Coalition's 100 days: Poor and vulnerable hit by cuts, says TUC

Given the high number of unemployed people and the record number on the housing list Brent is going to be badly hit by the coalition cuts and benefit changes. The TUC has today set out the implications of decisions made in the Coalition's first 100 days:

Some of the UK's poorest families have been hit by more than 100 unfair spending cuts during the first 100 days of the new Government, a TUC analysis of departmental spending reveals today
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The TUC research, published in advance of the 100 day anniversary of the coalition Government tomorrow (Thursday), shows that cuts which impact more on the poorest families in the UK have been made across the board in services including education, health, housing, welfare and social care.
Examples of cuts the TUC believes are unfair include:

• Free school meals - The cancelled measure would have extended entitlement to free school meals to about 500,000 families in work on low pay from September this year. Cost £125m.
• Every child a reader - This programme to provide early support to children with literacy difficulties (focussed on inner-city schools) will be cut by at least £5m and its future is not guaranteed.
• City Challenge Fund - This programme aimed to provide extra support to under-performing children in the most deprived areas, but has been cut by £8m this year.
• Building Schools for the Future - This scrapped programme was the biggest-ever school buildings investment plan. The aim was to rebuild or renew nearly every secondary school in England. Cost £7.5bn.
• Housing benefit - Nearly a million (936,960) households will lose around £624 a year as a result of changes to housing benefit. Londoners will be worst hit.
• Homes and Communities Agency - Cuts to programmes including Kickstart (for restarting stalled house building programmes), affordable housing, gypsy and traveller support and Housing Market Renewal (improvements to housing in deprived areas). Cost £450m.
• Young Person's Guarantee - £450m has been cut from the Guarantee, which will be abolished in April 2011. This Guarantee promised unemployed young people access to a job, training or work after six months of unemployment.
• Working Neighbourhood Fund - This fund, which aimed to help unemployed people in deprived areas to move into work, has been cut by £49.9m.
• Domestic Violence Protection Orders - Scheme to create two-week banning orders so that victims of domestic abuse can look for protection in the safety of their own house.

The TUC is calling on the Government to reconsider its plan of swingeing spending cuts to public services, and focus instead on other ways to reduce the deficit, such as a Robin Hood Tax on financial transactions that could raise up to £20bn a year.

The TUC is also a member of a coalition, which includes Barnardo's, Oxfam and Save the Children, who want the Government to guarantee that any future budget cuts will be put through rigorous fairness testing - or a Fairness Test - by the Treasury, to ensure that vulnerable people, low-paid workers, women and children are not left to bear the brunt of spending cuts.

A HISTORY OF STRUGGLE FOR LOCAL CHILDREN

The picket line at Grunwicks, Chapter Road, Willesden

Chatting last night after a Brent Green Party meeting in Willesden, we got round to discussing the Grunwick dispute which took place round the corner at the Cobbold Road and Chapter Road Grunwick photo processing factory owned by George Ward. I described joining picket lines at 6.30 in the morning as a young teacher, before going off to do a day's teaching, often bruised as a result of the pushing contests between police and pickets.

The dispute lasted from 1976-1978 and was significant in many ways.  Firstly,  it was a dispute involving immigrant workers from East Africa, Indian and the Caribbean, that broke through into the national trade union consciousness.  It produced solidarity action from the Cricklewood Postal Workers' Union, who stopped delivering the processing mail orders, and when this was stopped by court action, other unions joined in mass pckets including miners and printers. It was also a dispute that mobilised many women trades unionists and activists: a women only mass picket met with unprecedented police violence. Immigrant workers became visible for the first time and other disputes followed, aided by the workers' experience of mobilising against colonialism.

Secondly it marked the first major intervention by the National Association For Freedom (yes it was NAFF - probably why they renamed themselves the Freedom Association, currently going large on climate change denial) on the side of bosses and against trade unions, and was in many ways a rehearsal for action against the miners during the Thatcher era.

Thirdly, it exposed weaknesses in the Labour government and the labour movement which we still suffer from today. The precarious Callaghan government was split on the dispute. Shirley Williams, a member of Apex, the strikers' union, joined the picket line, while Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, sent in the police and the Special Patrol Group to break up the pickets.

Many Brent schools take part in Black History Month every October. They often study American Civil Rights leaders while UK studies are often about Black role models or celebrities. A study of Grunwick would reveal the strength of self-organisation and solidarity action and relate immediately to local people and the local area. In the revealing video produced by Brent Trades Council Vipin Magdahi, a member of the Strike Committee, says, "You can go to any college or school - but what we learnt in those days nobody could teach us."  Jayaben Desai, leader of the dispute, on hunger strike outside the TUC to ask for support, was asked by Len Murray, then leader of the TUC, "Who told you to do this?" (He was obsessed with the idea that the 'ultra-left' was responsible). She replied, "Nobody - it is part of our Indian tradition."  The strike failed when the wider movement decided to concentrate on fighting the Labour Government's pay restraint and social contract, but there is much children could learn from this strike which was of national significance.

There is an exhibition about the strike called 'Striking Women: Voices of South Asian Workers from Gruinwick and Gate Gourmet'  at the Women's Library, London, E1 7NT until 31st March. Images can be found on the SocietyGuardian website.  It would be wonderful if it could be exhibited at the Willesden Green Library in the future and visited by local children.

Copies of the DVD cost £10 and can be ordered through the Brent Trades Council website or by writing to Brent TUC, Willesden Trades and Labour Hall, 375 High Road Willesden NW10 2JR, enclosing a cheque for £10 payable to Brent TUC.