UK Unions Threatening Strikes A-Plenty...

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

..but what 'good' will it do?

Teachers in England and Wales have voted to go on strike over what they are calling the "erosion" of their pay and working conditions.
The National Union of Teachers (NUT) said that 82.5% of the members who voted were in favour of walkouts. The turnout was 27%.
They will campaign alongside the other big teachers' union, the NASUWT, to safeguard their profession, they said.
The result raises the threat of disruption to schools later this term.
NUT general secretary Christine Blower said her union had been left with no option but to "protect the well-being" of her members.
'Negative approach'
"Teachers are being undermined by a government whose almost daily criticisms and erosion of working conditions and pay, coming on top of previous attacks on pensions, are unacceptable," she said.
"This negative approach to the profession has to stop.
"No other profession comes under such continual scrutiny and no other profession has accountability systems based on so little trust."
The NUT took national strike action over pensions and pay in June of 2011, along with several other unions closing thousands of schools. In November, teachers in London went on strike.
NASUWT union general secretary Chris Keates congratulated the NUT on the positive strike ballot.

"This result is the reflection of two years of sustained assault from the government which has been deeply damaging to teacher morale, as well as to recruitment and retention," she said.
Both unions are due to set out their next steps on Monday, but both voted separately for further action at their annual conferences last Easter.
A Department for Education spokesman said: "We are very disappointed that a small minority of NUT members has voted this way.
"Industrial action would disrupt pupils' education, hugely inconvenience parents and will damage the profession's reputation in the eyes of the public."

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19519839)

And...

The leader of the UK's largest union has warned that there could be more co-ordinated strikes in response to the government's spending cuts.
Len McCluskey, the general secretary of the Unite Union, said he would support calls for strikes which could take place within months.
"There is a real chance of co-ordinated action, if not this winter then certainly early next year," he said.
Mr McCluskey was speaking ahead of the TUC Congress in Brighton this weekend.
Delegates are expected to hear repeated calls for co-ordinated industrial action - like that seen over the issue of pensions during the past year.
'Support action'
An estimated 1.5 million people went on strike on 30 November last year to protest over reforms to public sector pensions.
Hundreds of thousands of people also marched through London in March 2011 to highlight the need for an alternative approach to the economy.
Mr McCluskey says such action could happen again, but this time linked to issues including pensions, jobs and pay.
"We would certainly support calls for co-ordinated industrial action on pay and indeed other issues," he said.
"It was never going to be one single march on 26 March, or indeed one dispute over pensions - it was always going to be an ongoing fight."
'Paying the price'
Mr McCluskey is expected to address the congress on Monday. He will call for a £1 increase in the national minimum wage to boost the economy by giving lower paid workers more spending power.
He will also call for a cap on energy bills to help struggling families.
Mr McCluskey said he believed strike action was "inevitable". He said that the timing of any industrial action would be down to union members.
"This government is intent on trying to make… ordinary working people pay the price for a crisis that they didn't cause," he said.
"I think it is inevitable, as workers get more and more angry and frustrated as to the pressures on them, both in the private and the public sector, that there will be a demand for them to take industrial action.
"I see the issue of strikes and continuing protests actually increasing as we move closer and closer towards a general election."
Mr McCluskey has previously called for civil disobedience in response to government cuts.
The Unite union, which has 1.5 million members, was at the heart of the tanker drivers' dispute earlier this year, which resulted in panic buying on petrol-station forecourts.
The union also threatened to disrupt public transport during the Olympics over the issue of a bonus payment for London bus drivers.

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19514195)

So yeah, I suppose I'm wondering what positive effect the Union leaders (and the minority of their members that voted) think this will have? Is that the point? (Is there more to this than just making a 'fuck you government' statement?) Is it purely motivated by fears over salary and conditions?

Ok, no more questions, time for answers!!!

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I don't see any potential for this to turn political, tbh. Teachers are striking because of a genuine grievance, but let's face it, the grievance is an erosion of their pay and working conditions, not their literal immiseration. With no secondary/wildcat action, this will at most put pressure on the government (hopefully, says me with some self-interest at stake) to actually treat teachers with some respect and let them have dignified careers with a decent pension at the end, and end this regional pay nonsense, very typical Tory.

