Local government workers to strike - 28 March

[cockneyrebel]

All the Unison and GMB members I've talked to don't agree with the action, think there will be little if any public sympathy and yet are feeling pressured into staying out and resentful about the loss of pay and pension contribution. Several say they haven't been ballotted.

Personally I think calling a strike on the 85 rule is a complete over reaction and counter-productive to the overall interests of union representation. The press releases read like a bad joke from the 70s. Ho hum.

This is actually about far more than the 85 year rule. If the government wins on this one it will be the thin end of the wedge.

For union members defeat would undoubtedly mean further attacks on the LGPS, and other terms and conditions in the near future. Union officials recognise the fragility of membership gains after years of stagnation and the erosion of stewards’ organisation in many workplaces and sense that an outright defeat could give the green light to employers keen on ending national pay bargaining and in some cases eager to derecognise unions altogether.

There is a problem in London because of the total mess of the London Weighting Dispute, which is what makes winning this dispute even more important.

Some members in my work have complained about not receiving ballots (not that surprising given about a million went out and there will have been errors) and also about losing a days pay. But the point is that if we lose then we'll have much more to worry about than losing pay, we'll be shafted again and again.

All the benefits we've got came through militant action from the workers movement, the bosses don't just hand you stuff and until the workers movement fights back in this country we are on a never ending downward cycle.

 

[ICB]

Pressured by their union and peers, not many people like crossing a picket line, especially if they're a paid up member.

I don't consider it a "huge assault" on my working conditions by any stretch of the imagination, I see it more as an inevitable adjustment given the demographic situation and consider LGPS members to still have a very good deal. As someone who worked in the private sector for 10 years and moved to the public sector a couple of years ago I see my current working conditions are a piece of cake. The relentless march of meaningless management drivel and a performance monitoring culture is a much bigger issue, mostly because it involves a massive waste of public money and causes huge inefficiencies.

I really think this will fail the public sympathy test miserably. The 85 rule means that someone who joined the scheme at 25 can retire at 55 with a very good package, how is this equitable? The impression that this gives in light of the protests at Westminster last week by those who got totally shafted by the collapse of businesses with employers pension schemes is appalling and plays right into the hands of the DM and its ilk.

 

[ICB]

This is actually about far more than the 85 year rule. If the government wins on this one it will be the thin end of the wedge.

Not according to all the press releases and the ballots.

Don't we have to fight each case on its merits?

 

[cockneyrebel]

Not according to all the press releases and the ballots.

Don't we have to fight each case on its merits?

No because the more defeats you face, the more demoralised the workforce can become. If we lose this one then future disputes will be much harder to win.

The government and employers are hardly gonna come out and say this is the thin end of the wedge and we're gonna shaft you, are they. There is no need for the government to go to the wall on this one. The PCS dispute put a marker in the sand and now it's seen as an ok to add five extra years on all future workers. That's a great deal for the government, so they could have just compromised with that. But they wanna push it even further because they know if they win this one then future attacks will be easier.

 

[Wilf]

Come on RW who do you know who is called anything like:

Hon. Ædgyth Bertha Milburg Mary Antonia Frances Lyon-Dalberg-Acton

Apart from anything it's just a stupid name.......

So, if i've got the Aristocracy's line of descent right, doesn't that make him:

The Hon. Professor Alexander Lyon-Dalberg-Acton?

Kind of trips off the tongue doesn't it

Bloody hell i thought Tony Benn had done the biggest name-shrink ever (from The Hon. Anthony Neil Wedgewood-Benn). 'Alex' however, takes the biscuit... (probably a Bourbon?)

 

[ICB]

So we should back spurious disputes so that legitimate ones have more chance of being won? I don't subscribe to that view, it's based on flawed reasoning, if we applied that way of thinking to the judicial system it would reverse the premise that it's better that the guilty go free than the innocent are punished.

I could just as easily argue that dodgy or marginal disputes like this one have a damaging effect on staff morale, it certainly has here, and it allows the govt/employers to play a game of "boy who cried wolf" when it comes to more serious issues.

