OVER 100,000 Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), will be on strike at the same time as the NUT teachers and the UCU lecturers on Thursday April 24th.
All of the three major trade unions are fighting the Labour government’s wage-cutting, below-inflation rate ‘wage rises’ policy and their plan to bring in three-year wage deals.
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said yesterday: ‘The government’s discredited argument that public sector pay fuels inflation doesn’t wash with independent economists and the hundreds of thousands of civil and public servants whose work is often taken for granted, yet touches our everyday lives. . . .
‘Unless the government changes direction and agrees to seriously tackle low pay, then 24 April will see over 100,000 civil and public servants coming together to demand the fair deal they deserve.’
NUT members voted 3-1 in favour of the campaign to stop cuts in the real pay of teachers.
The government is seeking to impose a ‘pay increase’ which, with inflation running at 4.1%, equals a savage wage cut with teachers getting 2.45% in 2008.
UCU has balloted members in further education colleges in England on industrial action in pursuit of a 6% increase or £1,500, whichever is the greater.
The UCU says that: ‘Thousands of FE lecturers, including large numbers who are part-time and hourly paid, are unable to progress to higher pay levels enjoyed by school teachers – 50% of whom receive allowances worth £2,364 to £11,557 p.a. on top of their pay scale.
‘Workload is another major concern. Teaching is only part of a lecturer’s growing workload which includes course development, lesson preparation, marking, professional development and administration. Teaching hours vary widely, with a quarter of lecturers teaching more than 850 hours a year, a level widely considered to be excessive.’
The UCU is also concerned about college ‘marketisation’ just as the NUT is concerned about the emergence of privatised Academies and the PCS is concerned about privatisation and the outsourcing of tens of thousands of jobs.
It states: ‘Our pay claims are separate, but UCU and NUT share concerns about the damage to our education system from government obsession with marketisation. The government is making colleges and schools compete with neighbouring institutions, creating insecurity. 41% of FE teaching staff are on fixed-term or casual contracts.’
The NHS trade unions meanwhile are having an 8%, three-year wage deal imposed on them, which is a recipe for pauperisation seeing that worldwide inflation is racing upwards.
All the NHS union and professional groups are facing the Brown government’s wage cutting diktat.
Meanwhile, postal workers have just rejected, in a 92 per cent ‘No’ vote, the Royal Mail and the Brown government’s plan to do away with their final salary pensions, and impose a much inferior pension, for which they will work five years longer, pay bigger contributions, and receive thousands of pounds less in their pension.
The present leaders Hayes and Ward are currently threatening industrial action over the issue.
Now they have a chance to show that they are serious and not just expelling hot air.
They must bring Royal Mail workers out on April 24th.
April 24th must be turned into a one-day general strike and serve as a dress rehearsal for an indefinite general strike to bring down the Brown government and bring in a workers government that will expropriate the bankers and bosses and bring in socialist policies.