Pensions attacks: United action can win

"THIS IS the first time in my memory that so many workers in different
trade unions have been involved in strike action over the same issue. Blair
may think that he can ‘tough it out’ and gain electoral advantage. But he will
learn that he is not dealing with just a pressure group, he is dealing with
the organised working-class."

Roger Bannister, UNISON national executive committee

MEMBERS OF public- sector unions organising over one million workers voted
in favour of strike action to defend pensions. This represents the biggest
action of its kind in Britain for over 20 years.

Blair and Co imagine that the general election will be fought out with the
Tories and Liberals by promising to cut back the jobs and conditions in the
‘feather-bedded public sector’. They are in for a rude awakening. Their
attacks have unleashed the long slumbering giant of the organised trade union
movement.

The big votes in favour of striking demonstrate that, given a lead, workers
will come together and fight back. It is no accident that the union with one
of the highest turnouts in the ballot is the civil service union PCS. This
union, under its socialist and left leadership, took strike action last year
in defence of jobs.

Labour’s electoral strategist, Alan Milburn, declared that the election
will be mainly about "what’s in it for me". In reality, it is only through
collective mass action that workers can defend their own interests and
therefore the interests of the working class as a whole.

This is just the beginning of a fightback. Public sector workers will be
organising to escalate the action until the government backs down, drawing in
private-sector workers and all those who believe that workers deserve a living
pension.

The Socialist Party will also be continuing our campaign for the unions to
begin the building of a new workers’ party that can provide a political
challenge to New Labour, the Tories and Liberals and their pro-big business,
anti-working-class policies.


"MEMBERS IN PCS have shown they are determined to defend pensions, their
jobs and public services. Our voice and the voice of hundreds of thousands of
public-sector workers will not be ignored.

We deliver vital services across the UK and will not stand by and watch our
conditions and pensions eroded.

Together we are strong."

Janice Godrich, President PCS