FIGHT for a living wage - Defend Services

Reprinted from the Socialist, June 2007

The 77% vote by postal workers in favour of strike action over pay and against proposed cutbacks in the postal service is a sure sign that things are starting to change.

For too long, workers have had to put up with miserly below inflation pay deals. Public sector workers have also had to put up with the erosion of conditions, job losses as well as privatisation and other attacks on the services they deliver. All this while costs are soaring.

Soaring house prices and rising rents are putting an impossible burden on many families. So too are the drastic rises in rates, not to mention the proposal to bring in water charges.

The battle lines over pay are starting to be drawn both with the incoming Brown government at Westminster and with the new Executive at Stormont.

Health workers are now considering industrial action over a pathetic offer that amounts to 1.9% this year. The National Union of Teachers has also decided to ballot over an equally bad offer for teachers.

On 1 May this year, tens of thousands of members of the civil service union, PCS, including hundreds in Northern Ireland, took strike action as part of an ongoing campaign against job cuts, low pay and privatisation.

This growing public sector revolt is directed against the pay restraints imposed by the Treasury. Locally a number of disputes are also developing, directed at the Assembly. One of Catriona Ruane’s first acts as Education Minister has been to offer Classroom Assistants what amounts to a pay cut.

Angry meetings of Classroom Assistants are now being held across Northern Ireland and there is a growing mood for strike action.

College Lecturers have already held seven days of strike action in support of their claim for pay parity with teachers. Their campaign is ongoing, only now it is directed against the Assembly.

Meanwhile teachers here, who are members of NAS, are considering industrial action in support of their claim for parity of pay and conditions with teachers in England and Wales.

Clearly things are hotting up. If the momentum for action on pay continues, neither Gordon Brown nor the local Ministers are in for much of a honeymoon period.

It is crucial that union activists and members maintain the pressure on the union leaderships to stand firm. Some of the leaders of the biggest unions are too close to New Labour and do not want to rock the boat, especially now that Gordon Brown has taken over. Locally some of the union leaders are anxious to stay on good terms with Sinn Fein and the DUP and don’t want to confront the new Executive.

But the mood of workers is increasingly for action - as the 77% vote of postal workers clearly shows. There must be no backsliding by the union tops.

Instead they should be taking measures to co-ordinate the struggles that are now opening up. The call needs now to be raised for a massive day of action to defend public services, oppose privatisation, resist cuts and protect the jobs, wages and conditions of public service workers.

In Northern Ireland this could involve a massive demonstration to Stormont so that the Ministers of all parties in the Executive get the message: Hands off our public services- a living wage for all workers.