Sheila Caffrey, National Education Union National Executive Committee member (personal capacity)
This year has been the largest movement in the trade unions that I can remember. Where the Tories thought they could put austerity back on the agenda, the working class has fought back.
National ballots of any trade union willing to put forward a lead are smashing the anti-trade union laws, with well over 50% of members voting to take action to win the pay and conditions they desperately need and deserve!
In the last fortnight, more than eight out of ten University and College Union (UCU) members in higher education have returned a ballot to strike – another 70,000 university staff joining the fightback.
And with a 20% pay cut in the last decade, and 25,000 leaving nursing in the last year, is it in any surprise that 300,000 nurses in the Royal College of Nursing have voted to take strike action?
Strike ballots
Ballot papers have gone out for over 800,000 education workers across three unions, including the head teachers’ union. Civil servants in the PCS union have just finished a national ballot.
The Communication Workers Union and rail union RMT are in talks following massive national action, and RMT and Aslef are reballoting.
As a proud member of the National Education Union, I have returned my ballot paper to strike. I see the next step in the campaign as attending Socialism 2022. I look forward to mixing with hundreds of other socialists and working-class fighters. To hear platform speakers and discuss questions in sessions, such as ‘Are we heading for a general strike?’ and many others.
It is becoming increasingly clear that capitalism doesn’t have any answers to the problems facing working-class people. Ministers and prime ministers are in a revolving door in parliament, offering sticking plasters of £60 a month for energy bills, while crying crocodile tears that there’s a £50 billion hole in public finances; a hole that they’ve created, awarding their cronies large public contracts!
New workers’ party
The Starmer-led Labour Party has clearly shown it is no friend of the striking working class. Starmer banned shadow ministers from attending picket lines, and invited Royal Mail to Labour’s national conference, at a time when Royal Mail bosses are tearing up terms and conditions for postal workers. They have clearly nailed their colours to the mast.
So, what is the answer? We need workers across unions coming together against the bosses and the Tories. We need to fight for a new workers’ party. And we need to fight for an alternative.
If we took profit out of the system, there’d be plenty of money for jobs, homes and services for all. If we took capitalist competition out of the system, then instead of a ‘race to the bottom’ decimating workers’ pay and conditions, we could build well-paid, green industries. We need to fight for a socialist society, run by workers, in the interest of workers.
Where else will you be able to discuss the struggles, and leave energised to fight for a socialist future? If you’ve not yet checked the programme and bought your ticket, now is the time to do it, and attend the socialist event of the year!
