Rumours
of very poor support in the South were circulating at our Executive tonight,
but no-one knew where any figures came from. I think it is too soon
for anyone to have collated anything reliable – so these are rough estimates at
best.
In
the North West coverage was very good on the TV from Manchester and Bolton. Despite
the leaders in the North West talking about membership haemorrhaging
– in the run up – I know Cheshire branch has recruited more
that it has lost in members. I also know
the impact we had – all social
services transport closed down, all social services day-careclosed,
at least 4 special schools closed and many schools affected – despite
the end of term being a very difficult time for the strike. In Ellesmere
Port the Borough Council completely shut down.
I
think the North West leadership lacked confidence in the action and may have been
surprised that support built up in the run up to the strike, as inflation
figures, etc were published. They didn’t
call any demonstrations
and don’t seem to have even supported the Manchester Trades
Council demo on the 2nd day of the strike, as no UNISON speakerswere
listed.
We closed almost all libraries in Cheshire. The big
talk now is will we get support for further action in September. To my
mind this is entirely dependent on whether the union can deliver the
type of co-ordinated action with other unions we always wanted. Joint
action with the NUT would close most schools across the country. This,
plus action by civil servants and 150,000 UNISON, GMB and UNITE members
in Scotland would boost the confidence of members. A lot came out based
on loyalty to the union – to get further action the key question for
many is "will it achieve a better offer?" As usual the employers hang
tough, so people need to know that further action will be bigger and
more effective, and to see the leadership are confident.
