We know our strength—now how do we win the battle?

The 30th November public sector strike in Britain and the North will be the biggest industrial action  since  the miners strike. After many decades we will see the power available to the working class  -  how  the  whole of society depends on the labour of working people and that they have at hand the power to withdraw that labour.

Yet when we look at the scale of the attack on our  pensions,  jobs and services we can see immediately that a single day of strike and demonstration will not be enough.

Among all the facts and figures, the bank bailouts and public cuts. There is one overwhelming  reality.   The  changes  are  meant to be permanent.

Our pensions are to go down and stay down. We are to work until we drop. Wages are to go down and stay down. Public resources will be given away to big business and, as a result, adequate health, education and housing will be reserved for the well off. 

The cuts may be driven by the bank bailout, but now   capitalist   governments  everywhere  demand "the restoration of competiveness".  Pensions, wages, jobs and services are all to be driven own and stay down to guarantee profits. 

Our children look forward to a poorer life than we had.

The record of the union leadership in the face of  this  attack has been protest followed by capitulation. ICTU collaborate with the Irish government in the Croke Park agreement to implement the cuts. The British unions want to replace a "Con-dem" government with Labour cuts. In the North they lobby Stormont politicians to no effect.

This struggle is a war to the knife. If we are not to go under we need to organise ourselves in rank and file bodies that cross union structures and are not dependent on the union bureaucracy. Our aim should not be simply to protest, but to overthrow the rule of the bankers and establish an economy that operates in the interests of workers - a socialist economy.