On a general note, I reckon (the economy pending) the Tories will get annihilated at the next election; reverted to type with this summer's right-wing shift. That 'common people' cover has never seemed more appropriate.

[x-punk]

It would be nice to think something will come of this but i doubt much will. The majority of people are getting the back of the govts hand just now and a few days of industrial action wont bother the govt much. As has been said, without some sort of wildcat action to back this up such strikes can lack the power needed to make the govt really take notice.

Moreover, with the current economic climate it can be difficult for actions such as these to garner wider support. With unemployment increasing and many people finding themselves in real financial trouble, seeing public sector workers complain that their pay isnt rising in line with inflation or that their generous pensions might be eroded isnt going to really warm to many people unfortunately.

I think union members are in an increasingly tough position nowadays. With so many people having such large levels of debt to service, taking action such as an open-ended strike is just not possible. From experience, so many people are just breaking even every month that taking even one or two days strike action without pay would leave them in trouble.

[ComradeAnthony]

in my honest opinion the fascist "teachers" who make a living "educating" our children with fucking bourgeois propaganda about stalin and lenin do not deserve our support

maybe if they start telling the children about all all of the good stuff they did i will start caring about their strikes

[rednordman]

Yep schools in UK are now so poor, that they had to ask Tesco if they could send some of their workers to do some painting (free labour). No shit, i was one of them. Its all PR for Tesco but, you know what i'm trying to say here right?

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

The conditions are becoming riper for discontent, that's how I view it. I just don't look to the unions straight away as they are in the pocket of Labour. It seems to be more that discontent will come from the ground up and unions will have to answer it one way or another.

As far as I can tell, things are similar to the 80s, except the Thatcherite dream is dead and things are being done more covertly (back-door privatization of the NHS, for example). We're in a time of despair but the wool has been pulled over people's eyes via the Olympics, the Jubilee and the Paralympics. Its when people sober up from this hazy hangover that things will get interesting, I believe and that's what I'm organizing for.

Wouldn't be surprised if we saw more riots, things are incredibly fucked up. Its like the Tory government is testing the people. Every day I wonder how much more people are just going to sit and take before they realize that things are very bad.

[brigadista]

think the key word is"threatening" whether any thing will actually happen ...uk unions not very good these days at following through...

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

in my honest opinion the fascist "teachers" who make a living "educating" our children with fucking bourgeois propaganda about stalin and lenin do not deserve our support

maybe if they start telling the children about all all of the good stuff they did i will start caring about their strikes

shit troll is shit.

[Ocean Seal]

I don't see any potential for this to turn political, tbh. Teachers are striking because of a genuine grievance, but let's face it, the grievance is an erosion of their pay and working conditions, not their literal immiseration. With no secondary/wildcat action, this will at most put pressure on the government (hopefully, says me with some self-interest at stake) to actually treat teachers with some respect and let them have dignified careers with a decent pension at the end, and end this regional pay nonsense, very typical Tory.

On a general note, I reckon (the economy pending) the Tories will get annihilated at the next election; reverted to type with this summer's right-wing shift. That 'common people' cover has never seemed more appropriate.
Everything is political. And genuine grievances are probably the more political than most things at least form a Marxist perspective.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Everything is political. And genuine grievances are probably the more political than most things at least form a Marxist perspective.

I was talking more about explicit political struggle, as opposed to short-term economism which is profession-based rather than class-based.

[Will Scarlet]

I don't see any potential for this to turn political, tbh. Teachers are striking because of a genuine grievance, but let's face it, the grievance is an erosion of their pay and working conditions, not their literal immiseration. With no secondary/wildcat action, this will at most put pressure on the government (hopefully, says me with some self-interest at stake) to actually treat teachers with some respect and let them have dignified careers with a decent pension at the end, and end this regional pay nonsense, very typical Tory.

