Wolverhampton councillors slash jobs

Tears from Wolverhampton councillors as they slash jobs

A Wolverhampton Unison member

Wolverhampton council has announced it is seeking 1,000 voluntary redundancies, and if they were not forthcoming it would be making them compulsory. This comes on top of 600 job losses over the last four years.

The leader of the Labour council said they had no alternative and told us that some councillors ‘had cried when making the decision’.

To add insult to injury, after the announcement he suggested that the unions join forces with the Labour Party to launch a campaign against Tory cuts!

Wolverhampton Unison’s response to them is: dry your eyes and fight to defend public services and for the working class of Wolverhampton who elected you!

A motion calling for the Labour council to defend services and to set a need budget, based on what is required by the people of Wolverhampton, not determined by Tory cuts, will be going to a special Unison branch meeting.

The motion will also call for a ballot on industrial action to defend jobs and services.

Our members have had enough, but it’s not just Wolverhampton. The neighbouring authority Shropshire has announced its intention to sack 50% of its workforce!

These attacks will not stop until the Tories have achieved their goal of destroying public services. As Labour leader Ed Miliband’s performance at TUC confirmed, the election of a Labour government will lead to no reversal of these attacks.

Rather than leave individual branches to defend local jobs and services Unison needs to organise nationally coordinated action to defend all public services.

This, linked to coordinated action by all trade unions, is the only way to defeat the attacks we face.