Vote TUSC in Binley and Willenhall on 14 July
Michael Morgan, TUSC candidate for Binley and Willenhall
Coventry Labour council has shown its true colours. It has spent over £3 million of taxpayer money trying to break the HGV bin drivers’ strike – trying to ensure the workers don’t get the fair pay rises they deserve.
The council has brought in Tom White waste services to run a scab service and lied about workers’ salaries. The money is clearly there to give workers a fair deal. Labour councillors just won’t use it.
The council managed to give the Tom White workers a 12% pay rise. They should be able to cough up for their own workers.
The Labour council has done little to defend working-class people in Binley and Willenhall – where there is a council by-election on 14 July – from Tory funding cuts. The Labour candidate even celebrated the strikebreaking operation on his leaflet!
Local services are now either non-existent or operating at a reduced level, like Willenhall library, which was relocated to a much smaller location. The council charges special educational needs and disability (Send) pupils up to £600 a year for transport services to get to school.
This is a disgrace. Yet the Labour council will not fight these cuts and enthusiastically implements them.
The council now has £123 million in reserves – three times the amount it held ten years ago. It talks about saving reserves for a rainy day. Have they not noticed the storm going on for working people?
The Socialist Party says the council should use these reserves, which they can do legally, to combat vicious Tory cuts, while campaigning for the return of money stolen from Coventry by the government.
We need an alternative to cuts. The establishment parties won’t provide one. We need to elect socialist councillors who fight cuts, PFI privatisation and poor working conditions.
With the cost-of-living crisis, we cannot wait for the Labour Party to get its act together. This is why the Socialist Party is part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), and I’m standing in this by-election.
