Local government pay: Vote for strike action in the Unison national ballot, support the action in Perth and Kinross

Stephen McCann, Branch officer Glasgow City Unison (Personal Capacity)

The fight for a decent pay rise for Local Government workers continues despite members in GMB and UNITE voting to accept the latest pay offer from COSLA after the offer was wrongly recommended by their leadership’s. Planned strike action in waste and refuse services was suspended last month to allow the trade unions to consult members.
UNISON, the largest trade union in Local Government with over 90,000 members, overwhelmingly rejected the offer with 86% of those voting to reject in an online ballot. Socialist Party Scotland members in UNISON, argued for and supported the recommendation to reject.
The offer is for £0.67 or 3.6%, whichever is greater and equates to an overall increase in the pay bill of 4.27%. Crucially, for a lot of workers this is below the inflation rate in April, when the pay change should have been implemented. This is now backdated money owed, due to COLSA’s lack of respect shown to its workforce. Six months of inaction and a lack of a credible offer has led them to the threats of industrial action for yet another year. The original offer of 2% was even less than some councils budgeted for. Both offers have been well short of the joint trade union claim of 7% in January. COSLA and the SNP government need to learn lessons and stop dragging their heels and come to the table with a meaningful offer much earlier in future as members are fed up waiting year after year for money owed to them.
 
The threat of industrial action from Waste workers and Education workers pushed the employer to increase the offer from its original offer. This shows when workers stand up and fight and when the unions take the lead more can be achieved.
UNISONs local government committee has now decided to ballot all members in local government. The timeline for this is still to be determined, however work now starts at branch level to engage members and explain why they need to fight for more money on pay, linking this to a campaign for more funding overall for services.
 
Strike action is planned to take place in council areas that manned to get through the undemocratic ballot thresholds. Unison members in Perth & Kinross will be taking strike action this month from the 21st October for two weeks. This could be significant given that this is in the First Minister, John Swinney’s parliamentary constituency. 
 
Again, Socialist Party Scotland members in UNISON have argued for and support this strategy. There are mandates in a number of other council areas and consideration should be made by the Unison Scotland leadership to those areas also taking strike action as soon as possible.
 
COLSA have now disgracefully imposed the deal given two of the three trade unions have voted to accept, however this has only angered a significant number of Unison members and activists. In any case, industrial action is required to increase the offer.
 
The strategy now of an all-member ballot in UNISON allows all council sectors to be included and all workers to be engaged in the fight for fair pay. While we have seen some movement in increasing the offer, workers deserve more. We have seen a decrease in pay of 25% over the last 14 years of wage freezes and below inflation rises. Inflation has come down, but is volatile, given the Bank of England are still wrestling with the interest rates as capitalism lurches from one crisis to another.
 
At both Scottish and UK Government level we need mass investment in public services. While Labour have spoken about a 5.5% offer for NHS workers in England and Wales and the Scottish Government have followed suit, all public sector workers need above inflation rises and full funding of public services going forward. The STUC/TUC should call a special congress after the cuts budgets of Labour’s Reeves on October 31st and SNP Robison’s in Holyrood. This could plan not only mass demonstrations and a repeal of all anti-union legislation but also nationally coordinated strike action for pay rises that meet inflation and against cuts. We can have no truck with the idea the SNP and Labour and the right wing trend in the trade union movement is peddling that we have to wait for concessions from Starmer’s Labour and that we should show restraint on pay demands.
The failure of both Governments in passing budget cuts and local councils not joining the unions to fight and refuse to pass on budget cuts has compounded the problem. While supporting the STUC’s demands that the SNP government increase income tax on the rich, we demand the Scottish government and local councils set emergency no cuts/ needs-based budgets utilising all financial mechanisms such as reserves, borrowing, underspends, recapitalisation of debt and cancellation of PFI/PPP. This defiance could be linked to the building of a mass campaign to demand back the billions stolen by central governments in cuts over decades. Ultimately, we need socialist nationalisation of energy, mail, transport, the banks and major industry under working class control.
 
Only funding and investment in workers and services with socialist policies will fix the problems in local government. Both the SNP and Labour have shown their inability and unwillingness to stand up for council workers. More and more trade unionists are concluding there is a need for the trade unions to take steps to standing their own candidates for election. That’s why Socialist Party Scotland members, including Unison activists, stand as part of the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in elections , as a step towards build a mass party of the working class based on the trade unions.