Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/485/2370
From The Socialist newspaper, 3 May 2007
Greenwich workers fight on
THE CAMPAIGN by Greenwich council workers to stop a package of cuts to pay and conditions is still going from strength to strength. The council has proposed a package that will include pay cuts of up to £130 a week. Council workers, led by Greenwich UNISON where Socialist Party member Onay Kasab is branch secretary, have mounted a mass campaign of opposition.
On 25 April, UNISON members lobbied the council but councillors refused UNISON permission to address the meeting. Some even refused to enter the town hall for fear of the lobby which included classroom assistants, road sweepers, library workers and caretakers.
The next day, 26 April, nearly 400 workers attended a meeting to hear about UNISON's campaign and agreed to intensify it. The branch agreed also to lobby councillors' surgeries. Why should councillors agree massive rises in their allowances while council workers get pay cuts?
The UNISON branch has also agreed that if a single UNISON member loses pay, then a ballot for industrial action must take place. However, lessons have been learnt from previous disputes where union bureaucrats, tied to New Labour, have refused to authorise industrial action.
For instance, nursery nurses in Greenwich have been waiting since February 2006 for the union's regional officials to authorise strike action in support of a pay claim! Should the regional officials try the same tactics in this dispute, they will be met by massive pressure from below.
Greenwich UNISON has also ensured that local shop stewards form the negotiating committees, ensuring maximum accountability.
Next lobby: 6pm, Wednesday 16 May, Wellington Street, Woolwich SE18.
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In The Socialist 3 May 2007:
2007 election analysis: Time for a new workers' party
Scottish Elections: Labour rocked as SNP wins
Socialist Party election campaign
NHS cuts... privatisation... widening wealth gap
Campaign for a New Workers' Party conference
Socialist Party NHS campaign
NHS: A matter of life and death in Swansea
Socialist Party workplace news
PCS: Fighting for jobs, pay and services
Socialist Party editorial
Widening wealth gap needs working-class response
Socialist Party election campaign
Packed election rally for Scotland's Solidarity
Irish election - Socialist Party takes on the establishment
New Labour panics and resorts to lies
Yorkshire ISR and Socialist Students day of action
Global Warming
Alternative energy: Winds of change?
Education
Socialist Students
Seattle students walkout against the Iraq war
Pressure mounts for troops withdrawal
Socialist Party Marxist analysis
Russia April 1917: Lenin returns from exile
Comment
Women must have the right to choose!
Socialist Party news and analysis
What 'public-private partnerships really mean
Oppose legal aid contracts tooth and nail
Socialist Party workplace news
Remember the dead but fight for the living
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