10 arguments about the People's Assembly, the movement and the left

The People's Assembly Against Austerity is proving enormously popular. At the latest count, almost 900 people have registered. And it's still nearly 3 months until the event. It has the support of a vast range of groups and organisations, reflecting every part of the broad movement against cuts.

There is also the backlash. Not from the right-wing - although there are examples of that - but, with grim inevitably, from corners of the left. Much of this is the kind of sectarian mischief-making and 'more radical than thou' posturing that is so integral to popular caricatures of the radical left. Precisely the kind of caricatured version of the left, indeed, that the People's Assembly seeks to transcend. There are always some who will privilege critical sniping over unity and dedication to making something work.

I wasn't going to respond to such criticisms, but I think it's worth doing so in order to put the record straight on a few matters. The main response to the Assembly has been tremendous enthusiasm and hope. Another, lesser, reaction has been uncertainty and confusion because of the responses which some on the left have put into circulation. Some of these responses can fairly be described as nothing more than sectarian distortion; some are genuine and legitimate tactical differences. And some are the former disguised as the latter.

Rather than responding to specific blog posts, comments etc from the 'sceptics', I'm looking at those criticisms which seem to keep popping up. I've encountered all of these online, but also many of them from a small number of nay-sayers who have turned up at meetings in Newcastle, where I am helping build the People's Assembly (both as national event and as on-going local process) and where the Assembly has already attracted high levels of interest, from Northern TUC passing a motion of support to the people taking flyers on a recent bedroom tax protest.

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1: The People's Assembly won't be radical enough because it is broad-based and/or involves Labour Party members.

If we want a more radical and combative movement, the People's Assembly is exactly what we need. What has been missing since May 2010 is a co-ordinated national movement politically and practically shaped by the left. In the absence of that, it has been too easy for the most moderate elements - in the TUC general council, in the leaderships of more moderate unions, on Labour's right wing - to dictate the pace and extent of national anti-cuts activity.

The People's Assembly is our chance to break out of that impasse and develop a more militant movement, with a higher level of co-ordination. Politically the arguments put forward will overwhelmingly be vastly better and more left-wing than anything you hear from Ed Miliband. It is figures from the left of the Labour Party, with good track records of supporting campaigns and speaking at demonstrations, who are vocally supporting the People's Assembly, connecting with the many activists outside Labour who also want to turn the tide against austerity.

2: We need to be more radical by loudly criticising the moderate parts of the movement.

The most radical thing right now is to build a mass anti-cuts movement. That means unity in action and it means - if you're on the radical left - working with those to your right.

Of course there will be differences and disagreements, and there is a necessary place for criticism of those in the movement who in any way hold back the struggle. But it is in the course of building a movement that we can shape its political direction and win necessary arguments. The People's Assembly will be a radical event and a step towards a more radical movement.

3: The People's Assembly is a big one-off talking shop.

The People's Assembly is a process, not simply an event. It has already started. Its effects will hopefully be felt - and in profound ways - for a long time after 22 June. Let's also remember that talking is essential - we shouldn't dismiss it. Action needs to be guided by discussion and ideas, in particular by discussion of why austerity is wrong and what alternative demands we can put forward. The People's Assembly needs to discuss alternative demands which break the disabling illusion that There Is No Alternative to the whole austerity project. This is the fundamental issue at the heart of British and European politics.

In itself the Assembly will be a great opportunity to share ideas and experiences across the movement, but it is more than that: it is a platform for further co-ordinated action. This action will be bigger, broader and more combative than would otherwise be the case, because it is called by such a broad and diverse body with roots in every section of the movement and every part of the country. It should also be more effective because we have discussed and hopefully clarified the main alternative demands that form the basis of our movement: what we are fighting for (in broad ,simple terms) as well as reaffirming No Cuts. The potential is enormous.

4: The People's Assembly is 'bureaucratic' and 'top-down'.

There is, as yet, very little information about format, topics and speakers for the day, so there's a certain amount of ill-informed speculation around the idea that it will be 'top-down'. My understanding is that there will be contributions on the day from a large and diverse range of people reflecting the breadth of the movement. How this is either 'bureaucratic' or 'top down' is a mystery.

With 3500 people attending, it is naturally the case that the vast majority of participants won't speak. Why would it be otherwise? Is the alternative to deliberately only have smaller or local events to ensure a high participation rate? If we're serious about building a mass movement then we need the big events. Such big, national events also play a crucial role in encouraging local meetings and initiatives, which naturally allow those who don't speak on 22 June to have a voice and play an active role.

