January’s Trades Council meeting was held shortly after the Trades Union Congress announced a day of national protest on Wednesday 1st February to “Protect the Right to Strike!”: TUC to hold national ‘protect the right to strike’ day on February 1 | TUC
The Government is presenting a “Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill” to Parliament which explicitly states that it is designed “to restrict the protection… to trade unions and employees in respect of strikes” in those areas where it would give Government Ministers the power to impose minimum service levels.
The political commentator Robert Peston says about the Bill that he has “rarely read legislation so lacking in underlying coherence and logic”, and it is quite unclear as to whether it is meant to address public safety or inconvenience, how “minimum standards” could be accurately expressed, how wide its net could be cast (does “Uber Eats” come under “transport”?), how detailed a “work order” will need to be in specifying “the work required to be carried out by” a conscripted worker during a strike. What is not unclear is that the Bill is not about providing a basic level of service to the public – it is about making industrial action even harder to pursue.
The Trades Council welcomed the initiative taken by the TUC, which PCS and UCU have already said they are bearing in mind in scheduling strike days pertaining to their ongoing cost of living disputes. We hope we can give a local focus to the day by having a standing assembly in Blackburn Town centre at 12.30pm, in the square outside the Town Hall: Protect the right to strike! | Facebook
Feedback was also received at the meeting from several ongoing disputes. It was noted that in many of these the conflict with the employer was ranging over much wider ground than simply pay. A decade of austerity and privatisation not only in the NHS but in local government and social care has cut away at resources and limited capacity, and many staff feel exhausted trying to hold together services that are creaking at the seams. The Government and rail companies talk about “modernisation” in the hope we will all be gulled into thinking about shiny new trains in an apple-pie future – in fact they are talking about risk-based maintenance replacing planned preventative maintenance, Driver-Only trains, ticket office closures and new rostering systems that will further cut wages and worsen workers’ work-life balance.
In the case of Royal Mail, the characters who have taken over as a consequence of privatisation seem determined to wreck both the qualities for which we value the service and the very fabric of its industrial relations structures.
Despite profits from letters being around 40% of last year’s profit margins – over £300 million of the £758 million – Royal Mail plan to phase out the delivery of letters. This is currently being done by prioritising the delivery of parcels, leaving mail untouched and piling up. They’ve also made a request to the Government and Ofcom, to end mail deliveries on Saturdays. The employer also wants to implement changes to the start times of delivery workers of up to three hours, changes to the way technology is used (so that an employee’s every move will be surveyed and anyone unable to achieve unrealistic efficiency targets can be more easily dismissed), and the introduction of owner-drivers – meaning employees will be delivering parcels out of their own vehicles.
The leadership of Royal Mail have stooped to an all-time low in their efforts to break the trade union and striker’s spirits. This has included the withdrawal of sick pay to anyone currently off sick, regardless of when the absence started, reasons for the absence and even if there is documented medical evidence of their inability to perform the role expected of them by Royal Mail. There has been a wave of sackings and suspensions across the country, which it is impossible not to see as an attempt to create a union-busting climate of fear and intimidation.
CWU North Wales/North-West divisional rep, Ian Taylor, has said: ““The victimisation has been, I think, a particularly distasteful feature of this dispute. It’s cowardly,” said Ian, adding: “We do not leave anybody behind who’s been attacked in this way. Standing up to the bullies is part and parcel of what we do”.
The sooner we can reclaim this service for the public the better. Meanwhile, it is possible that even more workers will be willing to act in defence of their living standards. At the time of our meeting we were still waiting for the outcome of the NEU ballot, but there was an indication that it will at least reach the turnout threshold. UNISON members in the Environment Agency have voted to take strike action over pay for the first time, having seen their pay eroded by over 20% in the last decade. The BMA ballot for Junior Doctors opened on 9th January. Prospect members are due to vote later this month on strikes over pay, threats of job losses and a proposed cut to redundancy terms. An indicative ballot of members in December revealed that most Prospect members across a broad range of civil service employers, including in HSE, IPO, APHA, DSTL and the Met Office,were in favour of strike action and so a formal ballot will take place later this month. CSP physiotherapy staff across England will strike on 26 January and 9 February. FBU Firefighters and control staff are being balloted on potential strike action after 5% pay offer was rejected by FBU members in a consultative ballot by 79% on a 78% turnout.