Let down by Welsh Labour

Let down by Welsh Labour

A Unison and Socialist Party member in Wales

Bridgend council has withdrawn itself from national pay-bargaining – deciding unilaterally not to honour any agreed pay increase for 2014. Socialist Party members in Unison Cymru offer our solidarity and full support to our brothers and sisters in Unison and other local authority unions in Bridgend and call for all trade unionists to get behind them.

Once again this calls into question our union’s support for Labour and exposes Welsh Labour claims to be more supportive of trade unionists than the rest of the Labour Party.

It also shows that our union’s advocacy of ‘partnership-working’ with the public sector employers in Wales and the Welsh government is fundamentally flawed. Welsh Labour councils are leading the way in attacking our members’ pay, terms and conditions. The Welsh government, in partnership with the employers, is doing the same in the NHS, as they aim to tear up ‘Agenda for Change’ (the current set of pay, terms and conditions for health workers). The partners we should be working with are service users fighting to defend provision threatened with cuts.

The First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, is Assembly Member for Bridgend but has washed his hands of any responsibility for attacks on workers in his own constituency.

The only council workers getting the nationally negotiated 1% pay rise in Bridgend would be staff on the bottom two spinal column points of the pay structure, because if they didn’t they would be paid less than the national minimum wage!

I’m glad Unison Cymru is backing our members in Bridgend and calling for a ballot for industrial action if the threat is not immediately withdrawn. But why does our union continue to fund this party and its Pontius Pilate of a First Minister?

Break with Labour! Fight all cuts alongside service users!

Please sign the workers’ petition calling for the local authority to overturn this decision: www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/cllr-mej-nott-we-want-bridgend-council-to-reverse-its-decision-to-withdraw-from-national-pay-bargaining