- Saturday 27 June, 11am-4:30pm
- Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
‘We won’t pay for the bosses’ crisis’, is the strapline for the 20th NSSN conference in London on 27 June. Across the trade union movement, workers are anticipating what will be necessary to defend living standards from a new surge in inflation.
With profits as their priority, the capitalist bosses will raise their prices but not our wages. In the public sector, the government austerity squeeze will continue under Starmer’s Labour to try to satisfy ‘the markets’ and the capitalists’ demands for cuts.
The NSSN conference will discuss what is needed in response from the union movement. Already, local government unions have rejected the government’s pay offer. Unison is preparing for a strike ballot of its members.
Civil service union PCS conference voted for a serious national campaign on pay. A battle is on at the top of that union on how to respond to the government’s insufficient ‘pay remit’ of 3.5%.
Meanwhile, the National Education Union has agreed an autumn ballot on pay and funding, which would allow for strikes at the start of next year. Also in education, University and College Union congress has voted for a nationwide ballot for strike action in both further and higher education.
A key demand that emerged at last year’s NSSN conference, which was demanded by the NSSN lobby of the September Trades Union Congress (TUC), was for the trade unions to organise a weekend national demo against Labour austerity.
That position was agreed, but remains on paper. Clearly, were such a demo to take place this autumn, coinciding with key strike ballots taking place across the public sector, it would strengthen our class in its position to face down a new wave of inflation and austerity.
