Whether you are a nurse
who’s been offered a 3 year deal starting with 2.75% or a council worker with
2.45%, you are on the receiving end of Gordon Brown’s pay restraint squeeze. As
threatened last year the government is desperate to try and stick to its 2%
target for pay costs. At the moment UNISON the GMB and other unions are
consulting and despite the down beat mood of the UNISON Local Government
Service Group executive, there are a lot of reasons why members will vote to
reject the offers.
Young workers
On the back of the financial
crisis and the collapse of Northern Rock, there is huge uncertainty with
respect to house prices and mortgage costs. UNISON members are in general low
paid and even the higher paid ones are relatively low paid compared to other
industries.
Many particularly the
younger workers, especially in the South East and London where house prices
have risen most dramatically, are going to get hit with a double whammy – falling
house prices and increased mortgage costs. Together with the huge increase in
the cost of fuel and increases in food and petrol even the 6% claim in local
government looks modest.
Cuts
At the same time cuts in social
services and care provision, efficiency savings and privatisations are
threatening jobs and services throughout the country. Voluntary redundancy
schemes and early severance might seem like a way out for some workers, but the
outcome is more pressure on existing staff and hard pressed services.
In the health service,
despite big increases in funding for certain things many trusts are in trouble
and a whole number have made big redundancies when they found themselves in
deficit. Staffing crises remain in both the health service and local government
as low pay reduces the number of people applying for jobs.
Creaking
The system is creaking and
it’s not going to get any better, Gordon Brown’s spending targets are a huge
threat to UNISON members throughout the public sector. At the same time £
billions are being poured into unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, £
billions more, were wasted by not nationalising Northern rock straight away and
£ billions more are being siphoned off in profits by the PFI parasites.
Squandered
The political fall out from
the war, the financial crisis and 10 years of right wing Blairite policies mean
that it’s far more likely that the Tories will get in at the next election. The
right wing of the Labour Party have squandered the best opportunity that UNISON
members could have hoped for under capitalism, ten years of landslide Labour
government in a boom! At the same time the UNISON leadership have bent over
backwards to maintain a cosy relationship with Blair and the rest of the Labour
Leadership. As we have explained many times before, this inevitably sells the
members short. Worse than that instead of defending the members the bureaucracy
are spending increasing amounts of time either attacking activists inside the
union or colluding with management attacks on key individuals. The effects of
this debacle are being felt throughout the country in hospitals, schools and
offices delivering essential services to the sick, the young and the old. The
camel’s back is bending under the weight, sooner or later it’ll snap. Maybe
over pay, maybe over cuts, it depends on events.
The burden of the crisis is
placed on the back of UNISON members as well as Civil servants and many others
within the public sector. We need a fighting democratic union with a leadership
worthy of the members.
The first priority:
Reject pay restraint,
fight for the full claim!
