Moves being made towards public sector strike in November
Lobby the TUC this Sunday!
Rob Williams
Unison has called an emergency Local Government Service Group Executive meeting for Friday 16 September, and its other Service Group Executives – including Health – are also having meetings soon.
The expectation is that motions will be put to these meetings requesting an industrial action ballot which could mean Unison members striking with other unions in the week beginning 7th November to defend public sector pensions.
This shows the importance of an initiative that has put pressure on the Unison leadership through trying to force a special Local Government Service Group conference to be convened to push for a strike.
Also, both Unite and the GMB along with Prospect and the FDA may all be on the verge of announcing ballots and could therefore coordinate autumn action with those like the PCS and NUT who went on strike on 30th June.
All this is very welcome and opens up the prospect of a one-day strike at the beginning of November of 3-4 million public sector workers.
This would have a decisive effect in changing the whole situation by lifting all working-class people’s confidence that this government can be challenged and defeated.
Chancellor George Osborne’s admission that he has no ‘Plan B’ to the massive £81 billion cuts package while he gets ready to abandon the 50% tax rate for the richest 1%, and at the same time the Con-Dems rush through their NHS privatisation plans, shows once and for all that if we don’t fight, working people will face a devastating prospect.
NSSN lobby of TUC
The National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) rally and lobby of the TUC this Sunday couldn’t come at a more important time.
Bob Crow (RMT) and Mark Serwotka (PCS) will be among the speakers. We have the opportunity to send a message to the leaders of the union movement the day before they meet in the TUC annual conference in London that strike action has to be organised and coordinated.
Trade unionists, young people and pensioners should come to this event and bring your workmates, friends and family.
Come along and bring your union banners and flags. When the Unison Local Government Service Group Executive meets next Friday, a big, vibrant rally of working people on Sunday, determined to fight the Con-Dems’ cuts can only give them confidence that now is the time to fight and strike together.
