The Young Communist League sends solidarity to the two million workers taking strike action on July 10 after rejecting the government’s insulting 1 per cent pay offer.
The huge co-ordinated action across the public sector and parts of the private sector shows that, despite four years of open class warfare unleashed under the guise of a periodic crisis of capitalism, workers have not been defeated.
Although called – courtesy of the most vicious anti-union laws in the developed world that the Tories are pushing to make even harsher – on narrow industrial demands, those massed on picket lines and at rallies know that what is also at stake is all the remaining gains made by the organised working class following the Second World War.
But a single day of strike action, however large, won’t be enough to defeat the ruling class offensive and July 10 must prepare the way for a huge mobilisation for October 18’s TUC demonstration and future co-ordinated action and on to the general election and the end of the Con-Dem coalition.
YCL general secretary Zoe Hennessy said: “Working people across Britain will be taking to picket lines in defence of their pay, pensions, public services and ministers’ bid to make workers pay for the bosses’ crisis.
“Public-sector workers have been hit with a 20 per cent real-terms pay cut under the coalition government while FTSE100 directors saw their ‘earnings’ go up 14 per cent in the last year alone.
“Against this capitalist offensive the YCL is clear – only socialism can ensure people are treated fairly, only socialism can provide decent public services, and only socialism can protect the gains that generations of workers have fought for.”
