United strike on 24th September
by Richie Venton, SSP workplace organiser
Unity in action is the strength of the working class. And a one-day strike of 200,000 workers, members of three different unions, workers in 32 different local authorities, cannot be ignored by their employers or the government.
That was what took place on 20 August, the biggest one-day strike by council workers in Scotland’s history. That is what will be repeated on 24 September, the next day of united action agreed by UNISON, GMB and UNITE.
And as an immediate follow-up to this mighty display of the irreplaceable role of workers in the provision of public services, UNISON is then taking groups of members out on selective action, for a week at a time, starting on 6 October.
Their plan is to call out the same key groups in every council the same
week. It will be a national strike of selected groups, designed to hit
councils and disrupt their functioning, to pound them with the message
that unless they concede a decent pay rise for 2008-9, they face turmoil
and political consequences.
The first ever strike by all three unions, on 20 August, smashed down the doors of the employers’ umbrella organisation, CoSLA. For months before, CoSLA had stuck to their offer of 2.5 per cent a year for 3 years, and furthermore refused to even negotiate, cancelling the June meeting of the Scottish Joint Council that brings union reps and council reps together for all 32 local authorities.
They hoped the pay claim - for 5 per cent or £1,000, whichever is the
greater, plus extra public holidays – would simply melt away in the heat
of their intransigence. They failed to reckon with the mounting anger
of council staff, under siege from rising food, fuel, transport and housing
costs. Their anger was further inflamed at pay rises of 17 per cent to
Council Chief Executives and Directors who were already on £100,000 and
more – a planet apart from the rise of 46 pence over 3 years offered
by CoSLA to tens of thousands of the lowest-paid council workers.
As Alison Kelly, Glasgow Day Care worker, expressed it to us,
“I never caused the rise in inflation, the fat cats did. All I ask is
to be able to make ends meet. For this I need a pay rise, not a life
of luxury like Gordon Brown.”
The very next day after the strike shut down a whole host of buildings and services to the public, CoSLA leaders wrote to the unions offering talks. The next week they met, conceded ‘the game’s a bogey’ as far as trying to impose a 3-year deal, offering a one-year deal.
By striking together, council workers have already broken free of the prison-house of a 3-year deal. Strikes work!
However, CoSLA refused to budge on the 2.5 per cent figure – a pay cut when contrasted with the current RPI inflation of 5 per cent, and the recent official figures that food prices have risen by 8 per cent since January.
The CoSLA chiefs then had the cheek to ask the unions for a joint approach to the SNP government for extra funding! Too little, too late.
If they were serious about taking up the cudgels alongside low-paid
workers, they would meet the unions’ full claim for 2008-9 and then mount
a whirlwind of rallies and protests to demand Holyrood and Westminster
cough up the where-withal to meet the unions’ modest attempts to catch
up with inflation.
Union activists are confident 24 September will be another landmark
show of strength, confounding any lingering hopes the employers harbour
of the August strike just being a token protest.
Gordon Scott is a UNISON steward in East Dunbartonshire. He told us,
“It is important that local government workers keep up the pressure on
the employers. Previous strike action brought them back to the negotiating
table. We must show them pay cuts are not acceptable.”
Elaine Wishart, City of Edinburgh UNISON branch officer had this to say to me:
“I am confident members will respond to the call, especially given the added strength of GMB and UNITE/TWGU striking along with us, which gives the action far more clout.
Workers are already subsidising services. We face review after review
because of budgetary crises in the councils. Workers are making savings
for the council by covering for the work of deleted posts and unfilled
vacancies, to help the council get back on its feet. And now they are
expected to subsidise it more by taking a pay cut. It’s not on!”
As Colin Turbett, chair of North Ayrshire UNISON branch told me,
“I am very optimistic the unions can deliver overwhelming action on 24 September, and its success will buoy up those members taking national selective action in subsequent weeks.
In our branch, which has a couple of thousand members, a handful scabbed
and then resigned from the union. But they are far outnumbered by new
people joining. We’ve recruited 150 to UNISON alone, and that is the
picture replicated across the country.”
