No sell-out on pensions – Fight until we win!

This is taken from the National Shop Stewards Network site – it is vitally important that this is spread as widely as possible in a short time, so please feel free to circulate to anyone you feel may be supportive. After the magnificent strikes and demonstrations up and down the country on November 30th, we cannot back down and let the government off the hook. They have given almost nothing away in terms of concessions, yet some leaders of trade unions and the tops of the TUC – notably Brendan Barber and Dave Prentis, are waving the white flag already.

The TUC’s Public Sector Liaison Group (PSLG) has met for the first time since the magnificent 30 November public sector strike.

 Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, argued that trade unions should sign up to the government’s latest agreement on pensions, which would then allow Francis Maude to announce before Christmas that the dispute has been settled.

This was met with outrage by many of the public sector trade unions present. Not one of the central demands of public sector workers has been met. All public sector workers are still being told to work longer, pay more and get less. The teaching unions NUT and NASUWT reported that they had been offered no serious concessions by the government, as did the civil servants’ union PCS, the Fire Brigades Union and representatives of workers in the NHS. In local government, the only concession is to delay the attacks on pensions until 2014, provided that local government unions promise to accept the pain without a fight when it comes.

Yet Dave Prentis – general secretary for Unison – the biggest union in health and local government – argued for accepting this rotten deal. Hundreds of thousands of Unison members who struck on 30 November will not agree.

30 November showed the potential power of the working class in Britain. We can force this weak, divided government to retreat, but only if the action is stepped up. The leadership of the TUC and Unison supported N30 because of the pressure of rank and file trade unionists – now we need to do the same again. PCS demanded that the meeting name the day for the next day of national coordinated strike action. In Scotland, Unison delegates have already unanimously proposed 25 January as the day of the next strike.

We all – public and private sector workers alike – need to pile on the pressure for the date of the next strike to be set before Christmas, and to take place in January.

 

Sign the petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pensions_strike_january/

PCS Left Unity is organising an open meeting at Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London on Saturday 7 January to demand further action on pensions. This meeting will be open to all reps in any union that took action on N30 and is to put pressure on union leaderships to name a further strike day.

How to defend our NHS?

The Conservative / Lib Dem government have pledged to protect “frontline” NHS services and cut back on bureaucracy. In reality, this is another broken promise. They have no intention of saving even frontline staff. It is important that trade unions should unite health workers against their plans, not seek to divide them. The nursing union, the RCN, has a national campaign called “frontline first”. While it has every right to fight for its own members, their approach plays into the government’s agenda that some cuts are necessary, and divides healthworkers against each other. I have seen admin staff in UNISON wearing badges saying “I am frontline”, making the point that we are just as important to the running of the NHS, enabling nurses and doctors to do their jobs efficiently.

The RCN website talks of speaking out against NHS cuts that are harming patient care, but also exposing where there is waste in the system. In reality, the NHS has long been under-funded. The Trust I work for has had vacancy freezes, so that gradually less and less staff are under more pressure to do the same job, resulting in a rise in stress and sickness.

The way to win a campaign is to give workers the confidence that if they take action then these cuts can be beaten. As part of TUSC (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) Socialist Party members attempted to do this, by standing in elections on a no-cuts platform. We need to explain to people that the cuts are not necessary, they are part of an attack on the principles of the NHS – to provide free health care to anyone who needs it, regardless of their ability to pay. UNISON and the RCN should be balloting for strike action, in unity with the teaching unions and PCS, who are taking action to protect their pensions on 30th June. That way we could show the government the unity of public sector workers and that we are determined to resist any attacks on our terms and conditions.

The inefficiencies in the NHS come from the privatisation that has already happened under Labour and the Tories. In 1979, admin costs were only 6%. The introduction of the “internal market” by the Tories doubled this to 12% and with Labour’s foundation trusts, this has risen to nearer 20%. In preparation for my hospital becoming a foundation trust, we will have to record every contact with a patient, even if it is just a phone conversation. This is only because the hospital will then be charged per contact, as if it was a business. The real source of inefficiency is the private market.

So what do we do instead? The party I belong to, the Socialist Party would reverse the privatisation of the NHS and place our public services under truly democratic workers’ control. We would get rid of genuine inefficiencies – pharmaceutical companies overcharging for drugs, expensive PFI schemes and allow NHS hospitals to co-operate with each other and share best practice, rather than have to compete with each other for patients. The NHS brought free healthcare to millions when it was first introduced, but sixty years later these gains are being taken away from us, as multinationals move in for the kill. We need to fight for a socialist society, so that we can win a genuinely public NHS now and for future generations.