 

[cockneyrebel]

So we should back spurious disputes so that legitimate ones have more chance of being won? I don't subscribe to that view, it's based on flawed reasoning, if we applied that way of thinking to the judicial system it would reverse the premise that it's better that the guilty go free than the innocent are punished.

I could just as easily argue that dodgy or marginal disputes like this one have a damaging effect on staff morale, it certainly has here, and it allows the govt/employers to play a game of "boy who cried wolf" when it comes to more serious issues.

But this isn't a "spurious dispute", it means that council workers will have to work five extra years of their lives. For a lot of low paid workers in local government that means they'll only have a few years after they retire before they die (people in the lowest paid jobs in society, which includeds some local government workers, die on average at 68). How is that not a legitimate dispute?

It's nonsense that there's not enough money. Corporate taxes are at an historical low, billions is spent on Iraq, the UK is the third largest economy in the world and every year we're told profits and GDP go up.....of course there's money to pay the pensions.

If you don't think adding five years to people's working lives is serious, fair enough, but a lot of people do and rightly so. This is a serious dispute and if we lose will lead to more and more attacks. The only way we'll stop these attacks (and maybe one day actually improve our conditions) is through militant trade union action.

Indeed the only way we'll really stop the never ending cycle of attacks is to change the whole system......

 

[dennisr]

Pressured by their union and peers, not many people like crossing a picket line, especially if they're a paid up member.

Sorry, can I clarify this - so the peers - who i am assuming are work colleagues and, as you said, the maority of whom don't want to go on strike are pressurising their other colleagues, the majority of whom also do not want to go on strike??? Stange that - sounds like Daily Mail style propaganda titbits regurgated by your fine self there to me? And the union is pressurising its members, who don't want to go on strike? - What the same union leaderships who for decades have tried to kow-tow to every boss dictate in the name of partnership and despite pressure (real pressure - not the fantasy kind) from members under attack?

I don't consider it a "huge assault" on my working conditions by any stretch of the imagination, I see it more as an inevitable adjustment given the demographic situation and consider LGPS members to still have a very good deal. As someone who worked in the private sector for 10 years and moved to the public sector a couple of years ago I see my current working conditions are a piece of cake.

That "inevitable adjustment" sounds more like inevitable employer propaganda you are also happy to regurgate? So you are happy to work till you drop cos those poor old emplyers are feeling the pinch and have decided that you should pay for this?

You certainly sound like someone with years of being trained by you emplyers in the private sector. I would argue workers in the private sector could lear a few lessons - and stop thier standards dropping any lower. Is your name 'jack' by the way?

(CR has already made the points on the importance of this dispute's outcome well)

The relentless march of meaningless management drivel and a performance monitoring culture is a much bigger issue, mostly because it involves a massive waste of public money and causes huge inefficiencies.

Agreed that is a point - the question is how do we defeat BOTH?

I really think this will fail the public sympathy test miserably. The 85 rule means that someone who joined the scheme at 25 can retire at 55 with a very good package, how is this equitable? The impression that this gives in light of the protests at Westminster last week by those who got totally shafted by the collapse of businesses with employers pension schemes is appalling and plays right into the hands of the DM and its ilk.

The vast majority of both private and public sector workers (apart from you it would seem...) would see a successful defence of (already in practice quite limited...) pension rights in a completly different light to you.

The irony is you seem to be saying that those who have already been shafted should be joined by the public sector - we could all be shafted together? How about learning the blatantly obvious lesson from these earlier (legal...) crimes and NOT allowing a single worker to be shafted again?

 

[ICB]

Everyone is likely to have to work at least an extra five years or so, not just council workers and I was asking about whether it's equitable or not, which is where the legitimacy comes in. Likewise we're going to be living longer. The fact that people in public service aren't properly paid or have a lower life expectancy on average are separate issues, not issues that should be compensated for by having a better pension, and these issues can and should be addressed in their own right rather than conflated with this one. I don't suppose you'd argue everyone in a given local authority area should be allowed to retire earlier because they have lower life expectancy than in other areas, or that women should work longer than men, or that smokers be allowed to retire earlier, etc.

