Reject NHS and council pay insults – build for strike action
Socialist Party Scotland members in Unison
Scottish local government workers are currently balloting on pay, with a union recommendation to reject the employers derisory offer and support moving to industrial action. Unite, Unison and the GMB are all recommanding rejection.
This welcome move comes in the wake of the employer, CoSLA, tabling an offer of just £800 for the lowest paid workers earning less than £25,000, 2% for those over £25,000 and 1% for those earning more than £40,000.
Jim McFarlane, a Unison NEC member and branch secretary of Dundee City Unison, said: “More than half of Scotland’s local government workers are on less than £25,000 a year. This ‘offer’ from the employers is a kick in the teeth. Tens of thousands of our members across Scotland have been on the front line of the pandemic, working in social care as school staff, cleaners, caterers etc Moreover, they are among the very lowest paid and overwhelmingly women workers.
“CoSLA’s offer will do little to nothing to address years of pay restraint. We are calling on our members to decisively reject the offer and support moving to industrial action unless the union’s demand for a £2,000 increase or 6% – whichever is the greater – is accepted.”
Brian Smith, secretary of Glasgow City Unison, commented: “If the employer believes that their offer, made just two weeks before its implementation date and three months after they received the union claim, is acceptable they are badly mistaken. Unison members expect and deserve far more.
“It’s not just about the last year which saw so many workers playing essential roles during the Covid pandemic, it’s years of pay falling behind inflation and a decade of austerity to our public services. Enough is enough. We demand a recovery in the interests of working people and no return to pay restraint and cuts.”
NHS pay
This relative fighting stance by the unions in local government has not been reflected in Scottish Unison’s healthcare leadership. In response to the announced 4% pay increase offer from the Scottish government, Unison said they would make no recommendation to members on whether to accept or reject the deal. Then, at the last minute, the Scottish Unison health committee changed tack and proposed acceptance. The GMB, Unite and the RCN are asking members to reject.
Unison’s position has produced an outpouring of anger among many Unison members. Some have responded on Unison’s Facebook page by saying they are resigning from the union in protest.
The local government and NHS offers are not that different. For those on £20,000 a year, the NHS deal would represent 5%. The council offer is 4%. Yet according to the Unison leadership in healthcare it is a ‘serious offer and best we can get’.
The Scottish local government committee, which has a larger left and socialist component that can apply pressure on the leadership, said it is a ‘dismal offer and we need to mobilise for action’.
It seems that the NHS health committee believe that only way to get good deals is by political lobbying, especially at elections. Organising effective industrial action seems an alien concept.
After years of partnership working in the NHS between unions and the employer, have NHS Unison now became incorporated into the employer structure? Rather than being there to fight for their members and mobilising for action to improve not just pay but also working conditions and rights at work.
Above all, whatever union you are in, get active and help build a fighting leadership at all levels. With elections taking place in many unions just now, members should back a fighting socialist alternative where that is possible.
For example in Unison, Socialist Party members are standing for election to Unison NEC. https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/31924/27-01-2021/unison-nec-elections-united-left-challenge-needed-to-fight-slaughter-of-jobs-and-services
This is our view on the GMB general secretary election https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/32323/07-04-2021/gmb-general-secretary-election-a-fighting-socialist-leadership-needed
Socialist Party Scotland supports the demand for a 15% pay increase for NHS and care workers. And for pay rises across the board that as a minimum meet the demands of the trade unions. That will very likely mean industrial action coordinated across unions and also across the public and private sectors.
We say: vote to reject the local government and NHS pay offers. Build for unified strike action on pay and for a real recovery for the working class.
And in the Scottish election on May 6, vote for the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. The socialist alternative to austerity.
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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society and the failures of capitalism to an unprecedented degree. It’s been working people not the bosses of the multinational companies that have kept society running.
Years of economic crisis, privatisation and austerity have hammered public services. Services like the NHS and social care that have proven to be so important during Covid-19.
Capitalist government’s have turned to the state to pay wages for workers for a year. But after the corona crisis, they will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
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