by Our News Desk

“AUSTERITY isn’t working — because austerity is not designed to work for us,” Jackson Cullinane told a packed-out Morning Star fringe yesterday.

“It’s a political project to ensure the working class as a class, whether in work or out, is driven to sell their labour at a lower cost so business makes bigger profits,” the Unite Scotland political officer charged.

“And the bid to ban strike action from the Tories is part of austerity, because they know that only we can defeat austerity.”

Mr Cullinane said trade union support for the People’s Assembly, to bring communities and unions together in struggle, was vital if the anti-austerity movement was to win, as was increased readership for the Morning Star as the labour movement’s paper.

Unison Scottish convener Lillian Macer warned that “austerity will continue after this election.

“The only people who can stop that are the working class.”

Morning Star acting editor Ben Chacko highlighted the importance of challenging the mass media narrative that insisted there was no alternative to endless cuts and privatisation.

“We need to be the voice of the labour movement putting the demands of that movement,” he said, praising the initiative by the Institute of Employment Rights to bring trade unions, lawyers and activists together to argue for the rights we need rather than simply reacting to ruling-class attacks.

RMT member Janet Cassidy called on all present to “get your branch to buy shares in the Morning Star.
“Then you can say to members: ‘It’s your paper’ and they can get involved.”

PCS Scottish secretary Lynn Henderson described the war being waged on public servants by the Con-Dem government — which had chopped 90,000 Civil Service jobs in five years.

“Cuts to facility time mean I know reps who’ve put in 117 hours of their own time to meet management just to carry out their statutory duties,” she said.

Combined with the removal of check-off for membership it was a deliberate attempt to drive the union out of the Civil Service.

The meeting was chaired by People’s Assembly Scotland chair Phil McGarry, who called for solidarity with striking NHS Tayside porters. A bucket collection was held for the strikers.