In the 1980’s the American satirical film Airplane made great comedy. In one famous scene the bogus runaway plane went from one gate to another whilst a frantic airport announcer shouted the gate numbers continually going up saying ‘now gate 8 now gate 9 now gate 10’. It’s a bit like the numbers game when it comes to local government job losses.
With each announcement the numbers increase. This week it was the turn of GMB to up the numbers to 200,000 job losses from the previous estimate of the LGA of 140,000. Now I don’t want to defend the LGA over the GMB but their latest announcements are in danger of doing the Tories job for them making huge job losses seem inevitable: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12116841
It is in the Tories interests to make the numbers look worse and then pull back from the brink as it lessens resistance by lulling people into believing that there has been genuine attempts to minimise job losses or that job losses are going to happen no matter how hard workers resist. It is a difficult one for trade union leaders to call.
On the one hand there is a need to make the cuts real within a media context but on the other hand this drowns out the more intelligent debate about alternatives to job losses. The media will always run with a sensationalist line and it is more difficult then for us to control what message becomes the headline.
We can’t however allow the trade union line to become subsumed by an inane Dutch auction on job loss numbers. It is self-serving to union leaders rather than progressing the cause of union members which should always be at the heart of any union media strategy.
Anna Rose
