‘There is a growing recognition across the working class and peoples of Britain that “we are not all in this together”‘, Moz Greenshields told the Communist Party’s executive committee at the weekend.
‘They know that poverty is not the fault of the poor, unemployment is not the fault of the worker, and working people are not the fault of the economic and cost of living crisis’, she argued, ‘they are all the fault of the system and its big business monopolies’.
Ms Greenshields, a leading figure in the trades councils movement, accused the Conservative government and employers of fighting a ‘war of attrition’ against the trade union movement. The intention is to divide and exhaust unions and their members, offering smaller real-terms pay cuts to some and nothing to others, while Britain’s harsh anti-union laws force unions to ballot and re-ballot in order to take action.
‘That’s why a united front of labour movement organisations is vital in order to strike down a government that has declared war on the working class in order to protect the subsidised profits of the rail and energy companies and the super-profits of the likes of Shell and BP’, she declared.
Britain’s Communists said now was the time to prepare for the formation of ‘councils of action’ in towns and cities across Britain, bringing together trades councils, local union committees, the People’s Assembly, Black Communities Matter, tenants groups, health and pensions campaigners, student unions and others.
‘This would not only maximise the prospects for bringing down the Tories’, Ms Greenshields remarked, ‘it will also open the way to building an anti-monopolies alliance to fight for an alternative economic and political strategy – whatever the nature of the next government’.
The Communist Party executive urged unions and the TUC to work out a united, coordinated strategy to make the Strikes (Minimum Level of Service) Bill unworkable and charged the party’s political committee with issuing a statement on the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill.
The CP also condemned the riot instigated by fascists outside a hotel for asylum seekers in Knowsley, Merseyside, last Friday evening, praising the role of the Young Communist League and local people in organising a counter-demonstration.