The lobbying season
WORKERS, NOV 2006 ISSUE
November sees two major lobbies of the House of Commons: on 1 November over the future of the NHS and health care provision; on 22 November about local government pensions.
The health lobby, part of the unique coming together of all health trade unions, be they TUC or non-TUC, as NHS Together, begins a protracted campaign for health care in Britain and is one of the primary challenges to government free market strategy.
The pensions lobby is the endgame in negotiations around pension marketisation. If the lobby cannot deliver a negotiated strategy, then the unions will ballot for further industrial action. But if industrial action is called and cannot be delivered, then the public sector unions will have caused greater damage to themselves than the nearly 30 years of draconian anti-union legislation.
Bluff or battle? The choice is ours to make.