As you know there is a massive demographic spike about to hit us as the baby boomers retire - my Mum just took early retirement on an LEA pension having paid huge AVCs for years in order to catchup and could easily live another 30 years - and thereafter things don't look too rosy either as life expectancy is shooting up on an annual basis.

I respect your views and we probably agree about the extent and nature of a lot of issues around social justice and equality but I think the idea that militant trade union action stands a chance of getting us anywhere (other than into a heap of shit) after the experiences of the 70s and 80s isn't very realistic. However, if it is going to get any where then it needs to be on the basis of very tightly argued cases presented and actioned by much better run unions than we have at present. In light of that I can't help but feel that this dispute is particularly ill-considered.

 

[ICB]

dennisr - you're verging on the usual personal abuse that arises in these situations and that we'd rather refreshingly avoided until now, perhaps we can try to remain civilised? Calling me a DM informed type is about as low as it gets as far as I'm concerned.

I didn't say anything about a majority, I said the ones I'd talked to. One of the unfortunate things that tends to happen in these situations is that people don't want to discuss the issue openly and spend a lot of time looking over their shoulders. I'm with you on the iffyness of union "leadership" though.

As for limited pension rights, well, the LGPS is still one of the best schemes going; how many final salary schemes are left in the corporate world? It's also a lot more secure than most.

I'm not in anyway saying that the public sector should get fucked over like those who were blatantly misled by the govt and their employers in the scandalous misrepresentation of corporate pensions and I resent the implication that I am; a cheap shot if I ever saw one.

 

[belboid]

Everyone is likely to have to work at least an extra five years or so, not just council workers

well they certainly are if some of the best organised and protected workers dont even attempt to defend their existing contracts. Surely one should fight for the best terms going, not accepta levelling down to the worst?

 

[dennisr]

Everyone is likely to have to work at least an extra five years or so, not just council workers and I was asking about whether it's equitable or not, which is where the legitimacy comes in.

Not employers though... they don't have to work harder.

I think you make some valid points about the present state of the trade unions but i draw the opposite conclusion - To me they are finally being forced into representing and defending thier members for a change.

You also make valid points about the changing demographics. But again, my conclusions are completely different. These changing demographics are not a 'problem' except under a system that works better if you die young and solve the 'problem' for them. Isn't there something sick in that? In effect, we (and that includes you...) are getting the blame for the 'crime' of improving our living standards - by demanding a bigger slice of the health, education etc cake (still a very small slice of the overall though) - over the post-war decades. Thats what the 'greedy', 'selfish' tu's were actually doing over the 70s (and for many years before then). That is why you can live longer - because we no longer work in victorian conditions - those improvements were not given us, they were taken by us (or at least some on behalf of the rest of us...).

I don't have the figures and statistics to hand - but the UK is not a poor nation. The employing classes have been making huge, huge profits on the back of our work. The wealth this society produces is unimaginable to you and me. So why are we meant to pay the price. I am perfectly happy for people to work longer if they want - but we are being forced into this. This is not about a 'choice'.


Underlying the flim-flam and propaganda from those dictating how both of us lead our lives the stark reality is WE are being made to pay for THEM.

I'm self-employed through lack of choice. That does not make me a 'small-boss' it makes me a worker who is hired and fired as and when needed. No pension at all (not enough money) and no security. I would not want others to have the 'choice' i face. I hope the public sector wipe the floor with this government and the private sector join in. A victory for them filters down to me - not having the social weight to do much on my own. The attempts to get private sector resentful of public sector is because they do not want us lot (the other 95%) to realise this simple truth.

 

[ICB]

well they certainly are if some of the best organised and protected workers dont even attempt to defend their existing contracts. Surely one should fight for the best terms going, not accepta levelling down to the worst?

As a matter of principle I think one should fight for what's fair and just, not the "best terms going" if that disadvantages other people. However, I agree that a levelling down to the worst of all standards is obviously not desirable.

I can't see a problem with working longer if we're living longer. I would have a problem if the argument was that the average period in retirement remain constant at x years while the average working life increases in proportion to the increase in life expectancy but that isn't what's happening; people in the same situation as my Mum probably have it as good as it will get since they're retiring at the same age, or earlier, as their parents' generation but living for another ten years or so.

