The lecturers' union UCU is going for a strike against the Government's 19 December "final" terms on public sector pensions.
UCU Executive member Sean Vernell reports on the Socialist Worker website:
"The executive of the UCU lecturers’ union met today (Friday [20 January]) and voted three to one for a strike on 1 March over pensions and to invite other unions to join them...
"To break the impasse and to step up the campaign, UCU has put out a call for all the unions who have rejected the deal to meet to organise for a united strike on 1 March".
The 19 December terms included no significant improvement on the Government's "work longer, pay more, get less" plans for public-sector pensions, but at best some sideways rearrangements.
The UCU move will greatly strengthen the pressure for more action in unions like the PCS (civil service), NUT (teachers), and Unite (mainly in health and local government) which have declared the 19 December terms unacceptable but whose leaders have so far shied away from further action.
The gap between 19 December and 1 March will have damaged the momentum of the campaign, and serious efforts by the unions will be necessary to remobilise workers, but that is possible.
Unions should also plan to follow up 1 March rapidly with a continuous and self-controlling programme of rolling and selective action, sustained by strike levies. With higher pension contributions due to be deducted from workers' wages in April, time has run out for the old approach of one-day strikes followed by long gaps in which workers are advised to wait while union leaders ponder about whether and when to call a next one-day strike.
Comments
All Out
I know thats its no longer considered realistic to call and expect to get an all out strike but that is what is required. The problem with rolling strikes is that it allows employers to pick of strikes. What should have been happening from the begining of the Con Dem attacks is for activists to have been arguing for all out strike action. Still any action is better than nothing and can be built on.
Text of resolution passed at UCU Executive
Motion passed 24/8
NEC notes that:
1. The NUT, EIS, UCAC, NASUWT, PCS and UNITE (in their local government, health and civil service sections) have not signed up to the Heads of Agreement proposals (HoA).
2. The government have threatened to impose changes in April.
NEC believes that:
1. Although the proposals include some slight amendments, they are the same as the ones we struck against on N30.
2. The unions which have rejected the proposals were right to do so.
3. The main issues in the dispute remain unresolved; the change from RPI to CPI, the increase in employee contributions, the extension of the retirement age and the abolition of the Final Salary Scheme.
4. There should be a membership ballot on the final offer but we don’t believe that the government have yet made any improvements significant enough to warrant such a ballot at this moment in time.
5. Both the continuation and the escalation of industrial action in defence of TPS must precede the Government’s timetable for imposition.
NEC resolves:
1. To reject the Heads of Agreement proposals.
2. For the General Secretary (together with the TPS Chairs and Vice-Chairs of the NEC) to meet with the leaders of the other 'rejectionist' unions as a matter of urgency and prior to the end of next week, to agree a timetable and strategy for the escalation of coordinated industrial action in pursuance of the dispute.
3. To propose a strategy of escalation that involves a program of coordinated rolling strike action (regional, national, etc. as appropriate) in February 2012 with other unions.
We agree that our next day of UK-wide strike action will take place on Thursday 1st March 2012, and to invite the other unions to join in.
4. To re-submit the proposals passed at the last NEC, outlining a strategy for escalating action, to the other unions who have not signed up to the Heads of Agreement proposals.
5. For the General Secretary to report back to a re-called meeting of the NEC, that will take place on February 10th , what progress she has made in discussions with the other unions.
6. To encourage branches and regions to urgently meet to promote our rejection of the HoA and to devise branch/regional plans to successfully deliver the next stages of the dispute.
Rolling strikes
Hi Liberty,
Can you explain what you mean when you say that rolling strikes "allow employers to pick off strikes"?
Sacha Ismail
Hi Sacha If by rolling
Hi Sacha
If by rolling strikes we mean that workplaces involved in the strike action comes out on different dates then this seems to me to be a recepie for weakening the strike. For instance in education if different schools come out on different days then the sense of class solidarity does not get a chance to develop which means that workers can end up feeling in a much weaker position vis a vis their employers. Lets not forget that the barrage of propaganda from all sections of the media is designed to weaken the moral of workers.
Instead of rolling strikes then as I said the option of an all out strike is moore likely to win. During the 70's strikes had a tendency to be all out strikes where workers either won or lost but at least once the strike was in place the sense of solidarity was much greater. It seems that due to the defeats during the 80's the union bureacrats turned to one day strikes and now too rolling strikes which plays upon the lack of confidence in the class. What we need today is a strategy that encourages class solidarity and confidence especially given the seriousness of the present crisis.
"All-out" does not mean "more effective"
The point of a strike, fundamentally, is to win. Sometimes you might be in a position where all you can achieve is a strike which amounts to a gesture, a protest or a display. But fundamentally strikes should be designed to exert maximum pressure on employers to force them to make concessions.
