TODAY’S publication of the Hutton Report on public sector pensions will be like a red rag to a bull as far as the membership of the public sector trade unions are concerned.
The Tory-LibDem cabinet ‘Star Chamber’, headed by Cabinet minister Francis Maude, is working on the basis that these proposals will give the public sector trade unions a common purpose, and that the anger of the membership will be so intense that there will be a general strike of the public sector, or at the least, mass strike actions in the summer.
Consequently the ‘Star Chamber’ has already established a body to organise an army of strike breakers for a ‘summer war’ against the trade unions, to break their resistance to the coalition’s onslaught, on behalf of the bankers and the bosses.
This move is reminiscent of the establishment by the Baldwin government of the OMS, the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies. This was formed by the Baldwin government in 1925 in preparation for a general strike that Baldwin ignited in May 1926, when the miners’ wages were cut by the private mine owners.
The strike breakers then moved into action, machine guns were placed on the dock gates, and supplies were moved around the country by scabs, guarded by troops in armoured cars. Then, after nine days, with the strike getting stronger, the TUC surrendered, leaving the working class in the lurch.
Commenting just ahead of Lord Hutton’s report, Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: ‘The National Audit Office has confirmed that public sector pension costs are falling as expected due to the reforms already in place. Teachers are already paying more, the normal pension age has been raised to 65 for new entrants and employer contributions have been capped. . . .
‘The government’s already stated desire to increase pension contributions by more than half could cost newly qualified teachers up to £60 a month, an additional cost which could see many leaving the Teachers Pensions Scheme on the grounds that it is no longer affordable.’
Unison, the UK’s largest union, also warned that the Hutton report will bring the threat of industrial action closer, as the union’s members reel from pay freezes and job cuts.
Dave Prentis said: ‘This will be just one more attack on innocent public sector workers who are being expected to pay the price of the deficit, while the bankers who caused it continue to enjoy bumper pay and bonuses.
‘Workers are already losing out as a result of the government pre-empting the report, raiding the pension schemes and increasing contributions by 50%. . . .
‘Pensioners are already being hit with the move from RPI to CPI to calculate annual inflation increases – this will reduce their value by 15%.’
The civil service elite of the First Division Association (FDA) said: ‘senior public servants will be suspicious of agreeing changes when the government is already demanding substantial increases in contribution rates in order to claw back £2.8 billion in pension costs, whilst at the same time slashing the value of pensions by at least 15% simply by changing the index for annual uprating from RPI to CPI from April this year. . . .
‘Negotiations in the coming months will be very difficult, and no public sector union has ruled out the possibility of industrial action.’
It is clear that a summer showdown with the public sector trade unions is being organised.
Workers must respond by beginning to organise a general strike. As well, they must build up the revolutionary leadership of the WRP to replace the reformist union leaders who are already terrified of what lies ahead.
The general strike must bring down the coalition, whose policies have the support of the bankers and bosses but not the workers or the middle class, and replace it with a workers’ government that will bring in a planned socialist economy.