5: National co-ordination doesn't matter because local campaigning is the really important thing.

Austerity is national - and indeed international. It is imposed by central government and, to an extent, international institutions. We therefore need national and international co-ordination; we need action at these levels. Anything else is failing to rise to the challenge.

This doesn't mean neglecting local activity: any national movement depends upon strong local organisation, and a key test of the Assembly will be the extent to which it encourages such local organisation. One possibility, for example, is local Assemblies throughout the country in the autumn, to deepen roots in communities and co-ordinate local action within a national framework.

6: The People's Assembly will be constrained by the involvement of trade union leaders, who are a barrier to effective rank and file action.

If you want a coalition to be broad at the bottom it needs to be broad at the top. The trade unions have a central role to play in the anti-cuts movement and it would be absurd to not take seriously the participation of trade union general secretaries. Their involvement provides the Assembly with credibility and authority in the eyes of many who have no or little connection with the organised left.

The key question is this: will a co-ordinated mass movement exert pressure on union leaders to be more or less combative? The answer should be obvious: a huge People's Assembly, and further action coming out of it, can only strengthen the hand of those who want a much higher level of strike action.

7: A People's Assembly is all very well, but what's really needed is a general strike.

It's not an either/or choice. As I wrote above, the People's Assembly will encourage greater and more active co-operation between trade unions.

But this is also a damaging idea because it limits the scope of the movement. Trade unionists have a particularly valuable role in fighting cuts because they are organised collectively and take action on a large scale. But there are millions of other victims of austerity - and opponents of cuts - who are not in unions. They are part of the movement too and the urgent challenge is to link up everyone who wants to fight austerity in a mass movement. Sloganeering about a general strike is no substitute for taking concrete action, in the here and now, to build a more powerful and united movement which connects unions with campaigns and communities.

8: A People's Assembly is all very well, but what's needed is left unity/a new electoral party of the left.

The People's Assembly is left unity - and indeed it's more than that, reaching out beyond the established left and involving new people. It is the best chance we have of serious left renewal. It offers our best chance of exerting a leftwards pull on British politics. There will be those who are so sectarian they ignore it or sneer at it, but it will unite all the sane, non-sectarian and serious elements of the left.

An electoral coalition is, in my view, an important long-term aim, but in the short term there are massive obstacles to it happening. The priority right now is a radical, combative and united mass movement to smash austerity. This, in turn, might just create conditions conducive to new electoral challenges on the left. There will be those, of course, who disagree with me about the current prospects for a left-wing electoral formation, but we should agree that a mass movement is the top priority at present.

9: The People's Assembly is too late. We need action now.

Yes, we do need action now. Who argues otherwise? We also need long-term co-operation and strategy. Let's have both, instead of falsely polarising the two.

Activists and organisations building the Assembly are also involved in anti-bedroom tax protests this weekend, campaigns to defend the NHS, and much more besides. We need to consistently link the whole People's Assembly process to the local anti-cuts activity already taking place.

10: It's wrong that people have to pay to attend the People's Assembly, considering how poor many of austerity's victims are.

An event on this scale is expensive. It has to be paid for: much of that will come from sponsoring  trade unions, but much of it should and will come from individuals attending it. In fact it is healthy and democratic if a very large number of people each make small contributions towards an event, rather than it being bankrolled entirely by a small number of large organisations.

In Newcastle we've already had discussions about fundraising, which is especially important as we need to support people with little or no money travelling all the way from the north east to London (which isn't cheap). We are encouraging trade unions locally to sponsor students, pensioners, unemployed people and others who can't afford it. This isn't just financially sensible: it helps forge links between different sections of the community. We are also urging individuals who can't attend it themselves to sponsor those who have the time but not the money, and we are arranging a big musical event as a fundraiser.

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So, to summarise: the People's Assembly is (or should be) the central priority for every socialist activist over the next 3 months. It can be the crucial step in transforming this country's anti-cuts movement for the better: bigger, more radical, more combative, more co-ordinated. The aim is to create a movement that can pack a punch to knock the Tories out. The People's Assembly is what we make of it, so be there on 22 June and do all you can to make it a great success.


