Trade unions are considering various options for joint campaigning as early as next month and joint industrial action to defend public sector jobs, pay and pensions from the coalition Government’s next round of spending cuts.
Unison, Unite, the GMB, PCS and RMT unions and the Fire Brigades Union have all submitted motions to this year’s TUC Congress in Manchester calling for unions to join forces against the cuts, which they argue will make ordinary workers pay for the recession.
And in a new sign of union anger at the use of legal action to block strikes, the TUC’s trades councils conference has voted unanimously to send a motion to Congress calling for the TUC to actively campaign actively “for the repeal of all anti-trade union laws”.
Chancellor George Osborne is due to unveil his Comprehensive Spending Review on 20 October. The PCS is calling for a “day of action” – demonstrations rather than strikes – on the same day in protest, as well as a national demonstration on October 23. Unison’s motion suggests joining in the European Trade Union Confederation’s day of action called for September 29.
It was also reported this week that the TUC’s 56-strong general council has chosen to hold a joint day of action in March, in the hope that the impact of the cuts will have provoked public hostility by then.
Successive TUC congresses have failed to deliver co-ordinated industrial action in recent years. However, both senior and rank-and-file trade unionists agree that the appetite for action is sharper this year.
A source close to policymaking in Unison, Britain’s biggest public sector union – whose general secretary Dave Prentis has promised to join forces with the PCS, the biggest civil service union, on cuts – told Tribune: “I think the unions are committed to organising protests and industrial action. With the political situation it’s different this time, because of the depth of the attacks.”
There is also likely to be strong support for motions backing Labour MP John McDonnell’s private member’s bill extending legal protection for industrial action ballots. Tribune has learned that the Communication Workers’ Union is joining the RMT and PCS in supporting the bill.
