09 January
"PCS Left Unity have called this emergency meeting because this is an
emergency." PCS President Janice Godrich welcomed the 600 plus union
activists to the open meeting yesterday in Friends Meetinh House.
The turnout was remarkable considering
the event had been called with 3 weeks notice and took place just after
Christmas and New Year. All the left union organisations in PCS, Unison,
NUT, Unite, UCU were present and agreed to take part in a Temporary
Co-ordinating Committee to work across the unions to ensure that the
governments' pension deal is rejected and a new strike date is et.
PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka asked the meeting
how can union leaders like Prentis and Barber consider wasting the
momentum of N30 when what's been offered was largely on the table before
the strike?
NUT Deputy General Secretary welcomed the intiative
from PCS Left Unity and told the audience that NUT and NASUWT have
joined PCS in rejecting the deal.
Many speakers in a personal capacity from Unison
condemned the hypocrisy from the leadership where Prentis said in the
summer that it would take more than one strike to defeat the ConDems'
pension attacks yet the health national officer McNea commented after
Unison signed the heads of agreement before Christmas that the strike
had only been a "damage limitation exercise". Unison activists announced
that they'll be lobbying the Health & local government executives on
Tuesday to convince delegates to overturn the decision of the leaders,
Alex Gordon, President of the RMT gave the support of
his union and him and Mark Serwotka called for all future action to be
co-ordinated with private sector workers like those defending their
pensions at Unilever and the electricians in the construction industry
fighting a 35% pay cut. A number of speakers welcomed the unity of the
meeting which also saw Mark Campbell from UCU speak but expressed their
frustration that the SWP-initiated 'Unite the Resistance' had felt the
need to organise a duplicate conference the week after. However,
everyone felt that yesterday's event galvanised the forces needed to out
the pressure on Unison and the TUC when they meet on Thursday, which
will also be lobbied.
