Don't lose pension strike momentum

The commitment shown by at least 1.5 million workers in 29 unions who staged a 24-hour strike against attacks on the pensions, and marched in cities and towns in their tens of thousands, is now in jeopardy.

Union leaders are resuming talks with the ConDem coalition today in a bid to reach a settlement before the government’s imposed deadline of December 31.

But if they were really serious about defending their members’ interests, union bureaucrats would be boycotting the talks because, in reality, there is nothing really to negotiate about.

For yesterday’s historic action was, as every striker knows, not about winning an improvement in their hard-won pensions but about stopping the government from cutting them through higher contributions and having to work longer before entitlement.

So any “compromise”, along the lines called for by the wretched Ed Miliband – by the way just nine out of 258 Labour MPs backed a Commons motion supporting the strike – must mean worse pensions in one form or another.

A contributions increase will slice even more off the value of real wages, already reduced by a government-imposed, pay freeze – which union leaders did nothing to oppose. With chancellor Osborne imposing a below-inflation 1% pay limit for the next two years, incomes in the public are set to plummet by 15% by 2014.

We repeat: what is there to negotiate about?

While the government has declared class war on behalf of the banks and corporations, union leaders continue to live in a fantasy world where “common sense” will prevail and an all-out conflict can be avoided.

Worse, they consider their members as cannon fodder to be sent over the top before suing for peace. Conscious of the feebleness of their opponents’ officer class, the Coalition is playing a divide-and-rule game. Their plan is to get the teaching unions to agree a separate deal and split them from other unions.

The major Labour-affiliated unions like Unison have no plans for further co-ordinated national action – not least because of the dangers (for them) that it could lead to calls for strikes that are more than a one-day affair (which the government can handle).

Instead, if there is no deal by Christmas, there is talk of local, rolling so-called “smart” strikes. These will have no impact whatsoever and contain the danger of demoralising and isolating groups of workers.

Yet the conditions exist to maintain the momentum of yesterday’s tremendous strike. Osborne’s budget will slash the incomes of every household, not just those in the public sector as the Institute for Fiscal Studies report today shows.

The British economy is heading for recession, along with the rest of global capitalism. While trade unions were marching for their rights, the major central banks took desperate measures to try and prop up the euro. But it’s too late – another credit crunch is under way, leading to a second financial meltdown worse than that of 2008.

The deepening crisis will hit everyone very hard and provides the opportunity to bring all sectors of society together in new ways. Local, alternative seats of power such as people’s assemblies can maintain the energy of November 30 and more.

Limiting our response to calls for more strikes or days of action is inadequate. In Greece, for example, a number of general strikes have failed to end the massive attack on living standards.

Overriding every government’s actions are the demands of the financial markets and the recession that makes it impossible to return to the “growth” that is the lifeblood of the capitalist system.

The success of the pensions strike confirms without a shadow of a doubt the will to confront the government. Now is the moment for the rank and file to demand an end to negotiations and seize the initiative through the creation of democratic assemblies that can mount a serious challenge to the failed profit system itself.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Pension strikers should go beyond resistance

Whatever the Murdoch press may say ("Union leaders are off their heads" – The Sun) it is pressure from members, rather than the not-so-steely resolve of union bosses, that forced the TUC to act over pensions.

Finally, they had to do something to express the anger of public sector workers whose living standards have been cut to the bone and who have seen jobs cut by 110,000 in less than a year, with more to come.

Workers from 14 unions – including local government workers, nurses, care workers, civil servants, teachers, prison officers and firefighters – are planning co-ordinated action on pensions in the biggest joint union mobilisation since the "winter of discontent" in 1978/79.

Actions will range from a one-day strike on November 30, involving around 3 million people, to lunchtime meetings, rallies and joint events with community groups, service users and private sector workers.

Throughout New Labour, the major unions convinced members to accept sub-inflation pay rises, making many reliant on tax credits – which have now been cut. They stood by while services were contracted out, and both the public and private sectors cut pensions for new entrants.

Even now, union bosses pray the Coalition government will save them from acting. Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: "Hopefully the government will see the anger and perhaps take a step back, be a little bit more flexible and less intransigent."

He wishes! But there IS no flexibility and the government is ENTIRELY intransigent. The attack on pensions is driven by the economic and financial crisis. Without cutting pensions the Coalition can't eliminate the deficit.

And as this bankers' government knows, the market will punish any country going soft on cuts. Nick Clegg explained: "Markets have stopped believing that all European governments can service their debts. We simply cannot afford to let that happen to us too."

