The Trade Union Congress (TUC) voted overwhelmingly to coordinate resistance to the Coalition Government’s forthcoming cuts.

In Manchester, on Monday 13 September 2010, there were calls for strikes and civil disobedience.

“Congress resolves that all TUC affiliates will urgently work together to build a broad solidarity alliance of unions and communities under threat and organize a national demonstration,” Composite 10 on Defending Public Services put to the vote.

It urged members to “mobilize maximum opposition to [the government’s austerity measures, and] ... build a robust campaign in defense of public services, seeking to publicize and build this fight across the labor movement and local communities as a whole.”

The composite was passed with only one delegate opposing.

Behind the call for action was a deep concern that the government’s sweeping economic reform “threatens another three-quarters of a million people with the dole [unemployment] … depresses consumer demand across the economy, brings us to the brink of a double-dip recession.”

Earlier, Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, said in his speech which opened the Congress, “we also need to be clear it is not just public services and public sector jobs that will be hit by the cuts.

“There is a huge threat to the private sector too, with sectors like construction already feeling the pain because the government spends over £200 billion [$312 billion] a year procuring goods and services from business.

“If this is cut by 25 percent, or more, then there will be a gaping hole in the economy. Output will fall. Unemployment will rise. The deficit will get worse not better. That’s what the IMF and the OECD are now warning about.”

He also pointed out that “cuts always hit the poorest, most vulnerable, most disadvantaged people,” which is why a study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Developement (OECD) found that under the cuts in the 1990s, inequality and poverty rates accelerated faster in Sweden and Canada than anywhere else in the developed world.

Brian Strutton of the trade union GMB, supports the Composite 10. On Defending Public Services he said, “we begin our preparations for national industrial action next month.

“Because if this government won’t listen to any alternatives. Then, together with our communities, we will have no alternative but to take action.”

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GMB members at the giant Macclesfield manufacturing site of Astra Zeneca had voted by a more than 70 percent for strike action on 8th, 15th, 22nd and 23rd September.

Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary, said, in a statement, that the hugely profitable company is attacking GMB members’ pensions, while “its Chief Executive David Brennan has reached third in the U.K. league of the top bosses pension entitlements. When he retires based on today’s figures, Mr. Robinson will enjoy a pension of more than £17,500 [$27,335] per week.”

This militancy harks back to the 1980s when industrial disputes became marked by physical violence. There have been airport and London tube strikes. On October 5 and 6, during the Tory conference, and on October 19 and 20 around the government’s comprehensive spending review, BBC technicians, journalists and presenters are expected to walk out.

There is still an unsureness about the legality of some of these measures but unions say they will act within the law.

Derek Barnett, president of The Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales (PSAEW) said at his organization’s annual conference in Chester on 15th September, in front of Home Secretary Teresa May, that he believes the coming cuts will lead to riots similar to those of the 1980s.

The Police Federation has already warned that 40,000 officers will loose there jobs. Teresa May has said that the Police Forces will not get special treatment.

In 1979, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher increased police pay despite making vast cuts elsewhere. Eventually the state destroyed the base of British union power after a year long strike by the National Union of Minerworkers was defeated.

Trade Union Congress Calls for Extensive Action Against Cuts