Banks which paid out bonuses in billions to executives responsible for generating the crisis have been bailed out when the bubble burst with unimaginable sums of taxpayers’ money, yet working people who fall into mortgage arrears are being turned out of their homes in record numbers – even by banks nationalised to prevent their collapse.

Workers who have seen bosses raking in record profits in recent years now find themselves in fear of losing their jobs and having their pay and living standards cut. RMT’s 2008 annual general meeting condemned the fact that policies of cuts, privatisation and war continued to be pursued and agreed to organise another national conference for trade unionists to discuss the crisis in working-class political representation. Now the economic crisis further underlines the need for working people to secure political representation that will fight for policies based on social justice rather than propping up big business, and to ensure that working people are not made to pay for an economic crisis they have played no part in creating.