Carmarthenshire UNISON branch demands Plaid steps back from cuts

“Plaid councillors have a choice of whether to vote for cuts or not”

Carmarthenshire County UNISON branch has written to Plaid Cymru councillors to demand they step backs from cuts. The Plaid Cymru group on the council has found £20 million in council reserves. But instead of using the cash to protect services and campaign for their permanent funding from the Welsh and UK governments council leaders have decided to spend the cash on capital projects. And the privatisation and outsourcing of jobs carried out by Labour in the past continues.

So Carmarthenshire UNISON has written to the Plaid Cymru group, we reprint the letter below:

“As you are aware our branch presented a No Cuts Budget to the previous Labour led administration in January 2014 at the same time Plaid was calling on the Labour led Council to use £6-7million of its reserves to offset the worst of the cuts and at the time you were supporting our members and other employees being paid a living wage. It seems that now you are in power these policies and campaigns have been silently ditched. For a party that clams to be anti-austerity under your leadership the Local Authority is doing the opposite Plaid are carrying on from where the Labour Party left off in implementing £40m of Tory cuts passed on by a Labour Welsh Assembly Government.

“Our branch has been consistent in criticising the WAG for passing on cuts and on councillors for voting for cuts. Despite attempts to absolve yourselves of responsibility Plaid councillors have a choice of whether to vote for cuts or not. The validity of our No Cuts Budget is demonstrated by the fact that Plaid and the Independents have recently found £20m from reserves for Capital projects. We believe that the council could find £40m (another £20m) from reserves and borrowing etc. to set a No Cuts Budget to protect jobs and services and then launch a campaign with other local authority’s, trade unions and the wider community to fight the cuts.

“At the recent Executive Board there was much mutual backslapping and excitement about the jobs this Capital spending could create. However while the possibility of some job creation is welcome why is it that spending is found for this but not to protect current jobs and services such as in Adult Community Education. Some Board members Independent and Plaid displayed a lack of understanding of the importance of Adult Community Education and the impact of stopping courses and closing centres would have on local communities. Until you mentioned the issue at the end of the discussion no one mentioned that people would lose their jobs! What is promised with one hand you have already taken away with the other. Why is it that Plaid and the Independents are seeking to outsource Leisure Centres and Theatres putting our members’ jobs, terms, conditions and the service at risk? Why is Plaid seeking to asset transfer parks etc. and increase charges?

“People are quite rightly asking why they voted Plaid to get Tory cuts. Anger against cuts and austerity is building due to the cuts and the policies your party is implementing. Unison will be to the forefront of fighting these cuts that are not necessary and that will negatively impact on our communities. We again urge you to take a different path implement our No Cuts budget stand shoulder to shoulder with our members and other trade unions and the communities you are supposed to serve and represent. We would be happy to debate these issues in public and at least then the public would have the opportunity to hear the alternative to cuts rather than the sham consultation by the council where they were offered a list of cuts that were dressed up as savings.

Yours sincerely, Mark Evans, Branch Secretary, Carmarthenshire County UNISON Branch”