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UNIONS JOIN FORCES TO BUILD TWO
MILLION-STRONG ALLIANCE AGAINST COALITION SAVAGERY
20 May
Two million workers in the UK joining together can fend off savage
attacks on working people and their families.
That will be the
message from Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, the
country's biggest union when he addresses the conference of the
Public and Commercial Services Union, one of the country's largest
public sector unions and whose workers are at the front line of
government cuts today (Friday May 20th).
Both unions will
today sign a historic accord committing to coordinated action in
workplaces up and down the country, in the first instance to defend
support services in Ministry of Defence bases and prisons, areas
already in the frontline of coalition cuts.
Unite says that as part of the strategy to stop the cuts it is
prepared to ballot its members for coordinated industrial action.
Len McCluskey will warn that government's ideological mania for
outsourcing puts services at risk while pensions’ proposals could
impoverish hundreds of thousands as the government raids workers'
retirement pots.
Such is the severity of the coalition assault on jobs, wages and the
welfare state, prodded on by an ascendant business lobby, workers
must become similarly organised if they are to save jobs,
communities and services - and coordinated industrial action to make
the government see sense cannot be ruled out.
Among the first
areas earmarked for possible common action by Unite and the PCS are
the Ministry of Defence, the prison services and government
drivers. The accord will begin to take effect next month when
Unite's members at key MoD bases respond to strike action by PCS
members on June 30th, including a show of support expected by
hundreds of workers at one base, Donnington.
Ahead of this, Unite will assemble representatives from around 100
key MoD bases to discuss strategic responses to threats to the
support both unions' members provide to the army, navy and Royal Air
Force with industrial and direct action by workers both a
possibility.
Len McCluskey will
also urge the union movement to redouble its efforts, following on
from the massive march against the cuts in spring this year, to
communicate the alternative to the coalition's deception that
horrific attacks on public spending are the only response to the
global economic downturn.
Addressing the PCS
conference, Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary will say: "The
alliance – the unity – between Unite and PCS can and must be a major
force for progress. We face challenges greater than for a
generation.
"This Con-Dem coalition has thrown down the gauntlet to the entire
working class and to everyone who believes in a civilised society.
Its aim is to dismantle everything and anything of our social gains
which Thatcher may have not got round to in the 1980s.
"Working people – our families, our communities – did not create
this crisis. Our public sector, supporting the most vulnerable in
our society, did not create this crisis. Nor did our pay, our
pensions, our services.
"We did not create
it. And we are not going to pay for it.
"This agreement
between PCS and Unite starts to spell out the basic elements of a
progressive and socially just economic alternative to the
government’s plans. And it commits our two unions to dispel the
myth that there is no alternative to the Cameron-Osborne strategy.
"We will build up to still broader action, if needs be, later in
the year. To be absolutely clear, we will be balloting our members,
coordinating our actions with yours and with other unions and
building broad and effective community support to stop this
government’s agenda in its tracks."
Some 28,000 Unite
workers are employed at MoD bases around the UK, including those at
Plymouth, Bristol, Lossiemouth and Kinloss. The workers provide a
range of support services to the armed forces, from vehicle
maintenance to guards for the bases. They also represent the MoD
firefighters who are threatened with the possibility of being
outsourced to a private sector provider. Without these workers,
many bases will be non-operational.
A similar situation exists within the prison service where Unite
represents some 3,000 ancillary workers essential to the safe
running of the prisons. |