On a general note, I reckon (the economy pending) the Tories will get annihilated at the next election; reverted to type with this summer's right-wing shift. That 'common people' cover has never seemed more appropriate.
The tories might lose the next election but I don't see them losing it badly. Things are likely to stay stagnant rather than get drastically worse. As much as people dislike the tories a lot of their lines have stuck, and literally everyone knows Labour are weak sauce. A stagnant economy and a stagnant political system, the remaining Lib Dems might even still have a say in the next government. :lol:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I imagine voter apathy will reign at the next election: the Tories have moved closer to unelectability with their lurch to the right. Of course it all depends on the economy but, assuming continued recession or stagnation to 2015, the difference will probably be whether people view the Tories as compassionate born-agains with a focus on 'helping the little guy' and pushing through some socially liberal policies and democratic reforms, or whether people view them as the unelectable, hated, nasty party of the 1980s who revel in homophobia, nazi regalia and supporting Pinochet.

Labour will probably meander to 2015 under Miliband. He's actually not done a bad job, in political terms. He's basically done little of substance and stayed generally off the front pages and out of scandal/internal party implosion, whilst the coalition shoots itself in both feet, repeatedly.

I reckon the Lib Dems' days as one party are numbered.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Looks like they're going through with it.

The TUC has voted at its annual Congress to support co-ordinated strike action over a public sector pay freeze.
The coalition has frozen public sector pay for three years, calling it vital to help drive down the budget deficit.
Unison boss Dave Prentis said ministers had "declared war on our people" and vowed to lead a "fightback".
Downing Street said it would not reverse the policy while Labour leader Ed Miliband said neither the public nor union members wanted strikes.
The TUC's call comes as members of the National Union of Teachers and the NASUWT teaching union backed a rolling programme of industrial action this autumn in English and Welsh schools.
Unison and the GMB union revealed on Sunday that they were already planning the logistics of strike action if annual talks with ministers on government pay - due to happen early next year - fail.

(More at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19544483)

[Die Neue Zeit]

I was talking more about explicit political struggle, as opposed to short-term economism which is profession-based rather than class-based.

Have you started to come to my position on all things labour disputes?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Have you started to come to my position on all things labour disputes?

I'm not in total agreement with you on Trade Unions, if that's what you mean.

[bricolage]

I think it will happen but I don't think it will look much different to the previous 'big days', June 30th and November 30th. It seems those failed on the issue of pensions and the unions are now pushing them same tactics to tackle the pay freeze. Obviously any strikes are representative of a growth in class confidence but I don't have much hope for a new round of one day set piece affairs defeating the government when the previous ones quite clearly didn't even come close.

[brigadista]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/11/trade-unions-not-strong-enough

There's nothing that quite so reliably tips the British press into paroxysms of abuse and class contempt as workers having the gall to withdraw their own labour. Or even talking about going on strike, as has been happening at the Trades Union Congress in Brighton this week.

All the old tropes have been wheeled out in the last couple of days. These are "mindless militants" and "professional whingers", according to the Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph, determined to "drag Britain back into the dark ages" and holding the public "hostage" as they "squeal like stuck pigs".

You might imagine that years of pay freezes and real pay cuts, attacks on pension entitlements and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs – which is what the government has imposed on the public sector – would be a reasonable basis for an industrial dispute for any workforce.

Add to that the fact that these cuts are being made as part of an austerity programme opposed by most of the population and spectacularly failing to revive the economy – and industrial action is also an obvious mechanism to intensify the pressure for a change of economic direction.

But as unions voted to back co-ordinated strikes and explore the practicalities of a general strike – industrial routine in other parts of Europe – the most polite criticism was they were "out of touch". For the rest, these were union "boneheaded barons", "pygmies" and "sullen" union "bosses" defending an outrageous (and fictional) public sector largesse. Nearly 200 years after the repeal of the Combination Acts, Britain's corporate media and political class still struggle in practice to accept the right to strike.

The focus of the industrial campaign against austerity has now shifted from pensions to pay, with teachers launching a work-to-rule and the likelihood of wider action across public services in the spring. Whether that will prove to be on the scale necessary to force a government retreat is another question. But what is certain is that if workforces don't resist, cuts in pay and jobs will be driven through.