As the general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, Patrick Roach, said: "The attack on pensions is only one element of the assault on ordinary working people, on the public sector and on the welfare state. Be in no doubt – we are in the midst of a perfect storm. A perfect storm of assaults on pay, on jobs, on rights at work, as well as on pensions."

But the lesson from the perfect storms in Greece, Ireland and Italy is that one-day strikes do not force governments caught in the gravest global crisis in capitalism’s history to change course. The big question is what follows?

Why wait for negotiations which are a total fraud? Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander, announced the detail of the pension cuts back in June and nothing has changed since then.

If ever there was a time to defy the anti-union laws, it is now. Ballots are costly, time-consuming, open to endless legal challenges and give the government and their pet media in the BBC and newspapers, the initiative.

Better to just call members out now and save the cash for strike pay. All the unions, including those like the rail union RMT who are not directly involved, should call an indefinite strike to bring down the Coalition.

RMT leader Bob Crow told the TUC Congress that forms of civil disobedience beyond strikes would be necessary, uniting unions with others fighting to defend jobs and services. This is good but cannot be more protest.

At the end of the day, we need to find a way to go BEYOND resistance to a political solution. Otherwise what are we fighting for? To put a Milliband-led Labour, pro-capitalist government in office? No thank you!

This solution can be developed in the course of building People's Assemblies in every community, where union members unite with others – especially those in the private sector – not only to co-ordinate support for strikes and other actions, but also start building an alternative democracy.

Rejecting a state committed to the power of banks and corporations, they can plan a transfer of economic and political power into the hands of the people. Looked at in this way, November 30 can be a springboard to a real social transformation.

Penny Cole

Miliband takes union cash - and does a runner

In the summer of 2010, some union leaders met together and decided that they could buy their way to happiness by backing Ed Miliband’s campaign to become the new leader of the Labour Party.

With the help of the three major union bureaucracies of the GMB, Unite and Unison, Miliband squeaked home ahead of his brother David, who enjoyed most of the support from constituency parties.

Money down the drain, throwing good money after bad, a bad investment, a gamble that went wrong. All these phrases describe what has happened since. Miliband, to no-one’s surprise except that of the union leaders’, has become little more than Blair Mark II.

In fact, Miliband’s speech speech to the Trades Union Congress today was uncannily Blair-like in its content. “You know the new economy that emerges from this crisis must be built on foundations of co-operation, not conflict, in the workplace,” he said.

Co-operation? Trade unionists are being sacked in their thousands and/or losing hard-won rights and working conditions. Many are victims of cuts imposed by Labour-led local authorities.

If delegates were expecting some support for their upcoming struggles, they were soon disabused. Miliband acknowledged that Labour backed public spending cuts in the order of 12% (rather than the Tories’ 20%), defended opted-out academy schools and the Coalition’s new free schools.

And, naturally, Miliband repeated his assertion that strikes by civil servants and teachers in June against government attacks on their pensions were wrong and indicated he would take the same position in the event of more industrial action

Some delegates heckled during Miliband’s speech and Paul Kenny, leader of the GMB, struggled to find words of comfort for his hard-pressed members. In one of this week’s more vacuous statements, Kenny said:

"As Labour Leader he is not embarrassed by his association with trade unions and trade unionists. His engagement with trade unionists on the ground will bring to the fore what needs to be done to get the economy moving and to bring fairness to our communities."

Thank you and good night is all you say after reading that!

Even Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union, appeared to pull his punches, saying afterwards that "Ed Miliband needs to decide just whose side he is on” and warning the Labour leader that he was on “political suicide mission”.

The stark truth is that Miliband knows which side he is on – and it isn’t that of trade unionists and workers in struggle. Labour became a full partner of globalised capitalism back in the 1990s and stands by that position.

For the Milibands of this world, there is no alternative to rescuing the broken market economy to create the “prosperous capitalism” that the Labour leader called for in a speech earlier this year.

Were Labour in power now, you would hardly notice the difference between their policies and those of the ConDem government. In fact, many of the Coalition’s policies are a development of what New Labour did to the NHS and the welfare state.

Labour is happy taking the money from the trade unions to finance the party - and then doing a runner with it. Union leaders from Unite, Unison and GMB know this. But they are in denial mode.

Their members don’t have that luxury, however. Their jobs and pensions are on the line and they are waiting to see if, behind all the militant speeches, their leaders are actually prepared to do battle with the government.

Not having Miliband on their side is excellent news for the rank and file. The fact is that the alternative to the Coalition is not Labour (or any other combination of parliamentary parties). What is demanded is a democratic political system that responds to people’s needs. Achieving that goal will require independence of thought and action.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor