Union leaders yesterday launched a series of angry attacks on the government’s “obscene” plans to cut public spending amid warnings that councils faced a “forest fire” of reductions in jobs and services.
Labour’s annual conference warned that the cuts will substantially increase unemployment and weaken economic growth as delegates agreed to defend front line services.
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis told the Manchester conference: “Our public services face an attack, the like of which we’ve never seen. A dishonest coalition of vandals, bent on destruction. Using the financial crisis to plunder our welfare state – take a chainsaw to our public services.
“Planning cuts on an unimaginable scale, our National Health Service, our schools system broken up. Local government to be handed over to powerful contractors. Big corporations cream off the profitable parts while vulnerable users and communities, the poor, left to fend for themselves.”
Tony Woodley, joint leader of Unite, told delegates: “David Cameron and his millionaire Cabinet will not be among those hurt by pay freezes, benefit reductions and an estimated 1.2 million job losses that will follow. But this ConDem government, particularly the Liberals, has no political mandate for the assassination of our public services with their savage cuts and privatisation of our NHS.
“And these cuts won’t limit their harm to the public sector. Construction workers are losing their jobs with the schools project cancelled, transport will be hit with local funding cuts and manufacturing jobs will go as government procurement dries up.”
Striking a deeply personal note, Mr Woodley spoke publicly for the first time about his wife who had a stroke but saw a paramedic within minutes before being transferred to the care of Chester Hospital where the Labour government had spent £0.75 million doubling the capacity of the stroke unit.
“My wife’s life was saved thanks to Labour and my family benefited from Labour. The terrifying worry is that under this government, other families will not be so fortunate.”
Alan Ritchie, general secretary of the construction workers’ union Ucatt, warned that public sector cuts would lead to a “huge loss” of job opportunities in the building industry.
“The millionaires in the Cabinet claim that we’re all in this together – this is utter nonsense. They sit in their mansions getting richer, while families are left to rot in bed and breakfast bedsits.
“The Tories don’t care about society. Their ideology is about the individual. It’s about: ‘I’m all right Jack, sod everyone else’.”
Mr Ritchie said the construction industry had been “kept going” by public sector spending, which was now being slashed by the government.
Heather Wakefield, of Unison, told a fringe meeting that local authority budgets could be slashed by almost a third on top of reductions which have already totalled £1.2 billion.
Councils across the country were cutting jobs and services, including threats today of huge numbers of redundancies at Sheffield City Council, including the “crazy idea” of outsourcing services to private firms, she said, adding: “There is a forest fire of cuts coming our way which is extremely serious.”
Delegates agreed a motion rejecting the government’s “obscene” policies and supporting economic recovery through investment as well as calling for a review into the effect of privatisation on public services.
John Wright, former national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, warned the conference of the knock-on effect that public sector cuts would have on private sector jobs.
“For every 100,000 jobs lost in the public sector there will be approximately 60,000 jobs lost in the private sector, because it has to be remembered that many of the small businesses rely upon those public sector contracts to keep them going,” he said.
Bob Neill, Minister for Local Government, commented: “Thanks to Labour’s reckless spending spree with taxpayers’ money, the country faces a toxic legacy of government debt of up to £70 billion. The yearly debt interest on this alone would be more money than currently raised by council tax, business rates, stamp duty and inheritance tax combined.