Where will workers be situated once recovery starts?

This morning was listening to 909AM (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nsfwv will be available on Listen Again feature later). As we approach another general election, we'll find that those of us working in the public sector are the least likely to lose our jobs. Once the election is over and a government really sets about doing the unpleasant task of cutting back on spending, the public sector will be faced with massive job cuts. Who will be affected and how? Those of us who are 'blue collar workers' living just above the benefit threshold, earning as a family about 27 grand a year total. Tax credits will be 'changed' by the Tories and low-paid civil servants will once again be forced on to the dole and into retraining schemes. When employment starts to rise eventually (as it always does once an economic recovery starts kicking in[1]), those same blue collar types will find themselves forced into jobs with less pay in increasingly privatised and oppressive working conditions and with their broken unions unable to defend them well. Once again we see how crises of capitalism make the owners of production batten down the hatches and lay off those who suffer most during the periods of crisis.... those who sell their labour as their only commodity. Of course, those who mainly rely on the welfare state will also be squeezed, such that poverty will increase along with crime and violence. Britain will follow the American model: I watched the Around the World in 80 days programme on BBC last evening and saw how unfeelingly the US treats its poor, as illustrated with the conditions of those who suffered in New Orleans after Katrina and continue to do so; America's right wing, as typified in many of the blogs you can find on-line, hates the European stance of perceived 'softness' on terror and on Russia's imperialistic intentions, using metaphors such as 'Europe is the United States' wayward ward' (sorry, can't now find the particular blog again for reference but American Thinker will lead you to some examples). So where will we be situated once recovery starts? Well if we continue to choose between Conservatives and New Labour, most of us will be in the shit.

[1] the comments of a hard-nosed economics expert at http://oregonbusinessreport.com/2009/08/will-unemployment-prevent-recovery-from-the-recession/ include the following quote on unemployment: look carefully at the historic pattern and you'll see that the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator, meaning that it starts to improve after the overall economy is already improving. As such, it does not prevent the economy from improving. If high unemployment prevented a recovery from recession, then we never would have recovered from our first recession. But we've recovered from it, and from every other recession. There are plenty of things to worry about. The high unemployment rate preventing a recovery is not one of those things.