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.
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), UCU (Lecturers’ union) 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.
Today’s Financial Times (30 June) commented on this very point:
“A
48-hour Greek general strike over austerity measures, coupled with
running battles between police and stone-throwing youths, will surprise
few. But today’s one-day stoppage by up to 750,000 teachers, lecturers
and civil servants in Britain, over reforms to public sector pensions,
raises fears that trade union militancy is suddenly being reawakened in a
nation where it has long been dormant.“Schools, airports, ports,
government offices, job centres, tax offices and courts all face
disruption. Yet is this not the country where Margaret Thatcher put
unions to the sword in the 1980s, seeking to banish the ‘British
disease’ of strikes and shop-floor obstructiveness with ever tighter
legal restrictions and facing down stoppages including an epic,
year-long battle with Arthur Scargill’s National Union of Mineworkers?“The
dispute creates a serious test for David Cameron’s Conservative-Liberal
Democrat coalition. The situation may – so far – be nothing like as
difficult as in the 1970s heyday of militancy, which culminated in a
‘winter of discontent’ that brought the Thatcher government to power.
Nonetheless, it threatens to become the biggest labour struggle for a
generation, the outcome of which could define the state of industrial
relations in the globe’s fifth-biggest economy for years to come.”
London demo (June 30, 2011)A
new mood is coming into existence in Britain. This was already shown by
the militant movement of the youth at the end of last year, and also by
the magnificent mass demonstration of the unions earlier this year on
March 26. Now we have the first national co-ordinated strike for
decades. Something is changing in Britain!
However, this change
did not drop from a clear blue sky. It is an expression of the fact that
a mood of anger and frustration has been building up for years beneath
the surface and has now erupted onto the streets. It is a serious
warning of things to come.
Government propaganda
The
government has attempted to rubbish the strike in a carefully
orchestrated propaganda campaign in the media. Cabinet Office minister
Francis Maude accused the unions of announcing a strike before waiting
for the outcome of negotiations.
“Any union or any public servant
contemplating strike action at the moment is really jumping the gun.
There’s a long way to go on this yet. […] I am sorry that a handful of
unions are hell-bent on pursuing disruptive industrial action while
those discussions are still continuing,” he said.
This is a joke
in very bad taste. The so-called negotiations are a farce. The
government makes a show of “wanting to talk” while in reality has not
given an inch on the most important issue – pension reform. Meanwhile
the government loses no opportunity to attack the teachers and civil
servants and smear their unions. Prime Minister David Cameron claimed
that the whole thing was the work of sinister trade union leaders and
that the majority of trade union members did not support the strike.
That
is a straight lie. About 220,000 NUT members were balloted over the
pension changes. Around nine out of 10 (92%) of those who voted, backed
the strike action with a turnout of 40%. Let us remind ourselves that
Cameron did not even win a majority in the general election. If we
follow his line of argument, he should resign immediately.
83% of the ATL members who voted backed the strike action – on a
turn-out of 35%. And just over half of the ATL’s members were eligible
to vote – the rest are not members of the pension scheme.
It is
the government, not the union leaders, that is stoking the fires of
anger, resentment and militancy. By its provocative action this
government has done more to radicalise the people of Britain than any
other in recent times. Its accusations of alleged “mindless militancy”
simply do not agree with the facts.
One of these unions, the ATL,
voted for its first national strike in 127 years. This fact alone serves
to underline the depth of anger that the LibDem-Tory Coalition has
provoked by its constant attacks on living standards. ATL president Andy
Brown has pointed out that the date set for the strike was picked to
“avoid external exams and important school and college events so that
any strike causes as little disruption as possible to children’s
education… We do not want to strike, but unless we take a stand now
the government will irreparably damage education in this country and
children will lose out.”
leader Christine Blower said that “teachers do not take strike action
lightly” but accused the government of trying to “ride roughshod over
them” in changes to their pensions. That is correct. This government is
trying to ride roughshod over workers’ rights and living standards. The
workers are only trying to defend themselves against these savage
attacks. The teachers and civil servants are campaigning against changes
to their pensions which will mean working longer, paying more and
getting less when they retire.
Following the very restrictive
rules laid down by Britain’s notorious anti-strike laws, all these
unions held ballots, which received strong backing for strike action.
Anyone who has spoken to civil servants, teachers or university
lecturers lately will know that there is no mistaking the deep feelings
of anger and resentment felt by people who would normally never consider
going on strike and demonstrating.
One of the most disgusting
aspects of the government’s campaign of vilification of the public
sector workers is the attempt to split them from the workers in the
private sector. The civil servants in particular are portrayed as
“privileged”, when in reality most are on very low wages. At a crowded
meeting on the eve of the strike, one civil servant stood up and
protested: “My shoes are full of holes and my dilemma is: do I buy a new
pair of shoes or buy food for my children?” These are the “privileged”
workers whose pension Cameron, the Old Etonian posh boy, wishes to take
away.
The following letter was sent to The Guardian (we do not know if it was published):
“I
am a civil servant striking today. I don’t want to be on strike, the
loss of pay next month is going to hit me very hard, and I don’t
particularly want to cause other people inconvenience. But I feel it’s
necessary to show the government that civil servants are fed up of being
deprived of decent pay rises and treated like scapegoats by government
and media alike. We accepted a two year pay freeze to help the country
out, whilst private sector got an average of a 3% pay rise. We have had
our compensation scheme virtually destroyed, are losing jobs all over
the place and now are expected to pay 3% extra for a pension, which was
the only thing we had that made rubbish pay worthwhile. If this change
comes in I will lose the equivalent of one day’s pay a month. Can anyone
afford to take that kind of pay cut?“What’s more, that money
will not go into the pension but will go to pay for a crisis created by
greedy people in the private sector who are walking away from this
laughing.“I believe everyone should have a good pension, no one
should need to rely on benefits when they get old, and I don’t accept
that just because private sector employers are allowed to line their own
pockets at the expense of their workers that it somehow puts me in the
wrong for not being willing to accept the same thing. This government
has no intention of negotiating in a meaningful way over pensions; it
has already stated when these changes are coming in! Finally I pay tax,
so I fund my pension that way, something that always seems to be
‘overlooked’ when ministers talk about being fair to tax payers.”
