefits they currently get.
Rejecting calls for a general strike that have been led by the head of the RMT railway workers union, Bob Crow, Mr Barber did, however, call for a campaign of civil disobedience.
“The TUC will not be calling for a general strike. That is not going to happen.
“What we will see, however, is groups of workers taking action at the same time. We will not have a 1926 general strike but we will see a number of unions co-ordinating action.
“Workers will take to the streets as they did during the poll tax demonstrations.
“I am not advocating going round smashing shop windows but I am saying there should be a campaign of civil disobedience, that there should be peaceful demonstrations of civil disobedience,” he declared.