The reasonable situation would seem to be that we work for a given proportion of average life expectancy in the hope that we have a peaceful and happy retirement for the remaining proportion. I find it hard to argue that our children should work harder and longer so that we can retire earlier and easier.

 

[dennisr]

dennisr - you're verging on the usual personal abuse that arises in these situations and that we'd rather refreshingly avoided until now, perhaps we can try to remain civilised? Calling me a DM informed type is about as low as it gets as far as I'm concerned.

Sorry, if i did sound like that. I was using a bit of a "blunderbuss to add sprinklies on top of the ice cream" approach - which hasn't really helped my arguements

I'm honestly not saying you are that type of person buy i think we are facing a huge propaganda campaign at the moment which some of the arguements you have picked up are very much the product of. It wasn't meant to sound personal or quite so crudely put.

 

[belboid]

I can't see a problem with working longer if we're living longer.

until the last ten years or so, the majority of workers - especially lower paid ones - only managed eighteen months on their pension before they died. It was, largely, only the middle-classes that did well out of them. Now, more people are actually getting to spend -ooh, maybe 7 or 8 years on a pension. Well bloody good on em.

 

[dennisr]

...The reasonable situation would seem to be that we work for a given proportion of average life expectancy in the hope that we have a peaceful and happy retirement for the remaining proportion. I find it hard to argue that our children should work harder and longer so that we can retire earlier and easier.

There is the much bigger arguement - you are right - but the union's role is simply to defend it members conditions as they stand though. Personally I'd love it if trade union's did begin to take up the longer-term questions - but they are not any more than the government is dealing ith them.

All that the tu's and thier members are doing is saying - "hold on!, who's deciding this for us? 'were's the give and take here?' 'who decided we were paying the price?'

I don't see how the answers to your wider question are the union's resposibility in the present situation (any more than anybody else's anyway). It seems the government and employers have already decided thier 'solution' - at our cost. They are important questions - I would agree - and raise a whole series of queries about the present organisation of this society. Ultimately - as said before - this 'crisis' is only a 'crisis' if you look at it from the employers view of how society hould be run

 

[gentlegreen]

Well I'll be on the picket line!

I may be too - I just joined - 5 minutes ago

.

 

[ICB]

dennisr - Ahh, much broader scope altogether there. I think we'd both like to see the TUs do a better job, it might even be an uncomfortable reality that achieving that entails learning some lessons about branding and spin from the New Labour project. Sad but that seems to be the world we're living in. Either way, I really hope they are starting to get their act together as IME (admittedly limited) they are run in much the same way as everything else, in the interests of those near the top of them in positions of power, unaware of their own baggage and ideological assumptions. It almost seems inevitable that at some point in the climb towards power and influence "we" become "them".

In some ways I find unions and local govt. are worse than corporates, at least in business you can be up front about your priorities being to maximise profit and shareholder value then have a stand up fight about what that entails. In local govt. the upper levels of management and committees are all about the jostling of personal vested interests and almost everyone seems more concerned with their own career and advancement than they are with the aims and remit of the organisation. This syndrome is undoubtedly the biggest issue around here anyway.

I also agree about the bigger picture in terms of national wealth and taxation, the books would balance pretty fast if the govt went after the millionaires and billionaires who avoid paying tax at all, and the corporates who shift money around to avoid paying corporate tax in the UK and the rest of Europe.

Perhaps I'm just less hopeful than you having seen the way local authorities and big corporates run from an uncomfortably close proximity.

As ever I've got no answers, just questions about other people's, and I'm in danger of severely depressing myself.

 

[ICB]

Sorry, if i did sound like that. I was using a bit of a "blunderbuss to add sprinklies on top of the ice cream" approach - which hasn't really helped my arguements

I'm honestly not saying you are that type of person buy i think we are facing a huge propaganda campaign at the moment which some of the arguements you have picked up are very much the product of. It wasn't meant to sound personal or quite so crudely put.

it's all been remarkably well behaved actually, I haven't ventured into P&P for ages as it used to get so vicious and personal all the time, indeed I was the cause of one of the most notorious "call out" threads ever seen in the general forum, once upon a time.

