Public sector staff across the country went on a 24 hour strike yesterday against what they saw as a ‘derisory’ wage settlement. Many government services were either disrupted in most cases or shut down completely.
Teachers took to the streets to protest against a two per cent wage increase. Some unions wanted around four per cent. The strikes were part of a long-running campaign for better pay and conditions. Most of the media were playing up the prospect of a ‘summer of discontent’, where Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his battered cabinet, already reeling from the 10p tax debacle, now faces, according to some newspapers, sees this as one battle too far.
What I cannot understand is why the government wants to continue picking a fight against some of the most poorly rewarded people in the UK. For the last eleven years, public sector staff have been forced to accept lower wage claims, lower than those demanded of the Conservatives. At a time when there are major concerns about growing inequality in the country, the issue of low pay need to be properly addressed, and staff to be fully appreciated, not regularly patronised. The government has consistently refused to tackle this problem, so the public sector unions need to start taking proper action, not by asking their members to vote for regular 24-hour stoppages, but by taking indefinite action.
Two things would have to happen if the unions were to succeed. The first is that they would have to officially end their long affiliation with the Labour party, and the second is that the strike legislation put in place by the previous Conservative government would have to be continually broken. Unfortunately, due to their leaders’ cowardice in the past, they weren’t in a position to change the situation. The unions can only win if they start to break free from these shackles.