Unions which have not accepted the Government's so-called "final" formula for public-sector pensions are talking about a further strike on the issue in late March, and more action beyond that.
But activists in those unions, and especially in the officially "left-wing" unions, will have to fight hard:
- to make sure the further strike happens;
- that it is energetically organised, and not just a limp token protest;
- and that "more action" means a genuine ongoing campaign of rolling and selective action, with activity every week, rather than advice to workers to wait after the one-day protest on a promise that the union leaders, in their wisdom, may in some weeks' or months' time proclaim new activities.
The "rejectionist" unions met on 25 January. That was slow - PCS, the main union to reject the Government formula immediately and clearly, had been talking about a meeting since 20 December - but it was progress.
A lot of unions attended, most sending general secretaries. That's good, but it had a downside. Unions which might otherwise have taken an initiative are now inclined to wait for a hypothetical great day when all the "rejectionist" unions, or a lot of them, concur on action; and, if we leave things to the general secretaries, that great day may never come.
The Executive of the lecturers' union UCU had already decided to strike on 1 March. The obvious next step for the "rejectionist" unions was to come in on that date.
But, so insiders tell us, PCS made clear that it would not strike on 1 March, and would "consult" its members before any further action.
Thus the 25 January meeting decided no action, and made no public statement. The "rejectionist" unions will meet again (8 February, we believe), and there is a vague agreement that the next meeting will talk about a strike in late March; but the immediate effect of the 25 January meeting has been to give leverage to UCU general secretary Sally Hunt to get UCU's strike decision reversed. (UCU Exec meets again on 10 February. Meanwhile, balloting in its general secretary election opens on 6 February).
One problem of the "rejectionist" union summits is that they are meetings of general secretaries. Hunt in UCU is known to oppose her union Executive's decision for a strike, and Christine Blower in the National Union of Teachers (NUT) is visibly not very interested in further action. A joint meeting of the Executives of all these unions would be better.
On 26 January the "rejectionist" union summit had further adverse consequences. The NUT Executive met that day. At its previous meeting on 12 January, AWL member Patrick Murphy had won 13 votes (against 26) for the NUT to take the initiative for a strike before 11 February. Some of those who voted against insisted that they were for further action, only not that soon. It could reasonably be hoped that they would come round to definite plans for action at the later meeting. The 26 January meeting had before it many resolutions from local NUT Associations calling for action soon.
But Murphy could not even get a seconder for a proposal for a strike in the week beginning 27 February. (It was put that way because of quibbles that 1 March would be an unsuitable date for a strike for Welsh teachers, presumably because of primary schools, especially, organising St David's Day festivals that day). The SWP, a moving force in the UCU Executive's plan for 1 March, also has members on the NUT Exec, but they would not second Murphy's proposal. Why, we don't know.
The NUT Exec did not rule out action. Its decision was that "the General Secretary and the Deputy General Secretary press the case with the other unions for a joint further day of action in March". However, between pressing the case for some day of action so long as it is joint with the other unions (all of them?), on the one hand, and taking the initiative for a strike, on the other, is a big gap.
As we understand it, one major argument at the NUT Exec was that if NUT continues to go the road of generally "pressing the case" among "rejectionist" unions, rather making definite plans for action, NASUWT might come to meetings of the "rejectionist" unions and might agree to joint strike action.
Without question, a joint strike with NASUWT would mobilise NUT members better than a NUT-only strike. But the NASUWT has only "reserved its position" on the Government formula; its leaders give no sign of wanting further action; and there is no evidence yet of a big groundswell in the union to push them into action. Most likely, the NASUWT will not strike again until pushed into it by prior action by NUT.
NUT playing a waiting game, in the hope that sheer force of waiting will bring over NASUWT, is more likely to scupper NUT action than promote NASUWT action.
It is now two months since 30 November, and six weeks since union members were told by the media on 20 December that the public-sector pensions campaign was off. Inevitably, with each week that passes without any loud and public union response to the media's reports that action is finished, more of the tremendous momentum built up on 30 November is lost.
NUT Exec members were presented with surveys showing that a joint NUT-NASUWT strike would get a better turnout than a NUT-only strike, or a further strike by NUT joint with UCU and PCS.
But they knew that anyway. And here as elsewhere, the act of measuring changes what is measured. The message that NUT members have heard from their union leadership is: "First, we 'reserved our position' on the Government formula. Then we said it was definitely not enough and asked the Government for more talks. Now we are wondering about further action. We're too hesitant to make any definite call. But what do you think? Would you really be up for it?"
It can be taken as certain that further "surveys", accompanied by further to-ing and fro-ing between general secretaries, will return an even more cooled-down response.
The NUT is convening the secretaries of its divisions (small groups of branches, or large branches) on 2 February, and its Exec meets again on 9 February. Those two meetings may be the last chance to stop the pensions campaign dribbling away.
The other downside in NUT is that late March - the date that the hypothetical further strike has been pushed back to - is only a few days before the end of term. Then come the school holidays. Then comes summer term, with exams. Meanwhile, the increased pension contributions will already be taken out of workers' wages, from the start of April.
