Public sector unions & cuts - a neo-liberal call to arms‏

The new edition of the Economist magazine predicts that the Con Dem Government will prevail over union opposition to public sector pay and pension cuts.http://www.economist.com/node/16545171?story_id=16545171

The article strings together the usual right wing clichés about 'cushy numbers', 'generous redundancy terms', 'gold standard final salary pension schemes' etc.

"Go ahead and do it" incites the Economist writer, more or less offering to hold the coat of Chancellor Osborne as he gears up for the 'unavoidable confrontation' with the public sector unions.
Never mind that last week's much hyped IOD/IEA report 'overstates the worth' of public sector pensions, the case for reform 'is compelling' when compared with provision in the largely non unionised private sector (15% density).

It is the Economist itself not the unions who 'are defending the indefensible'.

However the clarity of its battleground analysis is helpful. We need a clear industrial and political strategy to defend our members jobs, pay and pensions. One which takes into account the advice of Keith Ewing in a recent analysis of the prospects for resisting the Con Dem onslaught:

"in defending our jobs, our wages and our public services we need to be smart. At least, in the first instance, we need to be smart about operating within but also around the law so that resistance is not crushed by the courts. We need to be smart about ensuring that our organisations are not raided by government, employers and lawyers - as were the print unions, the seafarers and the miners as they resisted some 20 years ago - and we need to be smart in terms of ensuring that we create alliances to produce victories rather than acting alone to create martyrs."
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/91682