I'm really not spinning the govt/employers line on this and I recognise that the economic model that precedes my points is entirely contingent, but it's the one we're living in and my suspicion is it will only change incrementally rather than be radically reworked. That's another discussion though.

 

[BarryB]

At a meeting last night someone said that there might be a second public workers strike on May 4 (local election day). Ive had a quick look at the Unison website and cant see anything. Anyone have any information?

BarryB

 

[cockneyrebel]

From the Daily Mirror

Front page is OUT OUT OUT

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_obj...-wave-of-strikes-over-pensions-name_page.html

and the editorial:

PENSIONS PLEA
TOMORROW'S walkout by up to 1.5million public servants, potentially the biggest since the General Strike of 1926, is remarkable.

The home helps, dinner ladies, street cleaners, librarians, social workers and other local government employees are not demanding a big pay rise.

They are defending pensions into which they have paid significant contributions, some of them for many years.

The government and local authority employers should immediately withdraw plans to impose inferior retirement terms and return to meaningful negotiations with union leaders.

Everyone has the right to enjoy a comfortable retirement after a lifetime of contributing.

And council workers don't retire on a king's ransom. Unlike ministers and MPs who get us to fund their own gold-plated pensions.

 

[Groucho]

Well done to the Mirror. It's 99% crap but every so often does something really good.

 

[Macullam]

At a meeting last night someone said that there might be a second public workers strike on May 4 (local election day). Ive had a quick look at the Unison website and cant see anything. Anyone have any information?

BarryB

This is likely to be selective action either regioan or different sectors a mistake in my opinion. Discussions are still taking place regarding further all out action.

 

[treelover]

They are saying 1.5 million worrkers will be on strike , but realistically will they all walk out, is there the stomach, climate for scuh long term action? imo, there has been little publicity by the unions for this strike, ralles are not exactly getting widespread publicity are they.

 

[mutley]

They are saying 1.5 million worrkers will be on strike , but realistically will they all walk out, is there the stomach, climate for scuh long term action? imo, there has been little publicity by the unions for this strike, ralles are not exactly getting widespread publicity are they.

There have been repeated full page adverts publicising this, I've seen them in the grauniad and the metro. Whether the local rallies are getting built is another matter, and relies on local activity by the branches but I DO wish you'd cheer up!!

Whether we'll need or get long-term action we'll see.. but I'm not sure that the 'climate' (whatever that means in this context) is key. It's working-class self-activity.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

At a meeting last night someone said that there might be a second public workers strike on May 4 (local election day). Ive had a quick look at the Unison website and cant see anything. Anyone have any information?

BarryB

It would be a good tactic. The tories control the employers organisation and are hoping to make gains - it would destroy their chance of that in one action.

It would only need selective action to kill the elections though.

In the late 1970s/early 1980s the local government employers reneged on a comparability deal. Nalgo balloted the rate collection staff and threatened to pull them out on all out indefinite action, supported by the rest of the workforce agreeing to a strike if anyone was victimised. (It was all carried in ballots, that being Nalgo rules at the time).

All Rate collection would have stopped and the finances of councils would have ground to a halt. The employers caved in over night.

 

[IMHO]

Oh yes, public sector workers are entitled to better pension arrangements than the rest of us.

LIKE FUCK

 

[dennisr]

Oh yes, public sector workers are entitled to better pension arrangements than the rest of us.

LIKE FUCK

where has anyone argued for that? - except the employers mouthpieces arguing this 'is' the case (but then what do you expect...)

you idiot

 

[netbob]

Oh yes, public sector workers are entitled to better pension arrangements than the rest of us.

LIKE FUCK

Bu this is only happening becuase the public sector has better organised unions? If the same thing was replicated in the private sector we would all have better pensions?

 

[mutley]

Oh yes, public sector workers are entitled to better pension arrangements than the rest of us.

LIKE FUCK

Yeah lets really SPEED UP that race to the bottom!!