In the middle of an election campaign - what do we see, but the two main parties agreeing once again on the need to help the bosses turn the screw on workers.
They had already agreed on the need to use public funds to bail out the bankers; and they had already agreed on the need to make the working class foot the bill, via cuts in jobs and services. Now they are falling over each other to join in condemnation of the BA cabin crews who are trying to fight for their jobs by going on strike.
Of course the Tories point to BA workers' union Unite's funding for the Labour Party. But when has a union's support for Labour ever prevented Labour government ministers from attacking strikers? So this time, yet again Brown has echoed his ministers in calling the strike "unjustified and deplorable" and he duly telephoned Unite official Woodley, about it.
Brown did not condemn BA, of course. Even though it is obvious that BA is out to provoke a confrontation, no matter how much ground Unite is prepared to give. And Unite has given a lot and is offering even more!
Trying BA workers' patience
BA cabin crews' strike is scheduled for 20-22 March and 27-30 March - but this still hangs in the balance at the time of writing. Yet it is workers' last ditch attempt to stop BA from cutting £60m in costs, literally on their backs.
Already last year, they had been asked to come to shareholders' rescue by working one month for free! Then BA came up with a raft of further cuts: 700 cabin crew jobs to go, (1 crew member cut from all long-haul flights), a 2-year pay freeze, and on top of this, a new contract for all staff recruited for BA's "new fleet" with much inferior terms and conditions (lower pay, seniority eliminated, etc.), supposedly "in line" with rivals, like Virgin.
When the workers rejected these cuts out of hand, boss Willie Walsh began to impose them nevertheless, last November. That was when the first strike ballot - which boss Walsh successfully contested in court - was supported by over 90%. But support for the latest strike ballot was just as overwhelming. And the BA crews are even more determined to teach Walsh and his shareholders a lesson, after unprecedented threats and intimidation - like, for instance, Walsh's threat that strikers would lose their travel perks for life!!
The idea that BA workers are somehow "privileged" compared to workers on other airlines and should therefore tighten their belts and accept worse conditions "like Virgin's crews" is pretty outrageous, of course. If other airline workers have even lousier conditions, they ought to be improved, urgently!
Anyway, if anyone is "privileged" in this story, it is BA shareholders, who have been piling up profits in the many "good" years. Not to mention the shareholders of the companies that make and supply the aircraft, generating their own huge wealth from BA's traffic.
It's socially responsible to strike
The bosses and politicians are claiming that BA cabin crews - but also all other workers who go on strike "in these trying times" - are "irresponsible".
But in fact what would be really "irresponsible" on the part of working class organisations, would be to take all of these attacks lying down, and most especially in these "trying times"! So the civil servants' union leader had no need to try to justify himself about last week's 2-day strike - and he has no need to try to justify the strike planned for the 24th - Budget Day - either!
If workers and unions were to accept all these cuts in jobs, wages, conditions, and public services, without fighting and stopping them, not only would it result in a much greater fall in the standard of living of the working class as a whole, but it would be an encouragement for speculators and parasites of all kinds to resume their dangerous practices - and thus risk yet another crisis!
So, contrary to what politicians keep saying, the real issue today is not the fact that companies may be in the red, nor is it the government's large deficit.
No, the real issue is that the exact same people who caused the crisis through their avaricious profiteering and speculation are still in control of all of the levers of the economy.
It is this problem that has to be confronted - and it is only the working class, using its collective force to throw a spanner in the works, that can stop them.