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Michael Gove's cuts 'leave schools not fit for purpose'

In the last 6 months I've visited a fair few secondary schools, either through supply teaching or for job interviews. One thing that's struck me is how wildly the quality of facilities diverge. Some schools are shiny and new, others feel like a leap back in time to my own schooldays (class of '95) - while still others hover between the two, following a partial re-build or because they're midway through construction.

The BSF programme was, famously, one of the first areas of public spending to be axed or savagely cut by the in-coming coalition government in 2010. As The Independent notes:

'This year nearly 500 fewer schools will be refurbished than under the previous Labour government's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme – 252 instead of 735. The axeing of the £55bn BSF programme, which would have seen every secondary school either rebuilt or refurbished over time, was one of the first victims of the Coalition's cuts.'

Whatever criticisms you make of the last Labour government - and I spent 13 years opposing a wide range of its policies - there really was a big increase in investment in the core areas of health and education. This was accompanied by a set of regressive policies which boosted marketisation and centralisation (and let's not forget the introduction of tuition fees, which proved a turning point in the history of higher education) but it was still an achievement of note.

The BSF programme was arguably the single most positive and important policy development in schooling for some years. A genuinely ambitious enterprise, it set out to transform the physical environment in which so many young people learn. It hasn't been perfect. Many teachers have criticisms of how too many of these schools have been designed by people with little understanding of day-to-day realities. And it is true that great things can be achieved without the best new facilities.

Nonetheless, the large-scale overhaul of school buildings was widely welcomed as a necessary investment. My own experience is that good, modern facilities do matter. At the very least they impact on staff morale and student pride; at best they make a serious contribution to what goes on in a school, opening up new opportunities.

The transition period between dilapidated old buildings and new first-class buildings can be a difficult upheaval - my own experience of teaching lessons in competition with noisy diggers outside my window was mild compared with some stories I've heard - but it's invariably worth it. I've recently been teaching a couple of days a week in a superb school which benefits from both a completely new building - which feels entirely different (in the best possible sense) to old-fashioned school environments - and a refurbished old block that will be 'fit for purpose' for many years.

But hundreds of schools haven't received - and still aren't going to receive - similar funding. The Independent's new report documents the disillusionment which has followed the scrapping of many planned re-building projects. It reports:

'Of 687 headteachers questioned in a survey for The Key, an independent advice service for schools, 270 said their buildings were not "fit for purpose". They added that they had suffered cuts of up to 75 per cent in their capital spending programmes for buildings and maintenance.'

There are many reasons to detest Michael Gove and what he is doing to education (in a staffroom recently I saw a poster for a teaching union which uses Gove's image as a recruiting technique - 'one reason to join the union'). The Tory assault on education is above all ideological - it's about increasing competition and private sector involvement, imposing a 'traditional' curriculum and pedagogy, enhancing powers for centralised government (under the guise of 'autonomy for schools').

This ideological attack, however, is complemented by a crudely economic drive to cut spending on education. The slashing of much-needed funds for new school buildings is - like the erosion of teacher pensions or the massive rises in student fees for university - an instance of unnecessary cuts to the investment we make in our collective future. It is essential that we demand schools which are fit for millions of children growing up in the 21st century.

Read the Independent's report here.

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Turning the tide against cuts

The coalition government is weak, divided and directionless. Since George Osborne’s unpopular budget in March, the government has been beset by a seemingly never-ending series of problems.

When the chancellor slashed the top rate of tax to 45p for Britain’s wealthiest, while triggering a popular backlash over first the ‘granny tax’ and then the ‘pasty tax’ (which were symbolic of a broader political agenda rather than major issues in their own right), he blew apart the myth of ‘we’re all in it together’. This followed the pyrrhic victory of pushing the Health and Social Care Bill: the Tories succeeded in turning it into legislation, but it was widely unpopular.

There were also damaging ‘cash for Cameron’ revelations, exposing how rich Tory party donors gained access to the prime minister. The image of a corrupt and out-of-touch cabinet of millionaires – serving wealthy, powerful interests – was cemented by developments in the scandal surrounding Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, the principal focus of fresh revelations, hasn’t been much of a shield protecting the prime minister: there is an unmistakeable sense of the scandal going right to the top.

This mixture of disasters for the coalition has cut its support in opinion polls. What at first may have seemed a phase is now almost certainly a permanent decline: for almost three months the Tories have polled in the 30-35% range, while their junior partners the Lib Dems have made no progress whatsoever. Labour has picked up support, largely on the back of discontent with the coalition rather than any wave of enthusiasm for Ed Miliband or his policies.

