Despite the highly successful national strike by teachers and their colleagues in the colleges, the fight for pay is still held back by fragmentation, privatisation, legal hurdles – and above all, the lack of involvement of most union members in their own organisations...
The battles over pay: still too many generals, not enough in the front lines
WORKERS, JUNE 2008 ISSUE
The manoeuvres around the pay offers, potential pay disputes and who is really saying what their members mean in the trade unions – or even if the members have spoken at all – are what are shaping the choreography around pay in local government.
The indices which determine inflation are rising but all the forecasters predict a drop later in the year, so no one can believe the torrent of pro or anti statistics which workers are bombarded with over whether a pay offer is a good deal or poor. The GMB have indicated that if the statistics stood still for a moment then to make an inflation-equivalent pay offer and settle this potential dispute would cost the government something like £2.1 billion on top of the local government pay offer of 2.45 per cent. Sounds a lot but it is actually small beer compared with the £50 billion to bail out Northern Rock or the £11 billion paid out in City bonuses.
Unite, GMB and Unison are going in three different directions over local government pay. Different in supposed consultation, different in the messages of what they are going to do about it, but perhaps not very different in the absence of the members from the process?
The sabres rattle
Unison, the largest local government union, is vociferous in its head office generated noise and sabre rattling. Yet the recently concluded consultative exercise resulted in a 15 per cent average national return, with a questionable 54 per cent rejecting the offer. In some regions as low as 5 per cent, in London, despite more sabre rattling and banging of drums a mere 11 per cent of the membership bothered to respond to ballots and branch meetings.
Nevertheless the national committee – dominated by the ultra left – is to press ahead with a ballot for industrial action. The ballot will be low, probably lost and will further damage the integrity of the union in the eyes of the members, the employers and government. The last two will be suffering from hysterical laughter as yet again Unison's pay strategy hits the buffers.
The question has to be posed what is democracy and democratic in this artificial situation of having a distinct minority responding – 15 per cent of the membership – but then dressing that up as a majority decision to go for strike action? 85 per cent of the membership have abdicated and walked away from the process. In these circumstances, those who argue that a majority even of one justifies a strike call are living in cloud cuckoo land and are placing the union at risk in perilous times. The fetish with this so-called democracy is at best a parody of historic class decision-making and unity, at worse evidence that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
If the decision-making process is dangerously flawed then so are the tactics of actually trying to arrive at dates for industrial action. Originally Unison planned to deliver a ballot and a decision to coincide with its annual delegate conference. The hysteria and hothouse environment of a national conference would have resulted in a vote for industrial action irrespective of how pathetic the turnout or ballot result.
Unfortunately, or some may say luckily, due to the nigh on impossible restrictions, hoops and obstacles placed in the way of trade unions trying to hold a legal ballot, the deadlines have slipped. What was envisaged as industrial action in early July (8-9) now looks like the week beginning 23 July.
|
|
London, 24 April: NUT members and supporters on strike and marching for pay.
Photo: Workers |
Fragmented
It is a glaring example as to how weak the trade unions are in local government and how the workforce has been fragmented, sold-off, outsourced that the really painful pressure points in local government – housing, finance, refuse etc – no longer figure in the tactical arsenal. The only tactic left is to hit the schools, hence the desperation to get a least one day's stoppage in before the school summer holidays.
Will all this happen? In the Unison head office bunker some believe it will or perhaps the body swerve will occur. The Grand Old Duke of York with his men half way up the hill, neither up or down, will wave his fist at Gordon Brown and say, "You wait till next year!" And next year will be the run into the general election and nothing will happen but everyone will feel good after the displacement activity and diversions of 2008.
Health
Over a million health workers are looking at a three-year pay offer worth 8.1 per cent. More for the low paid, with an estimated 60 per cent of employees benefiting. Once more statistics, damned statistics and lies.
The RCN, with 400,000 members, is recommending the offer to its members. Unison is balloting its 470,000 members without recommendation. But all the indicators coming back from branches are that the deal will be accepted.
Despite all the huffing and puffing of the other health trade unions and professional bodies by sitting on their hands and being ever so pure, what they are really saying is, "We don't like it but we will accept it." Between Unison and the RCN, representing 80 per cent of union members in the NHS, the exercise is rather academic.
But a dangerous mind-set is developing with health workers. All the trade unions signed up to the Pay Review Body strategy in 2007. This institutionalises the concept that you do not bargain, you do not struggle, you do not bother, you hand responsibility for pay away to a do-gooder "independent" body, and your union becomes incorporated into the state.
One reason to explain this is that health workers have faced and accepted three three-year pay deals in a row since 1997.
This conditioning only to be engaged from afar and over several years with the most fundamental reason for a union to exist – improving wages and conditions – results in the same mind rot generated by general elections. If you only have to place a cross every three, five or seven years then why get excited, interested or care about who rules?
Further education
Negotiations in FE are ongoing with an offer of 2.5 per cent tabled, and rejected by all unions involved – Unison, UCU, GMB, Unite and ATL. Preparations for industrial action ballots are under way – UCU to strike on 9 June, Unison possibly in July, to coincide with the local government strategy. The UCU's chosen date is to coincide with the TUC "Speak up for Public Services" lobby of Parliament on 9 June – a rally that promises speeches from at least 26 trade union general secretaries (oh joy!).
Education
The National Union of Teachers held a very successful strike on 24 April, the first national stoppage in 21 years. The NUT is the only schools teaching union not to accept the three year pay deal on offer. But the question now is what next?
The NUT is being manoeuvred into a corner, very like the Fire Brigades Union during 2002/2003. The result for the FBU was that they lost control of the fire service – overtime and hours worked, staffing levels, control of the brigades – along with influence and a mature and authoritative position very similar to that held by the NUT in teaching.
Trade union density in teaching is high though fragmented across too many teaching unions. The NUT must not become a further example of fragmentation and marginalisation by fighting on the government's predetermined terrain.
Ofsted Inspectors held a one-day stoppage on 16 May to be followed by working to rule and contracted hours from 19 to 30 May. The strike halted inspections to schools and nurseries. Some teachers and parents may wish they were on strike forever.
The Ofsted inspectors have seen their pay offer actually reduced, agreements from previous years reneged upon, their structures cut and as they are home-based, their terms and conditions undermined. If there was ever a hint that a career was terminal then Ofsted inspectors must be in the vanguard.