JUST a few months ago the UNISON leadership accepted the government’s below inflation wage cutting deal over three years. Now the union has had to announce that due to the massive rises in gas, oil, food and electricity prices it is seeking to renegotiate the same sell-out deal, after just a few months.
The union statement said: ‘The soaring cost of living has led to a vote by senior health activists of UNISON, the UK’s largest health union, to trigger a re-opener clause on a multi-year pay deal. The call for a better pay deal by UNISON’s Health Executive comes in the wake of increases in the costs of fuel, energy and food which are driving inflation beyond the 2% assumption made at the time of the agreement earlier this year.’
The UNISON leadership must be the only body in the country that believed in a 2% inflation ‘assumption’ – while oil prices were hitting the roof!
Head of Health Karen Jennings, added: ‘Nurses and other health workers are already struggling to cope with almost daily increases in the cost of basic necessities such as food and energy. . . .’
The statement adds: ‘We will be gathering evidence to present to the independent Pay Review Body to show that there have been significant changes since the deal was negotiated in the spring. Our members reluctantly accepted 2.75% this year but the 2.54% and 2.5% increases negotiated for the next two years now fall well short of all expected inflation figures.
‘UNISON will work with the other health unions to submit new evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body and make the case that the pay rates for 2009/2010 should be reviewed.’
In other words UNISON’s members will just have to accept the savage price increases that are taking place this year, and then hope that the review body and the government accepts their evidence that the pay rates for 2009/2010 should be reviewed.
In fact, even if the pay rates are reviewed, all the members will get is an extra pittance based on the government’s rigged inflation rate index. This will in no way compensate for the real inflation rate that will be many, many percentage points bigger.
UNISON must now reject the three-year wage-cutting deal. With the other major trade unions it must draw up a cost of living index based on the price increases of the food and fuel necessities that every working class household cannot do without.
The Trade Union (real) cost of living index must be used to put in for a wage increase that matches the real inflation rate, and in the same way that the government produces a monthly figure for inflation, the unions must demand a monthly wage adjustment upwards, matching the upward movement in the trade union cost of living index.
This is the only way to defend the standard of living of the working class! The government will say that this cannot be done. This is the same government that has handed the bankers up to £200 billion already!
Action must also be taken to tackle the oil and gas companies which are making fabulous profits and imposing equally fabulous price rises onto workers.
The oil, gas and energy companies must be nationalised, then the price of petrol and food can be slashed overnight.
Similarly in relation to banks repossessing workers’ homes. The trade unions must decide that they will not tolerate house repossessions by greedy bankers who are getting billions of pounds from the state, that is from the very taxpayers that they are repossessing.
Trade unions must campaign for the nationalisation of the banks, and also for the development of an economic plan to build millions of council homes to solve the housing crisis, and at the same time teach vital skills to millions of youth who will be paid trade union rates of pay.
All of these policies are directed at defending the interests of the working class and the youth, and for creating the conditions for the organisation of a general strike to bring down the Brown government, to bring in a workers government that will carry out socialist policies and put an end to capitalism.
