Tomorrow’s Public Sector strike will be easily the biggest
strike day since the General Strike of 1926. In fact far more workers will
participate in the strike than on the first day of the 1926 General Strike.
Schools, Government Departments, Council Depots, Offices and Health Services
will grind to a halt as workers protest about massive increases in contributions
and cuts to their pensions.
The ballot results are now pretty much all in for November 30th - here
is a summary (provided by the PCS union) of the various unions’ ballot
returns. Clearly the mood exists for a mighty struggle, not only on
November 30th but beyond. The TUC needs to take the next step and widemn
this fight out to take in all workers arounfd a 24 hour general strike.
The fight is not just over pensions; it’s jobs, pay and services – this
affects every worker in Britain and everybody must be involved in the
struggle against this government and the rotten system it defends at our
expense.
On November 30th 2011,
three million public sector workers will strike over the
government’s attacks on their pensions. This coordinated strike action
represents the biggest strike movement since the general strike in 1926.
To all intents and purposes it will be a 24-hour public sector general
strike. Unison have already announced a large majority vote for action.
On Sunday October 2nd, some 40,000 trade
unionists and anti-cuts campaigners took part in a March for the Alternative
through the streets of Manchester city centre to lobby the Tory Party
Conference. Although this was a national TUC organised event it was obvious
that most of those present came from the North and North West of the UK with
only a sprinkling further south from Wales, Bristol and some parts of London.
Birmingham council Unison members once again manned the picket lines on 21 September, for a second day of strike action against the Con-Dem council’s threat to impose ‘Martini’ contracts on the authority’s 26,000 workers.
Cambridge saw all the four striking unions out in the city,
with PCS members on strike at the job centre and the local HMRC offices, the
UCU out at Anglia Ruskin University and the Cambridge Regional College, and NUT
and ATL members shutting down a number of schools in the area. Armed with our
solidarity chocolate, we visited a number of picket lines to chat to workers
and offer our support.
From Psychology to Hair & Beauty the response from
ATL & UCU lecturers to the strike call was overwhelming in all departments
at Worcester Technology College
PORTSMOUTH: Guildhall Square
resounded to loud shouts against the Government’s attack on the pensions and
conditions of millions of Public Sector workers.
Thousands of trade unionists hit the
streets of London and other cities all over Britain today in a national
strike called by the Public and Civil Service Union (PCS), the National
Union of Teachers (NUT), the Lecturers’ union (UCU) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers
(ATL) to protest the government’s plan to vandalise pension schemes.
This was an important turning-point for the British labour movement.
JUNE 30th: Thousands march in London against the Tory attacks on public sector pensions.
June 30th: Around the country, in towns, villages and cities, marches
and rallies have been taking place in support of those public sector
workers striking to defense of their pensions. Members of the teaching
unions and civil servants on strike were joined in solidarity by members
of other unions, pensioners, school and students – all ready to make a
stand against what this bosses government is doing. The mood could be
summed up in two words: Angry, Determined. In Chelmsford, in deepest
Essex, several hundred trade unionists and others marched through the
town centre to a packed rally in a nearby centre.
The
announcement that Progress, the Blairite Right Wing group inside the Labour
Party, is to publish something called ‘The Purple Book’ later this year is just
the latest development of the so-called Blue Labour project.