Stephen Smellie, member of UNISON’s Scottish local government committee, has been part of the joint pay campaign group uniting the three trade unions. He told me,
“We are planning a mass rally in Edinburgh on 24th. We are targeting the capital and the Scottish parliament, to put pressure on the Scottish government as well as the CoSLA leaders.
CoSLA is no longer just a Labour fiefdom, it is a mixture of the main parties who control each of the councils. We need to lobby MSPs and each council leader demanding whether they support an improved pay offer.
Every councillor in Scotland should be contacted and asked the question whether they are in favour of an increased offer. Every MSP should also be contacted.
Every local and national politician who supports us should be praised and every one who refuses should be attacked.
Those politicians of either Labour or SNP who pose as supporters of
the trade unions but who refuse to speak out in favour of us should be
exposed.”
It seems that a few, but certainly not all, Labour council leaders support
further pay concessions. All three contenders for leadership of Scottish
Labour declared support for the council staff at the time of the August
strike. Frankly, these are mostly cynical manoeuvres from members of
the same New Labour that has privatised more services than even their
Tory predecessors; handed over housing stock to unaccountable quangos;
cut budgets, jobs and services in every council they control; and who
threatened council union leaders with a spell in prison when they dared
lead workers in strikes against victimisation of colleagues in Glasgow.
But their belated support is both welcome and a sign of the impact of
the strike.
The SNP can’t just whinge that New Labour politicians are cynically exploiting the fact the SNP are in government. Not one of the SNP council leaders has so far come out in favour of an improvement on 2.5 per cent. That is hardly surprising, give the contradictory nature of the beast.
The SNP wish to be all things to all classes. They want to pose as radicals
compared to New Labour; hardly a difficult task! But SNP Finance Minister
John Swinney declared the public sector “bloated” in the 2007 election
campaign. Alex Salmond said at the same time that thousands of civil
servants in Scotland would have to go. They demanded £1.6billion in public
sector ‘efficiencies’ in last November's budget statement. And the SNP’s
very own Scottish Public Sector Pay Policy insists on a 2 per cent limit
on pay rises. All this when the lowest paid council workers are on a
measly £5.99 an hour.
In fact council workers face a double whammy: pay cuts and job cuts
in local councils as a result of budget cuts rooted in the concordat
between the SNP government and CoSLA - on top of decades of under-funding
by Labour in power – and the national pay cuts which the SNP government
pretends to be ‘neutral’ on. Neutrality is an impossible posture given
that their Holyrood budgets and 2 per cent pay limits set the agenda
for CoSLA’s attempts to impose yet another year of below-inflation pay.
The divisions within CoSLA and between Labour and the SNP can be exploited
to win a victory against low pay.
Willie Campbell, UNISON steward in Glasgow Social Work Services has
this message for the sparring politicians of the big business parties:
“Trade union solidarity on 20 August forced the employers to talk and
scrap the 3-year deal. We should keep up the pressure by escalating action
to defeat New Labour attacks on public sector pay and force the SNP to
get off the fence. Only determined action by the unions can achieve a
just pay deal.”
United, determined strike action, on 24 September and beyond, can defeat pay cuts, given the vulnerable state of councils, the Scottish government and Brown’s crisis-torn Westminster regime.
Hairline cracks within CoSLA can be turned into fissures by the unions striking and enlisting public support, lobbying councillors, exposing where they stand.
The SNP minority government can be driven into conceding the funds to finance a decent pay settlement – or exposed as a big business, anti-worker outfit if they refuse to drop their 2 per cent ceiling on workers’ pay.
And Gordon Brown’s New Tories face a potential siege from the wider trade union movement, with 250,000 civil servants balloting for strike action on pay, teachers in England and Wales doing likewise, and the TUC Congress agreeing public demonstrations and coordination of industrial action on public sector pay.
The Scottish Socialist Party takes sides without hesitation. We are proud to battle alongside fellow-trade unionists for the funds off Holyrood and Westminster to secure protection of workers’ pay against inflation, whilst demanding equal pay without a penny off any worker’s pay and without a single cut to any public services. The money is there; it needs to be taken away from Trident, wars and profits and invested in men, women and children.