'WHILE maintaining Union and acting chairperson of the TUC that can achieve what the unions are claiming - £60 and 35 hours?
The course of the pay claim illustrates the preskure on whil water workers public sector union leaders to call for selective strike action.
Water workers In GMWU who make up thirds of the industry's 30.000 have decisively rejected the latest deal agreed by their officials.
The offer was for 14 per cent, which on closer examination amounted to only 1.6 per cent above the government's 5 per cent norm. rest was bonuses and productivity.
It was the water workers in the North-west who had put the final nails in the coffin of the 5 per cent in the public sector when the initial 9.3 per cent them immediate strike action.
For the public sector as a whole, the union leaders floated the plan for a 8 to 9 percent increase basic pay promises of more in years to come through pay comparability and an inquiry into low pay.
That percentage was laid to rest by the massive march on 22 January and the revolt of the rank and file later that day at Central Hall.
Now the bureaucracy switched to a call for the going rate plus comparability.
Pressure from local authority workers the GMWU persuaded national officials to call selective action in the form of strikes in authorities throughout country at the beginning of this week, just before negotiations re-opened on Tuesday.
The union leaders are well aware that anything less than 15 per cent on the basic rates will be emergency services avoiding inhumanitarian actions, our campaign from mind and how do we build for the all-out strike action rejected by the membership. So well they are now looking to this level of settlement coupled with an inquiry into low pay.
They would like a one-off pay the review board exercise as two used for the fighters, while the government and the right wing on the TUC see permanent pay boards for the public services.
This would be a first step to the complete surrender of free take and collective bargaining right to strike in the public sector.
The strategy strike action that the union leaders pursung has Darticular weaknesses Hom re standpoint of the rank and file. By relying on the 'stronger" sections, this strategy increases ine gult between organised, relatively better paid full-time workers, mainly men, from the weakly the organised, poorly paid mainly YUHHICH DALL LITICES NUPE is operating a system of cash limits on official strike pay, allocating a set amount for each division. Thus strike pay in some parts of South Wales is as and | low as E5, while in Nottingham it is around E30.
And by issuing the selective strike instructions from union general headquarters, the public sector leaders hope to control over inhibit the joint committees officially action from the base.
Fighting for action for £60 and 35 hours is the way to slice through these plans. It has to be built starting from those workplaces which come OUL They need to elect joint shop stewards committees the strike; hold regular mass meetings; police and fire pickets to bring workplaces; and rallies of stewards to organise all-out action in that area These committees, based on the structures of the unions should set up strike funds and visit factories and offices in their area collections and solidarity.
They should determine the level of emergency services to be provided.
In order that the offensive against low pay has the broadest possible backing, the demand needs to be raised for a recall of the TUC, to win support from the whole movement for the pay Such a recall would have an additional task: to instruct the generals of the TUC to call off their talks with the government about new pay controls and instead set about framing a socialist alternative to the crisis. selective CORRECTION has Last week we quoted Camden ambulance driver Bob Elliott as telling strikers that the police visit NUPE exert their the strikes and development of their union.
shop stewards which can build Group and Workers all-out strike action.
to run
----- pull-quotes -----
now on will escalate until we find a solution.' The fighting words of David Basnett, secretary of the General and Municipal Workers' What kind of 'solution' do the union leaders have in