The threat of redundancy hangs over all 26,000 Birmingham City Council (BCC) workers who have been given Section 188 notices warning of cuts in pay and conditions.

That is the whole council workforce, excluding school staff.

BCC faces cuts of £330 million and Chief Executive Stephen Hughes (who earns over £200,000 a year) says he expects a third of administrative jobs to be lost in the next four years.

We have to be absolutely clear- this crisis is not of our making, it is not the ordinary people of this country who have been ‘living beyond our means’ but the fat cats, the greedy bankers and bosses- and they, not us, should be the ones to pay for it!

We will not tolerate the decimation of local services and this wholesale destruction of our livelihoods.

As RESPECT councillor for Sparkbrook, Salma Yaqoob wrote earlier this year:

“One of the reasons the council is in a financial mess is because of money wasted on consultants.

Another £67 million is to be spent this year alone… It is ‘a drop in the ocean’ they say, in the context of a £3 billion budget. I would like to see them say that to community groups in my ward starved of funding, or families stuck for years on housing waiting lists because the council is not building enough homes.”

We say city councillors are elected to deliver services to the residents that they represent– not to destroy them. They have no mandate for cuts.

Faced with a funding crisis, the Council should first cut out all real waste, the huge consultancy fees and bloated wages of top officials. If this still leaves a funding gap, there are two alternatives; set a needs budget, or resign.

A needs budget provides for decent services for all- drawn up in consultation with residents and the community, through a participatory budget process and based on the real needs of local people.

Such a budget, of course, would set the council on a collision course with central government and would require the widest mobilisation of the workers and service users of Birmingham to push for its implementation. This would take the form of mass meetings, protest rallies and demonstrations and, crucially, sustained industrial action including all out strikes.

The recent TUC Congress voted to oppose cuts and austerity measures. We need to hold them to this – to turn their fine words into action on the ground. And we call upon the Labour Party, local and national, to throw its weight behind such a campaign.

This is the editorial in a new leaflet distributed by Socialist Resistance in Birmingham.