Our public services are under attack. The Tory-Lib Dem coalition government wants to radically slash public spending. That means cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs - sacking nurses, teachers, street cleaners, train drivers, civil servants - anyone who works for a public service is in the firing line. All sorts of services, from nurseries to care for the elderly, are under threat of closure. Millions of working-class people will be hurt by these cuts.
Young people will be amongst the worst hit. Our schools may become 'academies', meaning more corporate/business involvement in the classroom and more “know your place”-type training rather than actual education. University fees may go up, meaning even fewer of us will have the chance to go. And it'll become even harder for us to get jobs – and the jobs we can get will be low-paid and exploitative.
We are not "all in it together". At the same time as the government is cutting benefits, demolishing council housing and shutting down nurseries used by working-class parents, the wealthiest 1000 individuals in Britain have increased their wealth by £77 billion.
The cuts are also an opportunity for the government to pick a fight with the only organisations capable of standing up for the rights of the working-class: the trade unions. The trade union movement might not be particularly combative right now but it is the only movement where millions of workers are organised as workers. That's why Cameron and Clegg want to break the unions as quickly and decisively as they can.
So, what can we do about it?
We can take take direct action against the cuts. Striking and occupying against cuts gets results. In 2009, teachers and parents at the Lewisham Bridge Primary School in south London occupied the roof of their school for several weeks to stop it from being sold to a private company. That same summer, workers at a wind turbine factory in the Isle of Wight, who had been told that they were to lose their jobs, organised a sit-in, barricading themselves in management's offices for almost a month. These occupations show us one example of how we can defend ourselves.
We can organise anti-cuts committees - trade unions, socialists, students and people who depend on local services are setting up anti-cuts committees. These committees can be used to organise united campaigns, support workers who are taking action, and share information.
Organise where you are - get a group together in your school or college to monitor cuts, talk to staff (especially trade union members - find out who the reps are where you study), and keep an eye out for cuts, and think of what action you can take to head them off as they come. Find out whether there is a local anti-cuts committee and send people to it from your group.
We need a political working-class movement! Above all, we need to build a political movement that can represent the voice of working-class people, and fight our corner. We need to fight for democracy inside the working-class organisations that already exist, and get them fit for purpose: trade unions, trades councils, even the Labour Party. We need to kick out the bureaucrats and careerists and build a working-class movement that can fight, and ultimately take power in its own name - against this bosses' government, we need a movement that can fight for a workers' government.
