VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
While workers struggle to cope with the impact of rising interest rates, Westpac has sacked 500 workers in the last two weeks and says it will "let go" another 116 workers in coming months.
"Letting go" is the big banks and other corporate giants' euphemism for sacking workers and throwing them on the unemployment scrap heap of capitalism.
The Finance Sector Union national secretary, Julia Angrisano's statement said, "Westpac is wallowing in record profits on the back of mortgage interest rate rises but that hasn't stopped its insatiable appetite for job cuts."
The sackings come at the same time as Westpac increased its half year profits by 22% to the amount of $4 billion.
No doubt Westpac and the other big three banks will say that their profits are distributed to shareholders and to repay money borrowed from overseas banks. However, most of the shareholders are big corporations and very little of the big banks’ profits end up with mum and dad shareholders or modest income self-funded retirees.
In the late 1940s there was an attempt by popular demand to nationalize big banks.
The High Court ruled that this was not allowed under the Australian Constitution.
This showed how much the Constitution served the interests of the corporate ruling class rather than the people when it was made.
Nationalizing the big four banks is needed as part of securing an independent financial sector which puts people's financial needs before profits.
Nationalizing the banks as a demand on the federal government will have popular support.