Making the start of action so late makes it more difficult to organise a continuing campaign with a good chance of extracting real concessions from the Government.
What will PCS do? PCS gained credit by being the only union (apart from NIPSA) to reject the Government terms immediately and unequivocally on 19/20 December. PCS leaders have said repeatedly that they believe unions should strike again for pensions.
Understandably, other unions are inclined to look to PCS for a lead. But waiting for PCS can be a snare.
The PCS leadership is dominated by a would-be Marxist group, the Socialist Party, which since 19 December has been demanding, on the streets and in meetings, that unions "name the date" for further action on pensions.
The SPers in the PCS leadership, however - the SPers who could actually "name the date" - have not responded to the SP's public demand!
The January/ February issue of the PCS union magazine, View, does not even hint at further industrial action for pensions. The most militant thing it says is: "unions now have to make a decision of enormous significance – accept the government's proposals on pension age, contributions and the value of pensions or demand real negotiations on the real issues".
Digging through reports from their National Executive, PCS members can discover that: "The NEC has agreed to make contact with the other unions that have not accepted the government's 'heads of agreement' to arrange a meeting to discuss the potential for ongoing campaigning over pensions, including the question of further industrial action. The NEC will meet again after that meeting to make decisions on future action and consultation with members and reps".
That is far from a positive decision to strike again. And, as we've seen, at the joint meeting of "rejectionist" unions on 25 January, PCS did not build on the plan for further industrial action already on the table. UCU's 1 March. It scuppered it.
PCS said it was consulting its members. Activists will remember late 2007, when the PCS adjourned its industrial action on pay and jobs to consult its members about whether they wanted further national action, reported a 67.6% vote in favour of action, and then called off national action and suggested to its "Groups" (industrial sectors) that they might call piecemeal action instead.
They will also remember late 2008, when there was ballyhoo about a joint NUT-PCS strike day on public sector pay, but, for reasons never explained, the union leaders said that was impossible and went for different days.
Relying on the PCS leaders, or on the "rejectionist" union general secretaries, to set things up for a joint strike in late March would be foolish. Such reliance could condemn us to hearing general secretaries say, a few weeks down the track: We would have been for further action if it had been possible to do it jointly. But it's turned out too difficult to coordinate. Oh well. Too late now.
Real joint action will be best achieved by unions moving quickly, taking the initiative, naming definite days, making definite proposals - and responding to proposals from others with support, not quibbling and delay.
Even an 11th-hour token protest just before the Government's contributions increases come in, even one called by only a few unions, or only one union, would be better than nothing.
On previous record, PCS leaders may go for a late-March strike called at very short notice and with no or few other unions joining in.
Such action would serve the purpose of allowing the SP to continue to claim that the PCS is the most militant and left-wing union in town. PCS runs little risk of losing members to other unions as a result of calling ill-prepared action. And the union can command enough loyalty to ensure that a strike looks plausible even if ill-prepared.
However, the very-cautious NUT Exec left, which is worried about losing members to NASUWT and ATL by ill-prepared action, is likely to say that a date named with too little preparation time is not viable. It remains possible that all the waiting around for joint action will result in PCS-only action - after the waiting-around approach has trashed earlier possibilities for joint action such as 1 March.
But, despite all the time lost since 19 December, much more is still possible. The moves by Unilever and Shell to scrap two of the last defined-benefit pension schemes in the private sector, as soon as it became clear that many of the public-sector unions were folding, have dramatised the issues, and the Unilever workers' fight back will have encouraged many public-sector workers.
Activists in every union should press for:
- clear rejection of the 19 December formula, if the union has not done that yet;
- taking the initiative to name the date for a further strike (with the option, of course, of revising that date if other unions make a reasoned amendment to another specific date, rather than to relegate action to a vague future);
- an ongoing campaign of rolling and selective action, with activity every week, financed by strike levies;
- a priority for specific demands which could be won even at this stage, such as widening the range of pay levels exempt from contribution rises and extending the time of the exemption, or drastically reducing the loss of pension which workers retiring earlier than the increased full pension ages will suffer. Such specific demands do not cut across escalating to full demolition of the Government plans, or indeed for a levelling-up improvement of current pension terms, if the continuing campaign develops solidly; but they are probably necessary to restart the campaign at this late stage.
Meanwhile, things are moving elsewhere. In local government, where Unison and GMB have agreed joint "principles" with the employers and Unite is dissenting only passively, "final proposals" on "initial design" of the new (worse) pension scheme to start from 2012 are due by 8 February. "Final proposals" for "future scheme management" are due by 7 March, and 12 March to 20 April is the timeslot allocated for "union consultation", before it all goes to the Government for legal drafting, on 23 April.
Dissenting Unison members are campaigning for a special local government conference of the union to thwart this sell-out, and they will be much helped by timely action by other unions.
Talks are proceeding in the Health Service, where Unison, the biggest union, has also agreed a (bad) framework, and other unions, notably Unite, have rejected it but have planned no action.
The Government has just published a calculator of how much more in pension contribution NHS workers will have taken out of their wages from the start of April 2012.
Increased contributions will also be taken out of teachers' pay and out of civil service workers' pay from April.