Contrary to the fantasies of anti-union propagandists, the real problem for the British economy is not that unions are too strong, but that they have long been far too weak. Between 1975 and 2007, the share of wages in national income fell from 65% to 54%, while escalating inequality within that smaller share has meant stagnating real wages for low and average earners.

A central factor in the shrinking slice of the economic cake going to workers – which helped lay the ground for the crisis of 2007-8 by fuelling personal debt – has been the weakening of trade unions, whose membership halved over the same period. In fact, the fall in union numbers since the 1970s is an almost exact mirror image of the increase in the share of income taken by the top 1% over the same period.

The shadow chancellor Ed Balls was heckled in Brighton today for backing the coalition's public sector pay cap as a trade-off for jobs and a token of Labour's fiscal discipline. But just as stronger unions are essential for greater equality and a better balanced economy, pay restraint now can only further deepen recession.

If unions are successful in resisting pay and job cuts, that would boost demand and aid recovery – though it would also need the shift to a public investment and growth strategy the government remains resolutely opposed to. But public sector workers can't be expected to wait for a Labour government or for the coalition to "understand why working people are so unhappy", as Ed Miliband put it in Brighton.

And however welcome the business secretary Vince Cable's conversion to an industrial strategy for the sectors of the future, the half-baked business bank George Osborne has allowed him doesn't begin to reflect the demands or scale of such an investment programme.

Meanwhile his scrapping of health and safety regulations for small firms, as Tory leaders chafe at the bit to dump more employment and union rights, is a warning of threats to come. As the struggle over pay builds up, the government will again try to isolate public service from private sector employees, who are of course also suffering real terms pay cuts and large-scale job losses.

Union weakness in the private sector – where only one in seven workers is now a member, compared with the majority in the public sector – is the product of decades of industrial change, fragmentation and anti-union legislation. But a string of private sector strikes this year – including on the buses, in construction and at Honda – has given a taste of how that can be turned round.

Success has depended on bolstering industrial action with campaigns targeted at suppliers and executives, as well as working with protest groups such as UK Uncut and the Occupy movement. That is now likely to be extended to occupations and other forms of direct action, if Unite's leader Len McCluskey has his way.

Such calls are regarded with horror by the political and media class. But the business unionism and supine "social partnership" they favour failed to protect jobs and living standards. Employers and politicians trampled all over it. Which is why the trade union movement now has its most radical leadership in modern times – and its most progressive general secretary, Frances O'Grady.

A generation after Thatcher's assault on the trade unions, they are still treated as dangerous or embarrassing outsiders. In reality, they are not only far and away the largest voluntary organisations in the country, but now the only major area of public life where working class people are properly represented.

Their agenda on recovery, jobs, services, inequality, privatisation, public ownership and the democratisation of economic life is closer to where public opinion is than the main parties' front benches – as Bill Clinton's former pollster Stan Greenberg underlined this week with his finding that voters want "fundamental change" in the way the economy and country works.

And contrary to the way they are portrayed, unions are popular – as often are the strikes they call. Last November's public service walkouts were backed by almost 80% of young people. As the Tories prepare a new legal straitjacket and Labour frets about being seen as too close to the unions, their members will be at the heart of the battle over who pays the cost of this crisis.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

The TUC has voted to look into the "practicalities" of organising a "general strike", in protest at government spending cuts.
The trade union movement's conference overwhelmingly backed a motion which also called for a "coalition of resistance" to "austerity measures".
Steve Gillan, leader of the Prison Officers' Association, urged delegates to be "a strong voice".
The Conservatives said unions must "withdraw their threats" of action.
The TUC's annual conference in Brighton has been dominated by criticism of the government's economic policies, including the public sector pay freeze and its spending plans for services including health and education.
Marches have been organised on 20 October in London, Belfast and Glasgow.

(BBC News)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Talk of a general strike is more positive but, again, where does it come from? You can't just have a one-day general strike as a stand-alone action. It will totally fail to achieve anything without momentum.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Talk of a general strike is more positive but, again, where does it come from? You can't just have a one-day general strike as a stand-alone action. It will totally fail to achieve anything without momentum.
They're only discussing the notion of a general strike in terms of practicalities. Its not as if they've just randomly picked a day and yelled 'strike!'.