On November, 30, care workers, paramedics, teaching assistants, social workers, bin men, police community support officers, dinner ladies and probation officers, will join millions of public sector workers for the biggest industrial action in a generation. We are strong, united and determined in our action – and we know we can count on the wider labour movement for support.
The right-wing pensions commentators are claiming that we shouldn’t be going on strike, now that the coalition has come forward with a new offer. But whatever ministers in the Conservative-led Government may say, there is no new deal that we can put to a single social worker or nurse. The recent statement on pensions was a marked improvement, but it has not yet been translated into an offer. This can only happen in the scheme specific talks. Unison will be in those talks, right up until November 30 and beyond to reach that deal. We have said from the start that we want to reach a negotiated settlement, and that still stands.
But as always, the devil is in the detail. Public sector workers have already been stung by promises made in Parliament that were never delivered. In his first Emergency Budget, Chancellor George Osborne promised public sector workers earning less than £21,000 a £250 pay boost easing the pain of the pay freeze. But for low-paid local government workers, this money has never materialised. They’ve been stuck on a pay freeze for two years, which could stretch to three at a time when inflation has been stubbornly high.
The strict trade union laws – put in place by the Tories, rather than being a “quirk” of the law, as Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude claims, mean that we have to take action within
28 days of our ballot, or it is deemed void. We have been talking to the government for more than eight months but, by leaving it until the eve of our ballot to come forward with these new proposals, ministers have made sure action on November 30 is inevitable.
Our members voted decisively for action, but it’s not a decision that they took lightly. Most Unison members are low-paid women in the caring professions. They go to work day in, day out, to make their communities better places in which to live and work.
Indeed, with pay frozen at a time of stubbornly high inflation, they can ill afford to lose a day’s wages, but their vote shows the colour of their anger over the pensions plans to make them work longer and pay more, all for less in their retirement. On top of heavy job cuts and pay freezes at a time of high inflation, it is pushing people too far.
They know that, despite what the huge anti-public sector pensions lobby says, in reality, there is no pensions crisis. Only four years ago, unions negotiated new schemes to make them affordable and sustainable for the long term. We are not doggedly trying to retain a status quo regardless of what’s going on in the wider economy. We have already agreed to new schemes that include a cap and share arrangement in health, so that any increase in costs would have to be borne by employees. The reforms also included a higher retirement age of 65, and other measures including higher contributions from members, of between 5 per cent and 8 per cent.
These reforms have meant that the cost of public sector pensions, as a proportion of gross domestic product, will fall, costs have been reduced even more by the switch to using the Consumer Price Index rather than the Retail Price Index to calculate the annual increase in pensions payments. Both the health and local government schemes are in good shape, with billions more coming in than has to be paid out in pensions every year. Far from being a drain on our economy, the local government scheme is also a huge boost to the private sector. Its funds are worth £140 billion and it owns 1.75 per cent of the Britain’s top FTSE companies.
Cutting public sector pensions for many cannot be an option. The low paid will receive only just enough to keep them above the threshold for means tested benefits when they do retire. The average pension in local government is £3,800 a year, but for women it’s less than £2,800 just £56 a week. More than half of women pensioners in the National Health Service receive a pension of less than £3,500 a year.
Instead of trying to tear these pensions down, we should be trying to bring private pensions up to a decent level. This is a campaign our labour movement must give its full backing to. It’s a scandal that two-thirds of private sector workers do not get a single penny from their employers towards their pension, while top bosses award themselves generous pensions which are 34 times bigger than theaverage public sector pension.
It is in no one’s interest to see workers in the public or private sector living in poverty and relying on state benefits when they retire. That is just storing up more trouble for the future. The so-called pensions crisis is propaganda, whipped up to allow the Government to raid the schemes to pay down the deficit. We do not believe a penny of the money raised will go towards pensions. Ministers are effectively seeking to impose a hardship tax on public sector workers to pay down the deficit.
The way to rebuild our economy is not to take more money out of hardworking people’s pockets. The austerity agenda is killing growth, boosting unemployment fuelling the downturn. Our members are striking for their pensions. Their campaign for a fairer economic plan, founded in social democratic principles, will continue long after we reach a deal.
