Member News
13th October 2010
Gail Cartmail, assistant general secretary for public services at Unite, outlines the union's concerns ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
The massive wave of cuts that the coalition government are set to implement on the British people are unnecessary and will devastate communities across the land.
The Comprehensive Spending Review and the earlier emergency budget represent an ideological attack against the collective public services that generations before us fought so hard to create.
This is a disaster that will damage the lives of our families and the communities we live in. However it is not a crisis of our making - it is business as usual for the banks' top bosses, while we are left to cope with unfair and unnecessary cuts.
More than one million public and private sector jobs will be sacrificed, with women bearing the brunt.
In total, two thirds of public sector workers are women. Freezes in pay and detrimental changes to pensions will set women back decades and widen an already unacceptable gender pay gap.
And according to research, the cuts are having a disproportionate impact on families and the poorest.
We question the government's promise of 'new' jobs to replace those lost given the absence of a government strategy to deal with massively reduced demand.
The government has no intention of helping to keep companies afloat during short-term difficulties.
Our economic plan – investment to create jobs to reduce the deficit – is the correct stand to take. It is the alternative to the "slash and burn" cuts that will kill communities and risk plunging us back in recession.
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