That's why rolling strikes are effective. Taking strategic groups of workers with more economic power out at different times maintains a continuous level of pressure on employers/government, rather than the one-day "spectaculars" which they can easily ride out.
Obviously, the maximum-possible degree of pressure would be applied by an indefinite, all-out general strike but I don't think anyone who inhabits the real world can seriously posit that as an immediate possibility in this particular dispute.
Rolling and selective action does not mean that workers not involved in strikes on a particular day are just passive. AWL advocates targeted strike action as one element in a comprehensive programme of industrial action that would also include days of all-out action, action short of strikes, demonstrations, lobbies, and other direct action. The point is to build an ongoing, self-controlling and escalating campaign that rank-and-file workers can play an ongoing role in and take ownership of.
Limiting ourselves to arguing abstractly for "all-out" action (and in a period of a historically low-ebb of class struggle, low union members, 65% less stewards and reps than a generation ago - basically a significant weakness on our side - it would necessarily be abstract) would mean we miss the opportunity to argue for and organise genuinely effective action that might actually win.
The key aim here is to increase rank-and-file participation, confidence, control and power. If we do that, then we're heading towards a time when indefinite all-out action might become less of a fantasy.
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Daniel Randall
If the union beaucrats had
If the union beaucrats had taken seriously the determination of the bourgeoise to attack workers wages and social wage then they would have been arguing for an idefinite strike from the begining. Instead they waited and waited and waited until March before a one day spectacular followed by another one day spectacular. Of course winning the argument for an indefinite strike would be difficult but given the current level of unprecendated attacks then this may have been easier than some activists think. If the union beacrats get away with doing little or nothing and the pension changes go through then this will make it even more difficult to win workers to take indefinite strike action. Rolling strikes only erode the resolve of workers as employers/government simply ride them out.
Actually...
...union bureaucrats "arguing" for generalised or indefinite action doesn't necessarily equate to radical leadership. The NUM's Joe Gormley in the 1970s would often talk about how only an indefinite or general strike could beat the government, but this "argument" was actually a means for him to block action by sections of the union who wanted to strike immediately on their own issues.
There's been something similar going on in Serwotka's rhetoric; he says that only united action can beat the government. In a grand sense that's true, but the practical effect of this "argument" from him is that he refuses to act alone, or even as part of a minority group of unions, even though sections of his membership are willing to fight.
The point is to proceed from the logic of the struggle in its totality - taking into account where the levels of consciousness/organisation are at - and not to read back from cookie-cutter conclusions (e.g. "only all-out indefinite action can win so anything less than that is pointless").
I think we'll just have to disagree on employers being able to "ride out" targeted action. As I've said I think creatively targeted action over a sustained and escalating period is actually far more difficult to "ride out" than one or even two days of "all-out" action. Several days of "all-out" action could also "erode resolve" in a period when few unions have adequate strike levies. Days of all-out action that saw fewer and fewer people come out each time would be far more demoralising than an ongoing, sustained and self-controlling campaign that included both all-out and targeted action.
The "crime" of the bureaucrats in this dispute isn't primarily that they failed to argue for indefinite action. To claim that it is would be to massively let them off the hook. Their "crime" is controlling the dispute in a top-down, undemocratic way, conducting negotiations behind closed doors away from democratic scrutiny, failing to make any clear demands, and treating their membership like a stage army without any agency of its own that could be switched on and off at will and didn't need any ownership or control over its own strikes.
The crisis in the labour movement is, in the first place, one of rank-and-file organisation and a democratic deficit. The inability of most union leaders to see past one-day strikes is also a problem but independent rank-and-file organisation is the "key" that can unlock the debate about tactics/strategy.
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Daniel Randall
The ATL trumpeted that over
The ATL trumpeted that over 91 percent of members had voted to accept the deal in a poll. But the union confirmed that the turnout was just 5.7 percent.
The prospect of renewed industrial action over pensions will be a blow to the government.It had hoped to quash the revolt over the Christmas break. But workers still face later retirement and increased contributions for lower pensions payouts.They are furious at being forced to foot the bill for a crisis caused by the Tories’ friends in the City.A victory for workers over pensions would rip a hole in the government’s whole austerity agenda.It would show ordinary people that they can fight the cuts and win...!!! VPN service | URL Opener | Mensagens Para Facebook | imagens engraçadas
General Strike calls by right-wing
Daniel's right about right-wing bureaucrats putting foward calls for maximum action in the hope that members will reject it and there will be no action. the right-wing leadership of CPSA (predecessor of PCS) used to respond to calls by the left for action in particular government departments or regions by saying that only civil service-wide or national action (which they obviously had no intention of organising) could win any given dispute. it is one of the traditions the SP leadership in PCS have carried on.
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