Free newspaper about the crisis - articles needed

I should be up for covering benefits.

The article on Lindsay etc from the last Resistance could be adapted to fit with the style of the paper too.

Steven, I hate to say it, but the Polish factory occupation turned out to be quite a disappointment. People got their back pay.... and went home. Even some people were leaving the occupation the minute they received an SMS telling them that they got money sent to their account.

Sorry, but the truth is it didn't turn out to be a great example in the end.

I would be glad to write 150 words on another topic, for example how the government, business lobby and unions are changing the labour law to the detriment of workers as a response to the crisis.

I still think it's pretty interesting, especially with a similar occupation now being staged in Dundee, an article comparing the two would be interesting, though I don't have enough in depth knowledge of either struggle to write anything worth reading myself.

I've updated 'what recession means for us' to take into account the budget and other developments, and axed the 'what can we do about it' bit as that's a separate article. it probably needs a line at the end linking to that article 'not all doom and gloom, p5' or whatever. all the factual claims are footnoted in the version i have, in case there's any queries over their veracity.

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The recession is here. We're told to tighten our belts and brace ourselves for redundancies, wage and service cuts. Politicians and business leaders are united in saying we should pay for a crisis not of our making. A recession is simply when the economy shrinks for 6 months in a row. What this means for individual firms is a squeeze on profits, and we can be certain that unless we do anything about it, that’s going to mean a squeeze on us, as our employers try to protect those profits.

Even public sector workers will feel the squeeze as the government tries to recover the billions already spent on bailing out the banking system, and to make ‘efficiency savings’ in the face of falling tax revenues. But wait, doesn’t the recent budget make the rich pay with a new 50% high-income tax band?

The Financial Times reassured its affluent readership with a more honest take on matters. Of £104bn worth of government ‘claw-backs’, a maximum of £2bn is expected to come from taxing the rich. That’s less than 2% of the total, and even that doesn’t take into account that the rich will try and pass on their burden by dodging taxes or increasing their incomes at the expense of our wages. The Treasury’s own assessment found that 69% of rich people would dodge the extra tax to some extent.

A further £18bn is planned to come from ‘regressive’ taxes. These are taxes that effect you more the less you earn. No trouble for the rich here. The rest is scheduled to come from public service cuts – the biggest in 30 years according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies - and wildly optimistic forecasts for a rapid economic recovery – when the worst recession in 50 years has only just begun! In fact just three days after the budget, government figures showed the economy had already slumped below the Treasury’s forecasts. So behind the headlines the plan is clear – they want to make us pay for their crisis. So how is the recession going to affect us?

Redundancies
One way in which the cost of the crisis is passed onto us is through redundancies. Unemployment has just passed 2 million is predicted to increase to over 3 million in the next couple of years. This means over a million more people will lose their jobs. Already the news is full of layoffs, and it’s set to get worse. Obviously redundancy hits those laid off in the pocket. This is especially the case if they’re agency staff or haven’t been in the job long, which means they don’t get much or any redundancy pay. But redundancies also hit those ‘lucky’ enough to keep their jobs as they have to work harder to make up.

Unemployment
Not content with mass lay-offs, just when the economy is proving incapable of keeping people in work, the government is planning to cut benefits bills by punishing unemployed people for not finding jobs! A recent report recommended that unemployed workers should be made to either look for work or do community service “from 9 to 5” in order to earn their £60 dole money. That works out at £1.50 an hour! A whole host of other attacks are planned, such as forcing single parents with children over the age of one and many people currently signed off sick to look for work or have their benefits stopped. Of course, the whole point of a recession is there’s not many jobs to look for.

Wage cuts
Those of us who keep our jobs can’t expect to escape the punishment. Wages will be attacked directly; workers at JCB factories recently voted to take a £50/week pay cut to avoid redundancies. This kind of ‘between rock and a hard place’ offer is likely to become more common with workers nervous about losing their jobs. But wages can be cut in less visible ways too. If workers can be made to work harder and faster, or longer days or through their breaks, we end up doing more work for the same pay. This will often be making up for the work of colleagues made redundant, saving the boss cash. Whenever your boss asks you to “give 110% for the team,” this is what they have in mind. Of course we pay the price in stress and burnout, but at least we’ve got a job, right?

Public service cuts
A further £35bn of the government claw-backs are scheduled to come from public sector spending cuts. This will mean cuts to public services and further attacks on public sector workers pay and conditions. Front-line services are expected to be hit, so alongside the attacks on unemployment benefit, the health service is expected to be particularly hard hit alongside cutbacks to schools, social housing, energy efficiency programmes, GP surgeries and flood defences. Of course if you can afford private healthcare and to move out of flood-risk areas, this probably won’t bother you. For the rest of us it’s bad news.

Repossessions and evictions
Another way the recession will hit us is through a rise in home repossessions and evictions as people fall behind on mortgage repayments and rent. Repossessions are already at record levels, and set to rise further. Landlords complain that tenant arrears are already at their highest level since the 1980s. The government is making noises about making the banks - including those it now owns – hold off on repossessions. No doubt they’re conscious that chucking families out on the street is not likely to be popular. But they’re in a bind. If they don’t repossess people, why should anyone pay their mortgages at all? If the government steps in to nationalise the homes of mortgage defaulters as has been suggested, this just raises the amount they have to claw back through the other means discussed above. The absurdity is we could see people being chucked out on the street while houses stand empty and can’t be sold.