Resist the Cuts..
..Fight for a Workers-led ‘Just Transition’

Shocks to re-shape the Economy
· We are seeing the most savage spending cuts since the 1930’s. The cuts of 25% to most Whitehall departments will smash our social welfare system- violently pulling the rug from underneath individuals and families, who have been supported by public goods such as housing, education, and transport.
· Two years ago the banks were bailed out with £850bn of taxpayers money
· The Bank Levy of £2.5bn is pale in comparison to the last round of city bonuses of £7bn, and will take 0.04% of the banks’ profits in the first year. Some of the major banks will actually make an overall gain from government intervention due to the reduction of the corporate tax from 28% to 24% in June.
· Public bodies which exist to promote corporate profit remain untouched and uncut. E.g. the Commonwealth Development Corporation, Export Credit Guarantee Department, Sea Fish Industry Authority.
· As the Con-Dem coalition shrinks state provision the private sector will move swiftly in to capitalize on new markets attacking working conditions and reducing service quality to bolster the bottom line.
The government is using the financial crisis caused by capitalist economics to re-shape the economy for the ends of profit and corporate gain

Fuel Poverty
· In March 2009 over 5 million households across the UK were living in fuel poverty
· Lowered incomes and higher fuel prices will increase fuel poverty again this winter, and the governments lack of action will leave the most vulnerable to suffer the consequences. Ordinary workers didn’t refuse to have a national program of free home insulation, not to invest in sustainable energy rather than having coal and oil burning power stations, so why are people being forced to choose between financial poverty or fuel poverty?

A fight for stable jobs and a just economy is a fight for the environment
· The environmental crisis and the coming cuts onslaught have their roots in the fundamentals of the way our society is organized; capitalism.
· The organisation of society under the interests of profit can only allow for the pursuit of more profit – consideration of the interests of the planet or of human need comes second, if at all.
· The owners, bosses and shareholders are a minority of people wielding enormous power over the rest of our lives. Not only do their colossal battles at the top of the economy cause frequent crisis and devastation for the rest of us, but they also wreak havoc with the natural world.
· Capitalist control over the world's land, resources and factories is causing untold devastation to the ecology of the planet, and the affects will hit the workers hardest


Resistance to the Cuts starts in the Workplace
· As workers we have the power to change the economy; to take control of our workplaces and secure our livelihoods, to re-organize society not for profit but for social need and a healthy environment

· Let’s take back our workplaces
- Occupy for democratic workers control of our livelihoods
- Operate them for social need not profit
- Organize them to meet the threats of climate change and peak oil
- Create a solidarity economy supporting each other’s workplaces as was done with the occupied Argentinean co-operatives in the 1990’s

lets look to tactics of the French strikers now who have shut down the oil depots and refineries..
..to the Lucas Aerospace workers who produced a plan for turning their arms factory to the production of socially useful goods..
.. and the 1970’s The New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation who refused to allow the building of socially and environmentally destructive projects

..we can do this too
lets build a unified movement to..
Occupy, Create and Resist for a Workers-led ‘Just Transition’