The demonstration
demonstration in London was massive. Tens of thousands marched to
Westminster with union banners and placards, shouting slogans against
the government and in support of the right to a decent pension. The mood
was buoyant and defiant, and there were a lot of young people and,
especially, a lot of women. Most of them had never been on strike
before, but all were very firm in their opposition to the government’s
pension plan.
Daniel, a young NUT member from Seven Kings, London,
said: “I’ve never been on strike before. I am definitely keen to get
involved in this dispute as it is over my future. We can’t just sit back
and allow this government to ride over us. It is time all the unions
got together and went on strike. That is the only thing that will force
this government to retreat.”
Michelle, a PCS member from Greenwich told Socialist Appeal:
“We have all come out today and we have had a great show at this demo. I
must say that on the whole this is better than the last time we went on
strike. We are more confident striking with the other unions. We feel
more determined than before. If we stick to our guns we can win this.”
The
London demonstration was very big, but it does not give an adequate
idea of the scale of the movement. All up and down Britain there were
demonstrations, rallies and pickets today, from Plymouth to Aberdeen.
Chelmsford, a hour from London, had its own demonstration, while
pickets were out everywhere outside schools and government offices.
Despite
the government’s campaign of misinformation, there is no mistaking the
massive sweep of this movement. Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of
the PCS, ridiculing the government’s claim that “only 100,000” civil
servants had answered the strike call, stated that over 200,000 civil
servants had struck all over Britain, that is 85% of union members.
The
strike, which was the biggest since the miners’ strike in the 1980s,
affected ports, airports, job centres, schools, universities, prisons,
the national driving license centre, passport offices, the police and
courts of law. According to the unions, over 11,000 schools in England
and 1,000 in Wales were closed.
The media, having tired of banging
on about the schools and the “threat to our children’s education”, have
now discovered a new “shock-horror” story about the wickedness of the
strikers. On the one o’clock news, Sir Paul Stephenson, the Chief
Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, announced that 999 calls (to
the emergency services, police, fire and ambulances) might be disrupted,
because 90% of the night shift did not report for duty last night, and
95% of the day shift also failed to appear.
This meant that 300
policemen were obliged to man the telephones at the 999 call centre.
Even so, Sir Paul felt obliged to add that, of course, he was not
expressing an opinion on “people doing what they had a right to do”
(i.e. strike).
mendacious propaganda was kept up by the hired Tory press today, even
as the streets of London were filled with angry workers. The Evening Standard repeated the claims issues by Downing Street that the strike was a failure and that “70% of schools were working normally”.
The
government’s lies contradict themselves. If it is true that the strike
had no support, what are they so worried about? These ridiculous claims
are contradicted by the facts. Answering the government lies, the ATL’s
deputy general secretary, Martin Johnson, predicted that the strike
would affect the “vast majority” of state schools in England and Wales.
And that is a fact. In the London Borough of Camden only three schools
were open today, out of a total of 55. In Lambeth, the figure was 13 out
of 59, and in Tory Wandsworth, 19 out of 79.
A YouGov poll for the union-bashing Murdoch Sun
newspaper today claimed that 49% opposed the strike; while 40%
expressed support. However, 47% said they were against the public sector
pension reforms; and only 37% were in favour. But according to another
poll conducted this evening by ITV’s London Tonight, 53% were in favour
of the strike, and 47% against. After a massive and sustained propaganda
onslaught against the public sector unions by the government and the
media, this shows that there is considerable public support for the
workers’ cause.
But this sympathy is not reflected in the
right-wing leadership of the Labour Party, which is out of touch with
the mood of the working class and reality in general. Ed Miliband, a
true produce of the Blair New Labour School, fell over himself in his
haste to disassociate himself from the strike. That a Labour leader
should side with the Tories and Liberals and publicly denounce workers
who are fighting for their rights is a shame and a disgrace. This
underlines the urgent need for the unions to use their muscle, numbers
and financial clout to call the ladies and gentlemen of the
Parliamentary Labour party to order.
The workers of Britain will
carry on the fight, irrespective of the lies and distortions of the
Tories and LibDems, and the cowardly bleating of Miliband and the Labour
right wing. The only way to defeat this reactionary government is by
mobilizing the might of the labour movement. If the government does not
back down, there must be a movement ten times bigger in the autumn.
Unity
is our most powerful weapon. What contributed powerfully to the mood of
optimism of the workers on today’s demonstration was that several
unions had decided to engage in joint action. The sense of unity
considerably boosted morale. Julian Sharpe, PCS member in Isle of Dogs,
East London, conveyed this mood of confidence:
“People
think we can win. Everyone sees this as a weak government which can be
forced to back down. The solidarity has been great where I work. Even
the security staff of the building shook our hands and greeted the
pickets this morning. They said the mess was caused by the bankers so
why is it that they are not paying for it. In fact, despite the building
being used by other companies, we only got a hostile reception from one
person. It is a sign of the times.”
It is time to
mobilize the entire labour movement. It is time to prepare a general
strike to bring down this rotten reactionary government.
