Fight the council cuts – set no cuts budgets

Text of a Socialist Party Scotland leaflet

Socialist Party Scotland gives full support to the protest of the joint council trade unions against a eye- watering cuts package from the SNP administration. 

Glasgow City Council is in a situation of “managed decline” with a £107 million budget shortfall. This is after several hundred million in cuts over the last decade. 

On top of this the shortfall of the local area Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) faces a £40m budget gap in social services and there are ongoing financial challenges with equal pay liabilities. 

The SNP-Green coalition in Holyrood are united in smashing up public services with some of the biggest cuts since devolution. 

Glasgow UNISON branch secretary Chris Sermanni – also a member of Socialist Party Scotland said: “The trade unions understand that the SNP, Labour and Greens will all table their own version of cuts and new service charges in an attempt to fill the gap. 

“This has been the approach for years and has only led to poorer services, closures and more pain for the people of Glasgow – managing the city’s decline must stop. 

“Councillors should lead a fight back, not administer more harm to the city. The current hand wringing must stop. Almost everyone accepts that local government is under-funded, with Glasgow further unfairly treated due to the lack of recognition of its metropolitan status in the West of Scotland or the higher poverty levels across the city. The arguments are there. We now need a proper campaign to win more funding 

“The joint trade unions in the city – UNISON, UNITE, GMB and EIS – have consistently demanded that the Council set a one year legal no cuts budget, using various financial mechanisms such as borrowing, use of reserves and refinancing debts. A mass campaign could then be launched to mobilise workers and the people of the city to fight for the money stolen by savage cuts made in Holyrood and Westminster.” 

A council spokesperson responded to the demands for a no cuts budget by saying in the press” “local authorities are legally required to set a balanced budget and failure to do so would threaten every local service…we can only close spending gaps by reducing expenditure or generating additional revenue”. 

This is entirely wrong. A legal no cuts budget can be set, the only thing missing from these politically spineless politicians is the will to fight for the working class. 

Instead successive Labour and SNP administrations with the support of the Greens have swung the cuts axe, even while running down the council’s reserves. Local government funding has been decimated for years. What will it take for politicians to fight for the city? Services are in decline and without a change in approach will only get worse. Now is the time to take action. 

Tens of thousands of council workers over the last eighteen months have taken strike action on pay. Nationally coordinated strike action must continue for decent pay and to defend jobs and services. 

Workers need a new party 

Socialist Party Scotland also fights for a pro-working-class political alternative. In many ways Glasgow is in a similar situation as cities like Liverpool in the 1980s under Thatcher with capitalist politicians “managing decline”. 

Our forerunners, Militant, led a socialist strategy as party of a socialist Labour council in the 1980s which defied cuts from central government and set a budget that fully funded services, building houses, leisure facilities and creating jobs. Trade unionists in their tens of thousands came out in mass demonstrations and strike action to support the council. We need such a mass struggle today but there is no prospect of that from the SNP or Starmer-Sarwar’s Labour. 

That’s why we are spearheading with the Scottish Trade Unionist and So- cialist Coalition a socialist general election challenge in the city, with fighting trade unionists as candidates. We fight for a new mass party of the working class based upon the trade unions. 

Ultimately the social crisis and decline in Glasgow is caused by capitalism. We need a socialist society based on the public ownership of major industries, banks, technology and infrastructure under the control of the working class.