MEMBERS of the 270,000-strong National Union of Teachers (NUT), Britain’s largest teaching union are to take strike action on April 24 over pay. They voted 48,217 (75 per cent) to 15,884 (25 per cent) for strike action.
After announcing the ballot result on Tuesday, NUT General Secretary Steve Sinnott said: ‘The government is wrong to determine a pay increase for teachers below the rate of inflation. The rate of inflation is presently 4.1 per cent and teachers will receive for 2008 2.45 per cent.’
The university and college lecturers’ UCU union support the NUT. UCU’s Barry Lovejoy said: ‘I congratulate the NUT on this outcome . . . I am confident that the ballot UCU is currently conducting, on our own separate pay dispute, will also be well supported. We look forward to joint activities with NUT on April 24 in defence of our schools, our colleges and our communities.’
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) published the results of a consultative ballot of 140,000 postal workers over Royal Mail’s plans to scrap their final salary pensions scheme. More than 90 per cent of those who voted rejected the changes.
Dave Ward, CWU Deputy General Secretary said: ‘With such overwhelming opposition to their plans, if Royal Mail can’t find an acceptable solution with the CWU, industrial action will be inevitable.’ Ward revealed that the CWU and Unite are discussing joint industrial action if Royal Mail scraps final salary pensions.
Other public services workers are also engaged in strike struggles, or preparing for action, over the pay cuts being imposed on them by the government.
Members of the PCS civil servants’ union in the Department of Work and Pensions took two days of strike action on March 17-18 and warned that their members will strike again to get ‘fair and just pay’.
UNISON, the largest public sector union, warned yesterday that talks over a six-per-cent pay claim for local council workers were ‘at a crucial stage’. Heather Wakefield, UNISON National Secretary said: ‘Having rejected 2.2 per cent, we do expect an improved offer.’ Members in the National Health Service (NHS) also confront a government-imposed real pay cut.
There is clearly an explosion of anger of workers across the public services, in the NHS, in education, in local authorities, at Royal Mail and elsewhere.
Yet Prime Minister Gordon Brown was adamant at his monthly press conference on Tuesday that the government is determined to control public sector pay. He claimed that curbs were vital to control inflation and to allow the Bank of England to cut interest rates.
More than two years ago, the Workers Revolutionary Party outlined the necessity of the trade unions developing a public sector alliance to take united strike action to defend jobs, pay and services. The call for a public sector alliance has been debated in the unions over the past year.
Trade unionists know that criticisms of the government and good ideas do not pay bills and they are demanding a public sector alliance that will take determined strike action.
All public sector trade unionists, locally, regionally and nationally, must strike alongside NUT members on April 24, not merely as an act of solidarity, but in order to win their own struggles.
Union members must demand their leaders, through the Trades Union Congress (TUC), immediately organise indefinite united strike action throughout the public sector to smash the Brown regime’s pay-cutting dictates and win pay rises index-linked to the real cost of living (calculated by the unions).
This fight for a living wage in the public services is clearly a political one, a struggle against Brown’s Labour government.
If the government refuses to back down, then the unions must answer this by selecting their own political representatives; bringing down the Brown regime; and organising to put in place a workers’ government to implement socialist policies and protect jobs, living standards and public services.
Trade unionists should join the WRP and build a new leadership to lead this struggle to victory.
