Istvan Gulyas, Staines Socialist Party, and Children’s Services Convenor with Surrey Unison (personal capacity)
Surrey Unison branch has about 5,000 members. This increased recently due to the political climate and people starting to see the trade union movement taking strike action, to achieve some sort of compensation for the cost-of-living increases. Do not be mistaken, most trade unions are only asking their employers to match inflation, and not even asking for a real-term pay increase.
The government argument, that the country can’t afford to keep wages above inflation, is flawed. We know that they found billions of pounds, much of which was distributed to their rich business friends, during Covid. The energy and fuel companies have announced obscene profits, which are again going in the same direction, from working people to the super-rich.
So we were not surprised that the latest pay offer from Surrey County Council mirrored the national situation. The lowest-paid workers have been offered the lowest amount of lump-sum payment of £1,500, while senior managers at the top would receive £4-10,000 lump-sum payments.
The overall pay offer was 5%, which is less than half of what we were asking for – 12%. Surrey is considered to be an affluent area. However, it has many deprived areas, where the local services and community resources are continuously declining. House prices and rents are unaffordable for most of the workers in the council.
Our Unison branch has launched a campaign to mobilise our members to reject the pay offer and consider taking industrial action. We see no other option other than to fight back and prevent our members becoming poorer.
The task is huge as, due to Tory anti-union laws, we must get at least half of our members to vote. Our members are not just in one location, they work all over in Surrey, in hundreds of different roles. The stakes are high as other council unions have announced they won’t be actively campaigning.
However, we are very hopeful and energised. We are producing YouTube and TikTok clips, and updating our Facebook page daily. Most importantly, we are organising online and in-person workplace meetings, sending emails and calling our members to get the vote out.
We have never yet managed to get 50% of our entire council membership to vote in a ballot, but I have a feeling this year could be different. Workers everywhere are coming out and telling the bosses, ‘enough is enough’. It feels like the working class has started to feel its power again, and when working people decide to go in the same direction, miracles can happen.
