Plymouth Trades Union Council

The Fight To Protect Jobs and Workers

More than 20,000 jobs are being lost in England each week. Not because foreign workers or refugees are taking them all – asylum seekers haven’t even got the right to work in this country. No, a few super-rich bankers, hedge fund managers and shareholders have wrecked the economy by stealing the majority of the world’s wealth. Now, while Governments line-up to bail them out, ordinary workers and the poor across the world are being driven into destitution and hopelessness by rising unemployment, food shortages and a housing crisis.

In Plymouth, job cuts are being announced daily: 300 at the City Council, 500 at Princess Yachts, hundreds more at the Dockyard, machine engineering in Ernesettle, ITV West Country, our local newspapers, Woolworths and the rest of the retail sector. Ordinary Bank staff are losing pay and jobs, while their masters stay protected.

There has never been more of a need for the protection of the Trade Union movement. And now the Trade Unions have to act to fight for every job, for government money to bail out ordinary business and protect ordinary workers jobs. We have to fight for every job and demand tax-payers money, our money, to protect ordinary people.

We need to be clear though - it isn't foreign workers that are destroying our jobs - the slogan 'British Jobs For British Workers' is not good enough, and risks playing into the hands of the BNP and others who seek to divide us. The people who are cutting our jobs are the bosses and the bankers - they are the ones who were happy to take the profits of our labour in the good times (for them!) but now want to sack us to protect guess what? Their profits! Often the reason that they employ workers from other countries is that they can get away with paying them less, or employing them with worse conditions or job security. The solution should be obvious - we need to get those workers into unions, and make sure the bosses pay them the rate for the job! We have more in common with a Polish or Kurdish worker, than a 'British' boss. Who is more likely to cross your picket line, a union member from India or Richard Branson?

Plymouth trade unions are leafleting workplaces, holding stalls in the City Centre, calling public meetings and driving recruitment campaigns to ensure workers are protected and employers and politicians called to account.

We also pledge to support any group of workers that take action to defend their jobs, or who even follow the example of the Waterford Glass workers in Ireland and the Prisme workers in Dundee who have occupied their factories to save jobs.

Save Jobs – Join a Union!

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