No pensions sell-out says Gill George of Unite

January 4, 2012 at 9:36 pm (Cuts, Jack Haslam, pensions, solidarity, unions, Unite the union, workers)

Gill George, Unite Exec member [actually, ex-Exec: see Pete Gillard's comment below -JH],  is a comrade that we at ‘Shiraz’ would have many differences with (she’s a member of the SWP for a start). But this contribution to the United Left email list is timely and eminently sensible:

On 1st December, we were collectively celebrating a successful mass strike.
We’d achieved superb working unity across 28 unions. We had massive public
support, with people increasingly glad to see anyone fighting against a
vicious Tory government. We had significant and growing support from private
sector workers – for the same reasons. We got the government rattled.

A few weeks on, and we’re in real trouble. November 30th needed to be the
first step in building a serious fight to roll back all the attacks we face
- and, I’d like to think, the first step in ditching a government that is
the enemy of workers. Instead, we’ve got the General Secretary of the TUC
and the General Secretary of the biggest public sector union desperately
scrabbling around to achieve any kind of a settlement (no matter what the
cost to their members and other workers). We can still pull this situation
back and rebuild this fight, but we’re not in the situation of strength of a
few weeks ago.

A discussion around whether or not Unite has sold out misses the point. Our
class is facing a massive betrayal that risks tearing the heart out of our
movement. The question for the Left in Unite is, are we fighting tooth and
nail to stop the betrayal from Barber and Prentis? Are we standing shoulder
to shoulder with PCS, and doing so publicly and proudly? Are we working
overtime to get the message to every one of our public sector members, ‘This
fight goes on and this union backs you every inch of the way?’. Any pretence
that nothing’s changed since the last Executive Council meeting (and since
the release of the excellent EC statement) just seems to me to be defying
reality.

Let’s think through the implications of what the Tories are about. There are
six million public sector workers in the UK. A majority are union members.
Almost all public sector workplaces are unionised and have trade union
recognition. Union density is close to four times higher than the average in
the private sector. It’s easy to miss the importance of this in a primarily
private sector union, but public sector workers are at the heart of the
trade union movement.

The attacks on public sector workers aren’t an accident. Like everyone else,
I go around saying that the Tories are trying to make workers pay for the
bankers’ crisis. The reality, though, is something rather more systematic
than this. We have a government that’s trying to smash the organised working
class. Think back to Thatcher, the Ridley plan, and the salami tactics of
taking on workers a section at a time – culminating in the catastrophic
defeat of the 84/85 miners strike. We’re now seeing Cameron’s equivalent.
Cameron’s rather bolder than Thatcher, with a plan of going in hard and
wiping out trade union organisation in the public sector core of our
movement. The plan will have been many years in the making. They’ve already
given the game away about what happens next: 710,000 public sector jobs
going, the imposition of regional and local pay, the removal of facility
time from public sector reps, a further two years of pay cuts, a continuing
assault on public sector services, and privatisation of the public sector on
a massive scale. This is no secret – they’re arrogant enough to boast about
it. If we don’t fight and win on pensions, we can be very certain what their
intentions are.

If the Tories get away with this level of destruction in the relatively well
organised public sector areas of our movement, does this have implications
for private sector and voluntary sector trade unionists? Surely, yes. The most deprived areas of the UK depend very heavily on the public sector both for jobs and to hold up pay rates. Bring in regional pay, ditch a load of public sector jobs, privatise everything that moves – this drives down pay across the board, for all workers. Slash spending for services – that cripples the voluntary sector too. Smash up facility time and national pay bargaining and decent working conditions in the public sector, and there’ll be plenty of private sector bosses who will follow that example. And maybe most important, what about the impact on confidence? If we allow a high profile defeat for six million public sector workers, there is a strong risk that the message goes out loud and clear to other workers, ‘We can’t win, there’s no point in fighting’.

As a Left union, we cannot allow this to happen. This is not about four separate trade disputes that happen to be on at the same time – Len McCluskey (and the TUC) recognised this when the November 30th strike was announced at Congress; our own Exec recognised this when it issued its supportive statement in early December. I know there’s an ongoing debate amongst EC members about whether or not to have an EC meeting to discuss this situation. Well, good God almighty, if our union can’t respond to the tragic betrayals we’re seeing in parts of the TU movement, and we can’t publicly ally ourselves with PCS, and we can’t give a strong public lead to the unions which are wavering – then surely our Exec has to sort this out. If this turns into a defeat, it is a massive, massive defeat for the trade union movement as a whole. It is unthinkable that we allow this to happen.

And what about the message that’s going out to our own public sector members? It’s certainly not as clear and sharp as the EC statement. In Health, we were able to exert enough lay pressure to get a last minute phone conference of NISC (National Industrial Sector Committee) members to discuss whether or not we should sign the ‘Heads of Agreement’ document. My strong impression is that we were put under pressure to sign. We had the frighteners put on us. The National Officer told us that this was the best we could get through negotiation, and if we didn’t sign up to it then and there, the Government had made it clear that they would impose a worse deal, remove protection for older workers coming up for retirement, and exclude Unite from any future negotiations.

The National Officer emphasised as strongly as she could that if we fought on, we would be isolated and on our own. It was down to lay members to challenge this line. NISC members argued that this was a dispute across the whole of the public sector, with huge opportunities for a stronger fight through unity of our sectors within Unite and with the other unions still up for a fight. This wasn’t the message from the National Officer. The resilience of our lay activists in the face of the bleak and defeatist line from the Officer was impressive. One after another, NISC members rejected what was on offer in very robust terms. The NISC Chair summed up the debate by saying, ‘It’s the overwhelming view – no, that deal is not acceptable’. The debate touched on the need to set a date for further strike action (but, interestingly, we were told by the National Officer that this wasn’t a matter for us, it was for the Executive to decide on further action).

I was genuinely disappointed by how that strong fighting spirit was watered down by the time it reached the ‘Action Alert’ a few days later. This reported a ‘lack of progress’ and that we had to ‘consult fully’, that we ‘will not be bounced’ etc. It didn’t say, as it should have done, ‘Nothing’s changed; we reject’. I hope lay members can hold the line in Health. We’re meeting again on 5th January for a special pensions meeting. I’m anticipating that we’ll face the same negative message as before at National Officer level. You know what? If we met in the knowledge that our own Executive Council was fighting like hell to maintain unity and ensure that no section of our members was left isolated and facing defeat, it might actually be quite helpful.

This dispute will have far reaching consequences, whether we win it or lose it. The outcome will shape the future for our movement as a whole for very many years to come. Should the EC call a special meeting to discuss how it can support and build the most important dispute most of us have faced in our lifetimes? Yes, of course it should.

Gill George