Local elections confirmed this picture of Tory decline, Lib Dem stagnation and growing but unenthusiastic support for Labour as a repository for anti-cuts sentiment. The Labour landslide on 3 May almost exactly co-incided with elections in France, where the left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon took over 11% of the national vote (and where a key architect of European austerity, Nicolas Sarkozy, was ousted) and Greece, where radical-left Syriza took almost 17% of the vote in the general election.

Austerity isn’t working

It all added up to a sense of the tide turning against the economically illiterate orthodoxy of austerity. There could be still more dramatic developments if Syriza win this Sunday’s re-run elections in Greece, the weakest link in the European chain for the continent’s pro-cuts political elite.

In assessing the struggle to defeat austerity, our starting point therefore has to be recognition that their side is weaker than before. This is so at the European level and at the domestic level. Continuing economic problems – the intractable Eurozone crisis, but also the continuing stagnation of the UK economy (signified most starkly by the announcement we are officially in a double dip recession) – underpin a crisis of political legitimacy for the proponents of cuts and privatisation.

There is no reason to believe incumbent parties’ fortunes will improve, precisely because their commitment to austerity has ensured a failure of economic recovery. In this country, there is little doubt that Cameron – whose personal ratings have fallen drastically – can never return to the relative strength he had prior to the budget, cash for access revelations and Jeremy Hunt scandal. 

There is also a great deal of division and tension inside the government. There have been, and continue to be, considerable pressure points in the fragile relationship between Tories and Lib Dems. There has also been an outbreak of mutinous behaviour on the Tory backbenches, with many Tory MPs bizarrely concluding from their dire local election results that they need to become more stridently right-wing, or focus on issues (like opposing House of Lords reform) which to most people are marginal and of little relevance.

Nonetheless, most coalition cuts are being pushed through successfully. The government is wounded, unpopular, fractious – but still largely able to get its own way. Unemployment remains high, pay is suppressed and benefits are cut, public services are contracted out, and there is a long way to go in the implementation of savage cuts to every aspect of public services and the welfare state. The coalition sticks together and the official Opposition is too often weak in opposing Tory viciousness and lukewarm in the alternative policies it offers.

Weaknesses in the opposition

But there is another problem: extra-parliamentary opposition remains patchy and fragmented. For a time it looked as if public sector pensions might be a breakthrough campaign for all those opposed to cuts. Arrogant ministers had made the mistake of taking on large swathes of the public sector at once, uniting trade unions around a common cause. The movement peaked on 30 November 2011, with over 2 million trade unionists taking co-ordinated strike action.

That unity swiftly crumbled. The capitulation by leaders of Unison – by far the biggest union in the public sector – exerted considerable pressure on the wider union movement. Timid leadership in some unions and a failure even to pursue more modestly co-ordinated strikes has allowed the struggle to fragment and lose momentum.  

While a number of unions are still committed to the pensions campaign, it has sadly become apparent that it’s unlikely to give us a much-needed victory. No clear alternative focus has yet emerged. Pay is the most likely battleground: Tory talk of ‘regional pay’ threatens a break-up of established national pay bargaining, while pay restraint squeezes the living standards of millions of workers. However, the direction in which the pensions campaign has moved has caused some demoralisation and cynicism among union members.   

There is, nevertheless, a lot of energy in the anti-cuts movement and a widespread determination to stop the coalition in its tracks. There are many who take heart from election results and polls indicating the scale of disenchantment with this government, while events elsewhere (especially Greece) promote the feeling that austerity can be resisted.

It is clearer than ever – to millions of people way beyond activist circles – that austerity isn’t working and we sorely need an alternative. There is a lot of campaigning, even if most of it is fragmented and small-scale. Victories aren’t – yet - on a scale sufficient to shift the balance of the struggle between us and them.

20 October – an historic opportunity

In this context the potentially massive national demonstration on 20 October  – belatedly called by the TUC – takes on special significance. It can unite the whole range of issues, groups and campaigns in a spectacular show of strength, not only co-ordinating the unions in a way not seen since 30 November but reaching out to involve other sections of society. The process of building the demonstration can re-invigorate the movement – and increase its co-ordination and unity - in a way no local or single-issue protest can achieve.

