Local govt ballot fiasco
WORKERS, DEC 2007 ISSUE
As indicated in the October edition of Workers, the pay negotiations in local government were heading for the rocks, with every other local government trade union having gone through the motions of consultation before biting off the government's pay offer of 2.5 per cent. Meanwhile, Unison pressed ahead with a ballot for industrial action. This decision came out of a combination of cowardice, where they were not willing to address the political realities already acknowledged by the membership, and preparedness to allow the adventurism of the ultra-left.
The ballot saw a 24.4 per cent turn-out. Where were the other 75 per cent of the membership? Out of 144,719 returned ballot papers a tiny majority – 74,631 to 70,088 – voted for industrial action. Then the leadership did at last assert itself and the call for strike action was turned down. But the charade continues with a face-saving slogan for next year's pay negotiations.
The reality is that the strategy for public sector pay negotiations has been an abject failure each and every year during the last four years Those who think there is going to be a massive explosion over pay from the public sector are wearing blindfolds. Where are the troops?
Perhaps a different perspective should be taken over public sector pay. The government is intent on driving down gross domestic product costs from the public sector so as to meet EU targets. Remember the famous convergence criteria which would justify going into the single currency? Every backdoor method possible to shift government debt from the public accounts to the private sector – the Private Finance Initiative and myriad other "public–private" or "public–partnership" wheezes have been invented. Public sector pay is being driven down; work is being outsourced to the private, voluntary, partnership sector. The old days of big pay sector pay disputes are gone.
The challenge to all public sector unions is how to retain membership, bargaining, recognition, density and influence in what is a dwindling public sector but growing alternative private, voluntary, public partnership sector providing services to the public. Pro-union employers in local government are hinting that the limits set by the Treasury under the Comprehensive Spending Review for the next three years will see funding for growth something like 1 per cent in year one, 0.7 per cent in year two and zero if not a minus in year three. Their view is that local government is in waters comparable with the worst years of the 1980s under Thatcher. If storms are coming, then survival and a battening down of the hatches may be the order of the day.