By Friday, the farcical media circus that politicians call a "democratic election" will be over. Voters will have been given the "choice" of only one anti-working class policy, in three different packages. But it is heads big business wins, tails workers, lose - that is the name of their game!

This is why this election is a non-event for the rest of us. It does not even provide working class voters with a means of expressing anger against the politicians' collusion with the bosses' profiteering and attacks on wages and conditions.

Voting for the main parties is condoning this collusion and there is no way to use our ballot papers to say loud and clear that the parasites who are responsible for the crisis, should be made to pay for it, instead of being allowed to plunder public funds at the expense of jobs and services.

What really matters is not the election results, but how we, the working class majority, will shape its aftermath. We could not make our voice heard in this election, but whether we have a say in what comes next is entirely up to us!

We will not pay for the profit sharks

By Friday, the real business will begin. Whoever gets into office will start to announce the cuts and austerity measures that they will claim "must" be implemented in order to "save" the economy, if not the "country" - precisely the things that none of the politicians dared to spell out during the campaign, for fear of losing votes.

They will do their best to cow us into obedience by throwing colossal public debt figures at us and brandishing the threat of the state going bankrupt, as in Greece or Portugal, should we refuse to sacrifice our jobs and incomes.

They will turn the bosses' campaign against what they call public sector "waste" into a campaign against the alleged "privileges" of low-paid public sector workers.

But we will not allow them to drive a wedge in our ranks, between public and private sector workers. We are all threatened by the same axe and we will be stronger if we fight back together!

We will not allow the jobs and conditions of public sector workers, including postal workers, who do vitally useful jobs, to be savaged. Society does not need fewer public sector workers, but far more, in order to staff better services for the benefit of all!

What society does not need, on the other hand, is the parasitism of shareholders whose dividends and stock market profits have been fed by the plundering of public funds over the past two years.

If anyone must pay to fill the black hole left by the crisis in the state's finance, it should be these parasites. It was their profiteering which caused the crisis in the first place and now they expect us workers, not only to foot the bill for their criminal activities but also to help them rebuild their profits, by milking public funds? No way!

The battles to come

So, yes, Friday will be also the time for the working class to start preparing for the battles to come. The ballot box cannot allow the working class to defend its collective interests. But we have other means - by showing our collective strength, in the workplaces and in the streets, in such a way as to make the bosses and shareholders fear for their profits. Just as for our brothers and sisters in Greece today, this is the only effective way for us to make our voices heard in the coming period.

To achieve this, we cannot rely on union leaders whose only agenda is to maintain their cosy "partnership" with employers. Union leaders who, like at British Airways, offer wage cuts to the bosses, or like at Royal Mail, offer to cooperate with the slashing of tens of thousands of jobs and a drastic worsening of working conditions, are not on our side. The first thing we need to do is to draw the line between our real allies and such fake "friends".

Our only allies are those workers of all trades and industries, who are prepared to fight the attacks of the bosses and politicians. Workers who are convinced that, both as a matter of efficiency and as a matter of dignity, there is no option but to stand up collectively against these attacks!

It is from within our ranks that we will find the energy and the leaders we need to stop the bosses' offensive and to start regaining the ground lost. It is only by taking control of our own fights and organising them ourselves, without the interference of union leaders pursuing their own agenda, that we stand a chance - and a very real chance. Because, no matter how strong they may appear to be, the capitalist parasites are only a tiny layer, while we, workers, represent the interests of the majority!