A huge, united national demonstration holds out the hope of re-igniting the movement to save the NHS, potentially leading to mass campaigning to scrap the Health and Social Care Act. But it can also be the launchpad for co-ordinated action on issues like pay, which will require mass strike action as well as further street protests to win.    

Making this demonstration massive must therefore be every activist’s priority. It has to be taken as an opportunity to bring everyone in the movement together and, equally importantly, pull in new people who sense an opportunity to decisively turn the tide against cuts. This is about deepening and broadening the movement, not just a single mass protest.

We do this at a time when the dominant economic model is exposed as a failure, increasingly contested across Europe. We confront a weakened government, disconnected from the mass of people. This is an historic opportunity.      

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Cuts, trade unions and the movement

Coalition of Resistance supporters: London, 30 November

This is the second of four brief selections of my writing published on Luna17 and Counterfire this year.

Austerity has been (and continues to be) the dominant domestic political issue. Most of these posts concern, in different ways, the opposition to cuts: from contradictions in the unions to the case for European co-ordination. A number of arguments about politics and tactics in the movement will undoubtedly become even more important in 2012.

Politics and tactics in UK Uncut (January)

Can trade unions stop the cuts?  (April)

Trade union membership and the working class today (May)

Ed Balls and public sector pensions  (June)

Europe Against Austerity - a call for co-ordinated global resistance (October)

Beyond #N30 - co ordinate resistance across Europe (December) 

Also see Part 1 of this round-up: An extraordinary year in the Arab world

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Beyond #N30 - co-ordinate resistance across Europe

Austerity is a Europe-wide phenomenon. Resistance, too, is a common feature across the continent. Yet there's frustratingly little in the way of concrete links between different countries' movements.

One difficulty is the low level of awareness of what's happening in other countries. Owen Jones, visiting Portugal for the Guardian shortly before 30 November, commented that protestors he interviewed weren't aware that the UK was on the eve of a large public sector strike - just as very few people here would know anything about strikes in Portugal. There is, correspondingly, a tendency (even among many activists) to see cuts as basically a domestic issue. This is certainly true here and it seems to be a common weakness elsewhere in Europe.

European elites are acutely aware of the need for co-ordination on their side. There are tensions between them - reflecting the different interets of each national capitalist class - but they continually strive for agreement and common action. They are united in their commitment to making the vast majority of people pay for the crisis through cuts, privatisation and unemployment. Transnational institutions - notably the 'troika' of European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and European Union - serve their interests.

The crisis is international and cannot be resolved purely at the national level. We need to challenge the international institutions and the power of finance capital. Austerity is a unifying strategy across Europe. The experience of austerity is remarkably similar across the continent: in some countries, like Greece, it is especially severe, but the policies are different only in degree.

Forms of resistance also have a great deal in common. The trademark tactic of 2011 - the mass occupation of public space - is associated with the Arab revolutions, the 'indignados' struggles in Spain and elsewhere, and now the Occupy movement. Several European countries have witnessed mass public sector strikes, primarily a reaction to attacks on public sector workers' conditions but linked to the broader offensive against public services and welfare provision. To some extent, movements in one country have been inspired by movements in another country.

There is, however, great unevenness. That's hardly surprising - each country has its own tempo, reflecting the domestic situation and levels of confidence and organisation in each country. One country's movement has peaked just as another country's has dipped.

The difference in tempo and dynamics across borders is significant. It means that calls for "a European-wide general strike" make - at least for now - little sense. At the European Conference Against Austerity - at the start of October - a German delegate pointed out that such a call might resonate in some countries but not in his own country, where there hasn't yet been a large strike movement.

If there is internationally co-ordinated action, the nature of the action will inevitably vary from country to country. That doesn't mean we can't have co-ordinated action, but simply illustrates the need for realism about how varied such action would be. A European day of action in early 2012 wouldn't translate into a continental general strike, but it could embolden activists throughout Europe and strengthen the connections between them.

Trade unions could play a central role in international co-ordination. From the perspective of UK trade unions, this should be integral to discussion about how to take the movement forward after the large-scale strikes and demonstrations on 30 November. This would build on existing initiatives. The Europe Against Austerity conference was an excellent step by sections of the European left, while the Occupy movement serves as an inspiration to millions.

The conference, held in London, depended on the role of Coalition of Resistance as at least a partially successful attempt to co-ordinate groups at the national level. This national co-ordination is a pre-requisite for ongoing international co-operation. The desperate need for greater international action is in fact one of the main reasons why a bigger and broader Coalition of Resistance is such an urgent necessity.

