More like this
Unions – out of touch or the workers’ last bastion?
Talking point: Unions call it the fight of their lives but – it will mean strikesnot seen for 30 years
AS BRITAIN'S biggest unions announced strike ballots, Unison's general secretary, Dave Prentis, told the TUC Congress in London that trades unionists are involved in the "fight of our lives". Britain now faces the prospect of mass industrial action on a scale not seen in years.
Winter of discontent
The strikes will be the biggest since the Winter of Discontent in 1978/79 when rubbish went uncollected and bodies unburied, says Christopher Hope in the Daily Telegraph. He says that the Telegraph has learned of secret plans mapping out "blocks" of strikes across the country running in "target areas" for two to three days at a time.
What else can we do, ask unions
We have no choice, says Mark Serwotka, of the Public and Commercial Services Union says, also in the Telegraph. The government refuses to negotiate on the main three issues facing millions of workers: paying more and working longer for a lower pension.
Ultimately, says Serwotka, the coalition "wants to privatise more of the public sector than even Thatcher fantasised about". But "millions of public sector workers are not going to be made scapegoats for a crisis they did not cause or conduits for more profit-making by a small elite".
Unions are political dinosaurs
With tedious predictability, the TUC conference provided a platform for Britain's "gloriously antediluvian union leaders to roar bellicose threats", says the Daily Mail Comment blog. These "commissars of the Left" (many on 100k plus salaries) have urged delegates to undertake civil disobedience in protest at the government's modest changes to public sector pensions.
But what hope is there when Boris Johnson caves into pay demands by Tube workers, and Ed Miliband can only caution against industrial action taken while negotiations over pensions are 'going on'? "Yes, the union leaders are dinosaurs. But aren't our politicians donkeys."
Unions might save us
The unions have to do something, says Mehdi Hasan in the Guardian. The chancellor's refusal to budge on the austerity programme, in the belief that there will be private sector-led recovery, is "driving the UK economy off a cliff".
Far from distancing himself from the unions, now is the time for Miliband to join them. We urgently need a more radical and stimulative alternative to cuts, as many economic experts agree. If Miliband and the Labour party cannot win the argument against austerity in parliament, then the union movement "will have to act as our last line of defence".
But the sums don't add up
Are the unions' pension demands affordable? asks Polly Curtis in the Guardian. While the absolute bill for public sector pensions is set to rise over the next 50 years, it is predicted to fall as a proportion of GDP. Unions have seized on this point, claiming that it "demolishes the government's argument" that public sector pensions are unaffordable.
But the sustainable costs argument assumes that public sector workers will work longer and pay more into them – the thing the unions are opposing. The unions should acknowledge this point, writes Curtis.
Yes, these are dark economic times, says an editorial in the Telegraph. With worrying unemployment rises and the eurozone in turmoil, it seems too much to ask union leaders to "spell out the harsh realities of life to their members". The fact is: the country can no longer afford to meet public sector pension costs. "Striking will change nothing." ·
Comments are now closed on this article
Comments
Rhod, The point of a strike is to achieve something - these strikes will achieve nothing - there is no money because of the incompetence of the Labour Govt (that were being funded by the unions). I sympathise with public sectors workers who will now have their t&C's changed - but most of these contracts were unaffordable and an unfair burden on future generations from day 1. The public sector needs a good shake up and now it is happening - far too many people in non jobs, being paid salaries that are ridiculous for the work being done and far too many snivel servants in jobs where they can't be sacked - a joke - that costs the tax payer even more money. Labour's bloating of the public sector was not done because it was needed it was done because of their ideology. The same short sighted thinking is being used by the Lib Dems over the 50% tax rate. It doesn't produce enough to make it worthwhile, it makes UK plc less competitive than our rivals who have much lower top rates of tax - but because of their hate for wealth - they want to retain it - even against the economic proof that it is counter productive. Strikes, Bash the Bankers, Keep the 50% tax rate - all signs of an ideology that is well past it's sell by date - you should only be doing those things if it is beneficial and useful for the country - none of them are.
As the tax payers I agree with the cut policies. But all the MPs should think about cut their own benefit and the number of MPs too. What you guys doing, why you get pay so well, get too much benefit and pension while you cut jobs, salary and pension for ordinary people. I hope this strike will lead to cutting number of MPs and their benefit.
Do we need more than 1,200 positions in both House of Common and House of Lord? What job they produce? Could only half of them can do the same job? If not we should vote for the one who can work harder and the one who can not work hard should leave.
Sorry, I agree with the strike even I know this mess was left by Labour goverment.
If the employer is breaking the contract and it's legal to strike, why are you objecting to it being considered?
Unions - forever looking backwards, blind to the obvious. The world has changed and fortunately we have woken up to the fact that tired socialist ideology is out of date, well past it's best before and should be consigned to the scrapheap. Employing pencil pushers won't solve debt crises - hard work, enterprise and low debt will. How can so many seemingly intelligent people still believe the way forward is borrow, borrow, borrow, tax, tax, tax, live beyond our means and burden future generations with the profligacy and greed of today.
�£125,000,000 a day in interest charges run up by an incompetent labour government who didn't have the spine to tackle issues but were hellbent on social engineering at any price - well the bill has arrived and yet here are the unions demanding that we continue as if nothing has changed.
They demand pension increases without any viable suggestion of how we can fund them - oh sorry - tax the bankers, that's the solution. Already in the UK 1% of earners pay over 30% of the tax take - hardly "fair". I understand the argument about changing people's existing terms - but from what I can see most of these "terms" were ridiculous and unaffordable in the first place.
I would like to propose an easy new law to deal with strikes - allow every person who is financially inconvenienced by strike action to be able to sue the union - perhaps that way we can start to punish the likes of Bob Crow (�£165,000 a year salary, lives in a council house) where it hurts. Don't forget, while all the workers go on strike and lose a days pay - all the leaders of the union will still get paid and won't lose a penny. What mugs these union leaders make their members look.