British Trades Union Congress will not oppose government’s austerity measures

[Hannah Bell]

The British Trades Union Congress (TUC) held its annual congress this week in Manchester, England, the city where it was founded 142 years ago. It decided, after due deliberation and ceremony, to do precisely nothing about the savage programme of austerity measures that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government is set on imposing. The congress proposed no concrete course of action, no protests and certainly no strikes by any of its 6.2 million members, in response to the most devastating package of public spending cuts seen in Britain.

Instead the TUC accorded a warm welcome to Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, who has insisted that the cuts must be introduced as quickly as possible. Following the election, King warned Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg that unless they announced immediate austerity measures there would be a run on the pound.

There could be no delay in implementing a deficit-reduction programme, or the financial markets would turn against Britain as they had done against Greece. “The bigger risk at present, given the experience of the last two weeks, would be for a new government not to put in place clear and credible measures to deal with the fiscal deficit,” King told the coalition leaders.

Rupert Murdoch’s the Sun claimed, “Union leaders are meeting to draw up plans for the biggest strike action the country has seen in decades, in protest at public spending cuts... Britain is teetering on the brink of an Autumn of Discontent”. King was “entering the lion’s den,” said the Herald.

The media’s attempt to present the TUC as an organisation about to unleash massive opposition to the government was rudely punctured by the performance of its leaders. John Monks told the congress, “Let me say that I believe that influence on the boardroom will be better than influence on the picket line as a guide to trade union strategy in the future.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/tucc-s18.shtml

[leveymg]

1. With this leadership, trade unionists will have no influence at all, and no jobs.

Time for a new approach to an old problem.

[ikri]

2. Complete misrepresentation of what happened

They actually agreed joint strike action if attacks on jobs, pensions and public services go ahead.

Everyone's pretty much waiting for the "Comprehensive Spending Review" that's being done at the moment. Once that's published then people will know what, if anything, there needs to be strikes against.

The last part is probably pretty accurate, there needs to be pressure from the boardrooms of the businesses that the Conservatives worship as well as from the workers that they can, and will, ignore.