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20 OCTOBER NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
Let’s turn the tide against austerity
CAMDEN ORGANISING MEETING
THURSDAY 19 JULY 7pm Camden Town Hall Judd St WC1
Our local communities and the public services central to any decent society are suffering cuts on an unprecedented scale, and the Coalition government’s programme for slashing public spending has only just started.
The NHS is threatened with cuts and privatisation. With tens of thousands of jobs axed from schools, council services, the civil service and the voluntary sector, unemployment has risen sharply especially among women and young people. Further education jobs and courses are slashed, with a new threat of no Housing Benefits at all for those under 25. And they want to make people pay more, work longer and get less for their pensions.
Britain is the world’s seventh wealthiest country.
- 10% of the population own 50% of all personal wealth – a staggering £4,000 billion.
- The richest 1,000 individuals alone have an obscene combined wealth of £396 billion, a £60 billion rise in just a year.
Rather than increase taxes on the corporations and the super-rich, the government has used the financial crisis as an excuse to slash billions from our vital public services. George Osborne even cut tax for the highest earners and reduced corporation tax in the last budget. They do nothing to stop the estimated £100 billion in tax avoidance and evasion by corporations and banks while they continue to slash tax inspectors’ jobs.
Resistance is growing
There are signs across Europe that the tide really is turning with growing demands for an alternative to endless doses of austerity.
In Britain half a million people marched against the cuts in March last year. That laid the basis for strike action in June and then again in November when two and a half million struck in defence of pensions.
Since then the majority of public sector workers have either taken more strike action or voted against these plans and the pensions fight is not over. Oil refinery workers and fire-fighters are the latest to strike against cuts. Young and old, working and unemployed, direct action has been growing against attacks on benefits, services and job.
But we have to step up the action if we are to turn the tide.
TUC calls 20 October mass demonstration
The TUC have called a national demonstration against the cuts on Saturday 20 October. The plans are to make this even bigger than last year’s. Pledge your support here http://action.goingtowork.org.uk/page/signup/pledge-to-join-us-on-20-october
Teachers unions are already balloting for coordinated strike action in the autumn. Let’s make sure that 20 October is a springboard to a serious and sustained campaign of resistance that we need to turn the tide against austerity and cuts.
We urge all trade union, campaign and community activists, tenant and student representatives in Camden to start now to mobilise the widest possible support for the protest.
Camden Trades Council 