Phoney war over public pay
WORKERS, OCT 2007 ISSUE
HEALTH: The Unison Health ballot over acceptance or rejection of a pay award of 2.5 per cent – tweaked towards the low paid – has sunk without trace. A 20 per cent ballot return voted by 2 to 1 to accept the offer, with only 81,000 out of 405,000 bothering to vote at all. The RCN vote to consider rejection and industrial action, even though their own rules prohibit them from taking industrial action, came in on an even smaller return (18 per cent) and was promptly hidden away by the RCN national council. Trade unionists in health cushioned by three-year deals, Pay Review Bodies and similar embraces from the state need to reflect seriously on where they go next.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT: Some 850,000 Unison members are to ballot for two days' strike in November, likely to be the 14th and 15th. The decision, taken by the Service Group Executive where half of the committee consciously did not turn up to discuss the issue, ignores the slightly improved offer of 2.5 per cent and that the largest Unison regions have indicated that they cannot deliver industrial action. It also ignores the split from the other two major local government unions – GMB and UNITE/TGWU – who are not balloting for industrial action but merely consulting with their members.
CIVIL SERVICE: PCS, the Civil Service union, is likewise to ballot over pay and jobs. After informal consultation PCS is balloting until 22 October for further national industrial action across the civil service as part of the campaign against job cuts, below-inflation pay and privatisation. PCS members working in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have overwhelmingly rejected a below-inflation pay offer: 76 per cent of those voting rejected the three year pay deal which sees cost of living increases for longer serving staff members of 2 per cent this year, 0 per cent next year and 1 per cent in the final year.
THE ROYAL MAIL: The Union of Communication Workers is set to resume 48 hour stoppages in October in its fight over pay and cuts in jobs, after taking the summer off.
TEACHERS: Certain elements in the National Union of Teachers are clamouring for industrial action over pay despite being locked into a two-year pay deal and having lost their negotiating rights over pay over 20 years ago. A mountain to climb where some see a hillock.
PRISONS AND POLICE: Unofficial action by the Prison Officers Association in August and rumblings from the Police Federation over pay and the Treasury's 2.5 per cent pay ceiling go against the general direction, but cannot make them the new vanguard.
LONDON UNDERGROUND: The RMT, desperate to maintain its strike credentials, is likely to seek a dispute to latch onto, hoping for a mini general strike in the public sector.
This is the strategy of the "left" in these unions, reminiscent of the Fire Brigades Union dispute of 5 years ago when it was said that trains would stop running, nuclear power stations and football grounds would close on health and safety grounds, local government workers and teachers in London would strike for improved London Weighting and the Blair government would crumble. Exactly the reverse happened – the FBU has been emasculated, the London Weighting dispute ran into the sand and thousands of Unison members resigned from their union rather than abide by the doomed strategy of the armchair generals. Morale and organisation have yet to recover.
The same strategy has re-emerged because of the failure of members to engage with the unions and of leaders to talk straight. We are owed nothing over pay, but have become accustomed to small annual handouts from the state like beggars at the gate. Perhaps a Yes vote will be achieved in local government, but none of the unions can sustain industrial action beyond the two days and Unison is quite clear no strike pay will be paid. Negotiations and the strike ballot will see the anniversary date of the pay settlement between 9 and 10 months behind, money saved in the government's coffers. Once again, employers are given the advantage before we begin, and unions lose credibility.
We have to reach a new maturity over the question of pay in the public sector and learn how to win hearts and minds for any such struggle – rhetoric, sloganising and posturing are no substitute.