On New Year's Day The Guardian ran a considered article 'year of industrial unrest looms as public sector braces for spending cuts'. It was not the first on that theme and doubtless will not be the last. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/31/strikes-unions-unrest-militancy The lack of union strength in the private and manufacturing sector is a big weakness in the bargaining position of British unions. In the past it has been militancy in the private sector that has been the driving force against wage restraint. But now we have a more complicated picture. The RMT for example are taking action over jobs against a private employer who has a public service to deliver, in a high density workforce. Militancy in this sector may produce some success but it doesn't follow that this will knock on to local government or NHS where density is lower and union strength patchy.
It is noticeable that the NHS and local government are not mentioned in the Guardian article. In the NHS that's understandbly the case given that pay is settled until the 2011/12 pay review. Yet we are seeing increasing skirmishes in NHS contractors such as next week's action by 300 UNISON members against Sodexo in North Devon. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/8435248.stm?
However pay bargaining in the local government NJC for England & Wales covers hundreds of thousands of workers and with Tory led employers' there is significant potential for industrial conflict if a pay freeze is enforced. The big question is the capacity of the local government unions to deliver effective and united action. The experience of the 2008 dispute in pre-crisis economic conditions does not augur well but does not preclude such an outcome. Across local government negotiations are being concluded on single status pay restructuring arrangements with potential for unacceptable pay outcomes.
Last year's widely supported and effective Leeds strike in opposition to pay cuts is likely to be emulated in 2010. It is only a matter of time before ECJ judgments on outsourcing are tested in the UK by commissioner or private contractor challenges to work force protection agreements. If and when that gauntlet is thrown down public sector unions will have no alternative other than to fight in defence of one of the few notable achievements of the New Labour years.
Removal of work force protections and therefore an intensification of outsourcing will be perceived as having many advantages for both the state and public sector management. It will cut costs and make contracts easier to manage and more profitable' It will disperse a relatively unionised workforce into a generally less unionised sector and it will transfer disputes about jobs out of the budgets of the Council or hospital over to the contractor. The current shift of our resources into organising must focus on pay and related collective issues.
As a long term strategy it will have to be accepted that there are no quick fixes or short term windfalls. The strategy must focus on the issues of our members - and the whole organisation especially branch leaders and organising staff must be ready to make the case for collective action to defend living standards and job security.
Winning the argument about moving away from servicing to collective work is meaningless unless it has a strategy for collective action at its core.