If the unions co-ordinated their efforts, these developments would become far more powerful. They would gain deeper social weight. The unions can bring millions of their own members into action, through mass protests and strikes, pulling other groups - non-unionised workers, students, unemployed people and so on - into mass mobilisations. International links tend to encourage generalising of the issues too - broad opposition to cuts and privatisation, rather than sectional struggles over specific issues.

The greater the unity and co-ordination, the greater the likelihood of overcoming the divisions fostered by governments across Europe. From dishonest attempts to divide public sector and private sector workers against each other to racist scapegoating, politicians are determined to prevent unity. International action strengthens our side and undermines attempts at divide-and-rule.

International co-ordination tends, also, to have a radicalising effect, drawing attention to the limits of small-scale attempts at reform and the necessity of more far-reaching challenges to the ruling order. Movements begin to raise demands which challenge the core assumptions underpinning cuts, mobilising for financial institutions to be brought under democratic control.

It is only through such co-ordination that we can hope to break the power of finance capital over governments across Europe and re-shape politics away from austerity.

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Europe Against Austerity - a call for co-ordinated global resistance

Besancenot: 'the movements must converge'

I'm rather late with re-posting this from Counterfire, but here's my report of Saturday's excellent Europe Against Austerity conference.

Saturday's Europe Against Austerity conference launched a call for international anti-cuts co-ordination. The event at London's Camden Centre, organised by Coalition of Resistance, was addressed by speakers from a wide range of left wing, anti-capitalist and labour movement groups from across Europe. 681 people attended, including 150 international delegates.

The conference took place against the backdrop of a worsening crisis in the Eurozone, with contagion in the continent's financial system and the prospect of imminent debt default in Greece. Governments are committed to cuts and privatisation to make the vast majority of people pay for this crisis.

Greek trade union activists spoke of the social misery inflicted on their country, but also the explosive resistance in the form of demonstrations and strikes. There were speeches from leading activists in Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Spain and elsewhere. This was the first major event to bring together anti-cuts groups from across the continent to discuss the crisis we face, alternative solutions, and how to build effective resistance.

UK activists talked about 30 November as a chance for a festival of resistance, a day for the whole movement which unites trade unionists with everyone else who is affected by cuts. Other speakers, including from Spain, talked about the experience of mass protests by 'the indignant' and the need to connect such street demonstrations and occupations with the union movement.

Olivier Besancenot, leading New Anticapitalist Party member and a former French presidential candidate, said: "The movements must converge - we must make solidarity with the struggles of the indignant. Today creates new possibilities. Be more radical than we can imagine because the stakes are so high."

Participants agreed a statement which stresses that the current crisis affects the whole of Europe and the need for an alternative economic strategy. It also pledges support for a number of upcoming demonstrations, plus a co-ordinated day of action in early 2012. It calls on European trade unions to co-ordinate strike action.

Workshops throughout the afternoon addressed a wide range of topics, from the roots of the crisis to imperialism and austerity, from youth movements to the defence of public health care. The level of political discussion was strikingly high, with international perspectives and numerous connections between different campaigns and issues. A recurring theme was the need to articulate alternative economic demands, such as a people's debt audit for countries threatened with default and - across Europe - greater public investment to create jobs and growth.

The conference was an important part of a landmark weekend for the anti-cuts movement, with 15,000 demonstrating in Glasgow and at least 35,000 outside Tory Party Conference in Manchester. As we face a deepening international crisis, the need for co-ordination of mass action becomes more urgent.

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Urgent: one week to build Europe Against Austerity

Via Counterfire: 

Europe is facing its biggest crisis since the 1930s.

Commentators are admitting the situation is desperate, and that politicians are paralysed. Austerity is driving the economies back towards recession and increasing debt - and in the case of Greece possible collapse.

A Greek default looks almost certain - and soon. In Greece this will mean mass unemployment and immiseration not seen in Europe since the 1930s. It will threaten the European banking system and will send shockwaves through the rest of the world economy.

The European conference against austerity - in London on Saturday 1 October - will now be an emergency conference on the euro crisis and in solidarity with the people of Greece.

Leading activists are coming from all parts of the movement from the German Left Party to the Indignados from Spain. The Portuguese Left Bloc is sending an MP and trade union delegates are coming from all over the continent.

