TUC 2012 - You deserve a future - so march for it

TUC 2012: Two-and-a-half years into this catastrophic government there is a very real risk that the damage they are doing to our countries could be permanent.

With George Osborne tinkering around in No 11, digging an even deeper debt hole with every day that passes, with Mervyn King wringing his hands, muttering darkly about "choppy waters" in the gloom of the Bank of England and with David Cameron pronouncing that he can see no end to austerity this anti-dynamic trio have brought buffoonery where we need brilliance.

We've had enough.

The trade union movement is mobilising for "a future that works" this autumn.

Economists may puzzle over the "resilience" in the economy but the truth is it is the sheer hard work of the people of our nations which is keeping this country afloat. And what thanks do they get?

Slagged off as lazy by Tory backbenchers who delight in well-paid jobs but have no idea what it means to struggle to get by.

The true picture is one of growing precarious employment with agency working, part-time working and the dreadful "zero-hours" contracts all on the increase.

More and more people are forced to declare themselves "self-employed" to get work.

Millions of workers are now working without entitlement to the holidays, pensions and fair wages we fought for.

Osborne grabs at the crazy notion of "mini-jobs," formalising insecure working when actually the answer to getting the economy out of this government-induced coma lies in getting the stashed billions out of bank vaults and into our factories, onto our high streets and into building homes fit for the millions in need.

This all speaks to the cluelessness of the government. 

Even the experts agree that a one-trick cuts policy is now causing genuine harm.

With many of those who backed the Chancellor's austerity plans in 2010 now crying out for these very same policies to be abandoned, the consensus is that this government is hurting but it is not working.

Promises to pay off over £2 billion of the deficit in the high-tax take months of the summer turned into an increased debt of £600m in Osborne's expert hands.

Even in the City the penny must be dropping. It is time for a change. Stop the cuts, start investing.

We don't need the "experts" to tell us this though.

Our members remind us of the trials of life in coalition Britain day in day out.

Like the young members who tell us that they have done everything asked of them - the degree, the voluntary experience, amassing the choking debts - only to find themselves told to stack shelves on workfare or live in state-induced pennilessness.

Or the young man forced to sleep on his friend's sofa because he cannot afford his own bed on his aviation worker's wages.

Or those whose daily life is made more trying by the costs of transport, the price of food, the public services that they pay for but are closing or are cut.

Tens of thousands of members tell us that they are borrowing to get by every month.

There is too much month at the end of their wages. Most need an extra £200 to get through the month - about the sum taken from them to pay for the collapse at the banking casino - and many are turning to pay-day lenders on 4,000-per-cent-plus interest rates to make ends meet.

It is not luxuries that people are splashing out on. It is food, fuel, the mortgage. While they borrow to get by, top bosses' pay grew by 8.5 per cent in the past year. At best workers have had below-inflation (aka a cut) deals of 1 per cent.

Every single one of these is a good enough reason to march on October 20.

But what we are really marching for is our future as a country.

Unless this government changes course - and now - it will not be the deficit that is wiped out but all hope that this country can be the cohesive, fair, progressive nation most of us aspire for it to be.

By every reasonable measure austerity has failed this country.

The sinister cultivation of fear of the deficit has disguised the most aggressive assault on public service, services and the needy this country has had the sorrow to witness.

This government is impoverishing our nation, economically and socially.

It is time to stand up against this despair.

We must not stand silent while this government drives our communities to the darkest edge of neoliberalism.

It is our values that have held this nation together for generations - decency, fairness, building a land fit for heroes, eroding the evils of poverty.

We must not watch while these timeless ideals are trodden into the ground by a privileged mob.

So if you have not got any plans for October 20 then get your diary out now. Mark it as the day we stand together and say: "No more."

See you in London.