Public Sector Strikes in England

On 30th June, a number of public sector and teaching unions called their members out on a one-day strike to protest against the changes to their members’ pensions schemes being proposed by the government; changes that would involve the workers affected paying more, working for longer, and getting less when they retire. The strike is the biggest the country has seen in the last five years and the biggest in the public sector for a generation.

Three teachers unions, the UCU (University and College Union) the NUT (National Union of Teachers) and the ATL (Association of Teachers and lecturers) were involved in the strike, along with the Public and Commercial Services Union, with members in the Job Centres, border controls and passport offices amongst other places.

UNISON, the biggest union in the public sector, didn’t however ballot for industrial action, the reason given being that their leader, Dave Prentice, was chairing the negotiations with the government which were underway at the time and due to be completed on the day of the strike.

These negotiations, supposedly about ‘principles’, will then be followed by further talks, about the various sector-specific pension schemes. A leaked memo from the TUC revealingly indicates that its strategy will be to focus on winning advantages within these various separate sector-specific schemes.

The latter strategy, it goes without saying, will badly undermine the sense of unity that has slowly been building up over past months, and which was evidenced by the range of different workers from different unions and different sectors that went out on strike on the 30th June, with large numbers showing up for the various processions and rallies throughout the country. The TUC’s strategy indeed nicely complements the government’s own divide and rule tactic, which by way of the usual orchestrated media campaign, using ‘ordinary people’ as its mouthpieces, seeks to pit workers in the private and public sectors against each other by drawing attention to certain (minor) current advantages public sector workers have.

UNISON is talking about balloting its own members for strike action only later in the autumn. As well as relying on the excuse given above, it also explains this delay as due to the difficulties involved in complying with existing legislation. It points out that to call a strike within the bounds of the Law the union has to demonstrate an accurate database and carry out a full ballot of all members affected, a process that can take 17 weeks to complete…

It is certainly true that employers’ have used the courts to undermine ballots by focussing on small procedural errors, and delays were caused as a result in the recent British Airways dispute, and on the Docklands light railway; (where in fact it backfired, and the latter had to pay out £100,000 to the RMT union). UNISON is therefore saying it needs more time to block off some of these loopholes. But the issue is much bigger than this. If government legislation is restricting the field of trade union action (and the government is now talking of making strikes totally illegal in certain ‘key sectors’ – i.e., the underground) then surely there needs to be a vigorous and broad-based campaign against such anti-worker legislation! This would be a great basis for inter-union co-operation, but it simply isn’t happening; and the silence of the unions on the subject one can only interpret as effectively accepting it.

This acceptance is due to the fact that that the trade union movement in Great Britain is pretty much the creature of the Labour Party; and the Labour party is very definately the creature of capitalism. This is the horrible Gordion knot that needs to be split asunder if the working class is to progress towards protecting its standard of living and working conditions.

The strike on the 30th although impressive was limited to one day only, notice of which had to be given far in advance to comply with the present legislation and which the authorities could therefore make adequate plans for. The strike’s effectiveness and scope was sabotaged by the biggest public sector union UNISON not going out as well, supposedly because of the ‘important’ role its leader had at the negotiating table, where he sat to discuss ‘principles’ which would form the basis for future ‘talks’, which it looks like will have a extremely divisive effect because they will be about the technicalities of various individual pension schemes.

THIS IS NOT THE WAY FORWARD!

For workers to mount an effective defence against the increasingly violent attacks of the bosses and their political representatives, they will have to rely on a trade union organisation that is prepared to fight on a class basis. How this class union will be built it is difficult to say, but happen it must, either by splits within the present movement or outside and against the trade unions, as is looking increasingly likely.

It will also have to reconnect with its class party, the International Communist Party, and break with its ‘traditional’ support for that horrible life-sapping excrescence that is the Labour Party; which wrecks every working class initiative it comes anywhere near, and whose spell over the working class in Britain will have to be broken before any real progress can be made.