Socialist Party members in Unison
As this year’s public sector union Unison conference takes place, a Labour government has been in power barely a year yet is now even more unpopular than the previous Tory government.
The scale of the crisis engulfing our public services has never been more acute. Years of austerity, underfunding, and political attacks have hollowed out the NHS, schools and colleges, local government, and social care. Our pay is worth at least 20% less than it was in 2009 and inflation is making it worse.
Pay
Against this backdrop, a real-terms pay rise for public sector workers is not only fair, it’s essential for the survival of the services that millions rely on.
Recruitment and retention are becoming impossible. The government talks about ‘value for money’, but there is no better investment than paying public sector workers fairly, because without them the services collapse. But with RPI inflation at 4.5% in April, this year’s pay offers – 3.2% in local government and 3.6% in the NHS – are in reality pay cuts.
These pay offers must be rejected. Unison is absolutely right to demand an inflation-proof, properly funded pay rise across all sectors. But we must fight to achieve this. The strike action taken by many trade unionists, including ambulance and hospital workers in Unison in 2022, shows that striking works! Resident (formerly known as junior) doctors are once again balloting for strike action over pay.
We need national coordinated industrial action within our union and across unions for fully funded pay rises. And we need a serious industrial and political campaign for a £15-an-hour minimum wage now to end low pay, which is endemic amongst our members.
Local government on the brink
Local government has borne the brunt of austerity. According to the Institute for Government, council funding from central government was slashed by more than 50% between 2010 and 2020. Over 800 libraries have closed, more than 1,000 children’s centres have shut, and vital youth, homelessness, and mental health services have been decimated. It has been estimated that over 600,000 council jobs have gone.
And the pain continues. Birmingham, Nottingham, Croydon, and Thurrock councils are among those that have effectively declared bankruptcy under Section 114 notices. More are expected to follow. The Local Government Association estimates a funding gap of £4 billion just to maintain current services. This is not about mismanagement, this is a systemic crisis driven by political choices to underfund public services and hand wealth to the already-rich.
We know the money is there – in 2024 the FTSE100 companies paid out £89 billion to their shareholders! But this Labour government refuses to tax the rich, choosing instead to make working people and the poorest in society shoulder the burden.
Solidarity with Birmingham bin workers
Labour councils have passed on Tory cuts, hiding behind their austerity offensive. Now there should be no excuses with Starmer’s government in office. Yet the cuts continue.
Labour Birmingham City Council, the biggest in western Europe, is using brutal strike-breaking measures that Thatcher would be proud of to try and smash the heroic strike of Unite members on the bins against wage cuts of up to £8,000. And standing behind these vicious anti-union tactics are Starmer and ‘Our Angie’ Rayner – deputy prime minister and former Unison NEC member.
The bin workers need the active solidarity of other union members, including Unison, across the region and beyond – and that especially should apply to Birmingham City Council Unison.
Local branches should not be left to fight the cuts on their own. The policy of Unison’s Local Government Group is to fight for no-cuts budgets. The union should be leading national action to fight for the money needed in our public services and demand that Labour makes the rich pay.
NHS: From crisis to catastrophe
The NHS is in a deep and worsening crisis. In England alone, over 7.5 million people are waiting for hospital treatment – the highest number since records began. Staff are leaving in droves, with the NHS Workforce Plan estimating a shortage of 360,000 staff by 2037 if action isn’t taken. Nurses, paramedics, cleaners, and support staff are all doing heroic work under impossible conditions.
But while the government insists there’s ‘no money’, NHS trusts are being pushed into financial ruin. The Health Foundation recently warned that without urgent and sustained investment the NHS faces a funding shortfall of £38 billion by 2033–34. At the same time, billions are being siphoned into private health contracts, while staff wages have fallen dramatically in real terms and jobs are being cut.
We need to fight Labour’s continued privatisation by stealth of the NHS. We need to fight for the resources and funding needed to pay health workers what they deserve and ensure a fully funded NHS that provides quality health care ‘from the cradle to the grave’.
Socialist policies
This crisis is the result of a capitalist system that prioritises profit over people. Tweaks and half-measures won’t fix it. We need socialist policies to end the crisis in public services.
We say: Tax the super-rich and big corporations to fund our services; reverse privatisation and restore public ownership in health, energy, transport and care. Nationalise the banks and major industries, so that wealth is democratically planned and used for social need, not private greed.
Now, more than ever, we need bold leadership, united industrial action, and a political movement that puts socialist policies at its heart.
A political voice for workers
From refusing to back striking workers to watering down commitments on workers’ rights and public ownership, attacking disabled peoples’ benefits, scapegoating migrant workers and supporting a genocidal war in Gaza – Starmer’s Labour is not the party we need. Starmer lines up with Trump and Netanyahu, and in the next breath launches his austerity offensive against working-class people, including vicious cuts to public services.
The union movement must have a programme that unites resistance, and fights for socialist policies like democratic public ownership and investment in jobs and services. But it’s crystal clear that this programme won’t be found in Labour – we need a new workers’ party.
We need a proper debate among all members about what our union should do to achieve genuine political representation – not just leave the debate to those who pay into Labour Link and the Labour Party (a minority of union members and getting smaller).
Unison should only support political candidates who support us. We need to build up a group of MPs in parliament who genuinely champion the union’s policies. Unison members should stand as workers’ candidates in elections wherever possible. Unison should be discussing with other trade unions how we achieve the new workers’ party we need.
- As we go to press, we are awaiting the results of the elections to Unison’s National Executive Council, in which seven Socialist Party members stood as candidates.
Socialist Party fringe meeting
Stand up to Starmer
Wednesday 18th June, 5.30pm (or end of conference)
Suite 1, Leonardo Hotel, 31 Keele Warf, L3 4FN
Hear from:
- April Ashley, Unison NEC member (personal capacity)
- Greg Marshall, Broxtowe Alliance councillor
- Ellie Waple, NEC candidate and trans rights campaigner (personal capacity)
- Hannah Sell, Socialist Party general secretary
