Nursery Nurses: 

Anger As Unison Leadership Backs Down

AFTER EIGHT weeks of strike action, nursery nurses were
left feeling outraged and betrayed by the decision of the national UNISON
leadership to abandon the fight for a national pay and conditions deal for
nursery nurses and thereby attempt to end the strike.

Philip Stott, CWI Scotland

On 20 April, without any consultation with the 4,000
nursery nurses still on strike, Scottish UNISON officials proposed at a
delegate meeting of those branches still in dispute that all strike action
be suspended from 23 April.

While this was defeated, the leadership’s fall-back
position was to force through a vote that insisted that nursery nurses had
to sign local deals.

Within hours, and even before the majority of nursery
nurses had heard the news, UNISON leaders had gone to the press to announce
the decision. Nursery nurses’ mass meetings in the days following this
betrayal expressed seething anger at the decision. Many felt utterly let
down by the union leadership.

Determination

The meetings saw many nursery nurses in tears. But it
was also met with a determination not to allow eight weeks of strike action
to end without something to show from all that sacrifice. Resolutions of
condemnation of the national UNISON officials are now coming in from
branches of UNISON in response.

As we go to press a number of areas have now signed or
are likely to sign local agreements. In most if not all cases there have
been significant concessions from the employers.

In North Lanarkshire a meeting of 300 nursery nurses
voted narrowly to accept a deal that saw their hourly wage rise to £10.13
an hour.

Significantly the employers also agreed to pay £1,200
in a lump sum to all nursery nurses. This effectively means that nursery
nurses will get back what they lost in wages during the strike. Even then
the agreement was only passed by 166 votes to 115.

Many nursery nurses felt, following the decision of the
union leadership, that they had no choice to sign. "It’s something but
not enough" was the feeling expressed by most of them.

Glasgow 

In Glasgow a mass meeting of over 700 nursery nurses
made it clear they would not be going back unless an acceptable offer was
made by the employers.

Nursery nurses in Edinburgh massively voted to reject
the deal. In Fife they were so enraged at the offer they were made, the
nursery nurses marched down to the council offices to hand back the
documents containing the council’s proposals!

In Dundee, management hoped to take advantage of the
anger and a certain demoralisation that had set in to force nursery nurses
to sign a deal by midday on 23 April. If not, the deal was off the table
they claimed. "We won’t be blackmailed or bullied into signing
something until we have discussed it in our time" was the comment of
one nursery nurse which summed up the mood of many.

Jim McFarlane, the chair of UNISON in Dundee and a
member of the International Socialists (CWI Scotland) proposed that unless
more time was given to consider the deal it should be rejected. He was the
only branch official to put a recommendation.

A member of the Socialist Workers Party, who is also the
branch service and conditions officer, did not make a call to throw the
offer out. Nursery nurses voted narrowly to reject the deal.

Concessions 

Lo and behold the council then decided to keep the offer
on the table. More concessions have been won by the nursery nurses since
then and as we go to press they are still on strike.

This fight has from the start been about low pay and
recognition of the job that nursery nurses do. Improvements in pay have been
won as a result of the militant and determined action of nursery nurses.
They have set a benchmark for other workers to follow. More than 2,000
nursery nurses are still on strike.

But wider lessons need to be urgently discussed by
nursery nurses. 

These include the need for a fighting leadership at a local
and national level, the need to build effective solidarity action and above
all the vital necessity to ensure that the phenomenal talents and energy of
the nursery nurses be incorporated to help build a more combative and
clear-sighted workers’ movement.