UNISON: no longer the missing link?

On 24 April some 10,000 teachers, FE college lecturers and civil servants took to the streets of London, with thousands more attending rallies across England and Wales in by far the biggest protest yet against New Labour's policy of de facto pay cuts for public sector workers. Though there were local UNISON banners at some of the marches and rallies, the single biggest union in the public sector, with 1.3 million members, concentrated largely in local government and the NHS workforce, was largely conspicuous by its absence. In fact, the union's general secretary, Dave Prentis, while invited, did not join the platform at the rally hosted by the largest teachers' union, the NUT, at Westminster Central Hall, despite the presence of TUC head, Brendan Barber.

Last year local government workers voted by a wafer-thin margin on a low turn-out (below 25%) to strike over a pay offer of just below 2.5% - in short a real pay cut. The ballot, which took place more than five months after the start of the financial year, was deemed an insufficient basis for a strike by the union's local government service group executive and in the end council workers swallowed another sub-inflation settlement. In the NHS, with full-time union officials working overtime last September to secure a 'yes' vote, healthworkers actually accepted a pay cut in a poll that saw an abysmally low turn-out.

Now, however, there are signs that this 2008 pay round might prove rather different. On 12 May UNISON's national joint council, the negotiating body for local government, voted narrowly (15-12) to call a strike ballot to the surprise of many left activists, who had assumed that the relatively poor participation rate in a hastily organised consultation exercise would provide the pretext for still further retreat. In the event, Dave Prentis himself authorised the ballot, effectively bypassing the union's industrial action sub-committee. From 27 May more than half a million local government members across England, Wales and the north of Ireland will be asked to support a campaign of industrial action that would kick off with a two-day strike across all local authority employers on 8 and 9 July. The postal ballot closes on Friday 20 June, which coincides with the final day of UNISON's national conference in Bournemouth. (There is a separate dispute with the Scottish local government employers that has not yet seen moves to an official ballot).

Meanwhile, UNISON members across the NHS have begun balloting on a three-year pay package with the average increase not exceeding 2.75% in any of the three years and a vague reference to a "reopener" clause in the second year. UNISON's lead full-time officer, Karen Jennings (who is also a New Labour prospective parliamentary candidate), sought to sell the deal at the mid-April health service group conference and evidently hoped to have the endorsement of the service group executive for the package. In the event the executive split down the middle and so the proposal has gone forward without a formal recommendation though with a not so covert campaign by the full-time apparatus to secure acceptance. In contrast to last year, however, branches appear to have retained the right to campaign for rejection. The ballot on the offer itself (not any form of industrial action as yet) closes on 6 June.

So do these developments signal the dawn of a summer of discontent or is talk of a serious united resistance against the Brown/Darling pay freeze across the public sector premature? The outcome of the local government strike ballot would appear key in the current context. While the prospect of further action by NUT members in the summer term appeared to have diminished, the possibility of a UNISON strike in July just might carry weight with fence-sitting members of what is now supposed to be a left-dominated executive. In the meantime, though, there is a serious job of work to do for UNISON's United Left and militant activists generally over the course of the next month or so.

There are stiff challenges, with organisation far too weak and density perilously low in all too many branches. A 'yes' vote is far from a foregone conclusion and it is vital to achieve a higher turn-out than seen in recent national ballots, but at the same time the prospect of a real fight can be a great recruiter to the union's ranks. For left activists this means the production of additional local publicity that not only highlights the reality of soaring costs for fuel and the average trip to the supermarket, but also debunks the inevitable argument that the money is not there pointing to the multi-billion pound bailouts of Northern Rock and MetroNet shareholders in the past year along with the billions squandered on PFIs, PPPs and a small army of consultants, not to mention the staggering cost of the continued wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also means using trades councils, where they exist and are viable, or whatever other informal networks are at our disposal to get workers together from across the component parts of the public sector - local government, education, the NHS and civil service, and indeed CWU members in Royal Mail, who are likely to be engaged in a fight this summer over the ongoing attack on their pension scheme.

The initial purpose of such meetings should be to build the capacity to exert pressure from below on the union bureaucracies for co-ordinated action at the same time as laying the basis for control of any action by democratically elected and accountable strike committees at the base of the unions.

While recognising that we need to be honest with members about the difficulties inherent in overturning the Government's pay freeze, we should also avoid reinforcing the view that UNISON's official publicity promotes of a very long hard struggle. The Brown government is weak, despite a working majority in the Commons, after the 1 May election debacle and against the background of both rising inflation and the notorious credit crunch. The climbdown, however partial and deceptive on 13 May, around the 10p rate of tax was nonetheless real and an indication that there has rarely been a better time to press for significant concessions from New Labour politicians desperate to recapture some of their electoral base.

* Surprise blows to UNISON bureaucracy: In separate developments on Friday 16 May an unlikely source may have put the brakes on the current witch-hunt of left activists in the unions. While there are principled objections to using the Certification Officer (effectively a creation of Tory anti-union legislation) to resolve "internal" union matters, there were two interesting and quite damning rulings issued in the cases of Tony Staunton, former Plymouth branch secretary, now expelled from the union, and Yunus Baksh, a long-time branch secretary in the NHS in Newcastle and an elected member of the union's service group executive for health, who is currently suspended. In Tony's case the Certification Officer ruled that UNISON had acted outside its own rules and wrongly barred him from standing for the national executive in 2007 when he was only suspended prior to a disciplinary hearing. There was also the hint in the ruling that if the application had not been submitted late the Officer might have ruled the suspension itself improper. In Yunus's case UNISON was found to have acted unlawfully by suspending him from office. In effect, the Officer stated that he should be reinstated by the union on its service group executive for health with immediate effect.

Clearly, we should not start placing reliance in the Certification Officer to ride to our rescue, but the left needs to publicise and seize upon these ruling to highlight the authoritarian and deceitful nature of the internal regime that key full-time officials within the union have exercised with the evident blessing of Dave Prentis and the dominant faction within UNISON's elected national leadership.

Sun 18, May 2008 @ 18:34