Blackpool Local Government Branch

Further lobby of the Council

Detailed negotiations between the union and council officers and a successful lobby of Conservative councillors have resulted in the number of likely compulsory redundancies falling from 261 to about 80 staff.

Blackpool UNISON is calling on all members to support a further lobby of the Council’s Executive meeting on Wednesday 21 July, at 4.30 pm, at the Town Hall.

The Council’s Executive meeting will start at 5.00pm and we want as many members as possible to lobby the Councillors from 4.30pm and then to sit in the Public Gallery at 5.00pm.

A successful lobby is vital to continue to campaign against Coalition cuts of £3 million in local area grants with its threat to vital public services and jobs.

A series of further attacks on jobs, conditions of employment, pensions and services will follow on from the Coalition’s announcement of at least 25% cuts in local government spending.

What is at stack is the future livelihoods of thousands of public employees, the preservation of decent terms and conditions of employment, adequate provision for retirement and well funded locally run services.

Remember it was not local government workers who created the financial crisis, but irresponsible financiers and bankers who destabilised the economy and who are now expecting the public sector to pay the price of their irresponsibility.

Nationally UNISON calls on the bank bailouts, estimated by the International Monetary Fund, to amount to £120 billion to be repaid. Also £4.7 billion could be raised annually with a tax rate of 50% on earnings over £100,000, £10 billion saved annually by reducing tax avoidance, £20-30 billion every year by a Robin Hood Tax on UK financial institutions.

The alternative unless we organise will be a bleak future of mass unemployment, public services handed to private contractors interested only in making profits, cuts in our living standards and poverty in old age and for anyone on benefits.

JOIN THE LOBBY AND FIGHT FOR A DECENT FUTURE