Public Sector Strikes - 27th June 2011
Flaming June?
The following is the sequence of events over the last couple of weeks as we appear to be marching towards the misery of public sector strike action,
On 15 June members of the largest civil service union the Public and Commercial Services union voted for a 24-hour strike on June 30th over jobs, pay and pensions, before embarking on a month-long ban on overtime. The PCS has 290,000 members, and although 61.1 per cent in the ballot voted for strikes and 83.6 per cent for other forms of industrial action, there was a mere 32.4 per cent turnout. This means that actually among PCS members there is extremely limited support for the kind of strike action their leaders want: the low turnout for this ballot means that less than 20 per cent of the members have actually voted for this unnecessary industrial action. This is not surprising given that talks with the TUC about public sector pensions are continuing; a reasonable member of the public might conclude that there is no justification for any civil servant going on strike while discussions are continuing
On 14 June 2011, the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers both voted to strike over public sector pension reform. 92 per cent of NUT members voted to strike on a turnout of 40 per cent – that means only 36 per cent of the NUT’s membership actually voted to strike. 83 per cent of ATL members voted to strike on a turnout of 35 per cent – that means only 29 per cent of the ATL’s membership voted to strike
On 17 June 2011, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander made a speech setting out the argument for the reform of public sector pensions and the linking of the Normal Pension Age to the State Pension Age, that is, the linking of the age you can draw your occupational pension, to the age that you can draw your State Pension. The Government proposes that the two would then continue to track each other in the future as people live longer.
On 21 June 2011 General Secretary of UNISON, Dave Prentis made a speech at the UNISON annual conference in which he said ‘If this Government fails to heed our warnings, to negotiate in good faith, I say to David Cameron, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” We will strike to defend our pensions: a campaign of strike action without precedent. Our preparations are well advanced, but there is more to do... Strike action will need to be sustained. The fight of our lives may be an overused cliché, but that is what this’
It is all rather depressing really. You would have thought that we might learn from the experience of Greece so vividly displayed on our TV screens. The principal cause of the financial meltdown in Greece is that for years it supported a hugely costly and inefficient public sector addicted to early retirement. This was paid for, not by tax revenues, but by borrowing from financial markets and to be repaid by future generations. Now the financial markets have twigged that the future generations of Greeks will never be able to manage the repayments unless some of the staggering inefficiencies and profligacy is tackled now. Hence the demand by the IMF for the austerity measures that the Greek government is trying to implement in the face of strikes and riots.
The warning signs for Britain are clear for all to see. Our public finances are quite as bad as those of Greece: we are borrowing £400 million every day; and paying out £120 million in interest every day. We desperately need to get our budget back into balance. So far we have avoided the horrendous interest rates faced by Greece because of the confidence that financial markets have in the measures that we are taking to solve our problems. These measures have to include putting public sector pensions on an affordable footing for the long term. We can’t afford to let trade union militancy wreck it –especially on the basis of minority ballots |