Olivier Besancenot, a leading figure in the New Anticapitalist Party in France, will be there alongside striking Le Havre dockworkers. It could be a historic conference which can start co-ordinating resistance across Europe.

People are now signing up fast online. Two days ago the Greek teachers union got in touch to say that they are sending representatives. Yesterday they were on strike.

If asked, most groups here will send delegations. Cambridge trades council report there will be delegations from a number of the local unions. A delegation of at least 20 is expected from the Oxford anti cuts movement.

Westminster Unison is contacting all its members to organise a delegation as is Ipswich PCS (civil service union) and an East London teachers' union. 5000 leaflets have been distributed by the University of London Union.

Counterfire is urging all members and supporters to go flat out to build the event from now. We need to make sure everyone understands how urgent the situation is and what a difference the conference could make.

As well as ensuring local activists we know are coming and promoting the conference on facebook, e-mail and twitter we should be contacting local anti cuts groups, Stop the War groups, UK Uncut, pensioners' groups, trades councils, trade unions, student unions etc and ask them to organise delegations.

This is a chance the movement can't afford to miss.

Register for the Europe Against Austerity conference

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#N30 - students pledge to back unions with 'mass direct action'

As student campaigners, we fully support the trade union movement's campaign against austerity, including the biggest wave of strike action since 1926. The government's plans for universities represent a threat to the very purpose of education, with the poor being priced out of a marketised system of private providers, while school and FE students are being robbed of basic support.

The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts has now called a national education demonstration for Wednesday 9 November, and we will organise for a day of mass direct action and walkouts to coincide with the strike. We will not allow this government to abolish the welfare state and destroy our futures.


Michael Chessum National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, and NUS NEC
Luke Durigan UCL Union education and campaigns officer
Daniel Lemberger-Cooper Royal Holloway students' union president
James Haywood Goldsmith's students' union president
Edward Bauer Birmingham guild education officer
Sean Rillo Raczka University of London union vice-president
Alusine Alpha Bradford students' union treasurer
Mike Williamson Edinburgh students' association education officer
Alan Bailey NUS LGBT officer
Matthew Bond NUS disabled students' campaign
Alex Peters-Day LSE students' union general secretary
Liam Turbett, Aiden Turner and Liam McCombes Free Hetherington Glasgow occupation
James McAsh NCAFC national committee, Edinburgh University
Gordon Maloney NCAFC national committee and NUS Scotland executive
Bob Sutton Liverpool guild of students vice-president
Aaron Peters NCAFC national committee
Claire Lister NCAFC national committee, Birmingham University
Alasdair Thompson STUC youth committee
Alice Swift NCAFC national committee, Birmingham University
Arianna Tassinari SOAS students' union co-president for education and welfare
Amena Amer LSE students' union education officer
Edward Maltby NCAFC national committee, London
Lukas Slothuus LSE students' union welfare and community officer

Via The Guardian

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#N30 - trade unions plan united strike for pensions

Marching together on 30 June

The fight is on. TUC conference today unanimously backed co-ordinated industrial action to defend public sector pensions. The country's three largest unions - Unite, Unison and GMB - formally announced they will ballot members for strikes.

On 30 June civil service union PCS, teacher unions NUT and ATL and lecturers' union UCU held a co-ordinated national strike involving over half a million people. They plan futher national strike action in November.

But today's announcement by the big battalions of Unison, Unite and GMB holds out the hope of a huge escalation in the campaign to protect pensions. Other unions balloting for action are the Fire Brigades Union, teachers' NASUWT, Scottish teachers' EIS, senior civil service union FDA and Northern Ireland's NIPSA.

There have been strikes by local government workers in Birmigham, Southampton and Doncaster. But their unions, most importantly Unison which has over a million members across local government and the NHS, have previously held back from national strike action.

TUC leader Brendan Barber announced the date as 30 November following a special meeting of public sector unions immediately after TUC conference. National co-ordination is vital to confront a concerted government effort to make workers pay more, work longer and get less.

The announcement of a ballot by Unison general secretary Dave Prentis was greeted by a standing ovation at the TUC. Prentis has recently shown he can retreat rapidly from good rhetoric. There must now be huge grassroots pressure to turn words into action. The stakes could hardly be higher.

Ed Miliband's pathetic stance on the strikes has already been thrown back at him by the Tories in prime minister's question time. This sort of behaviour by Labour leaders is bad enough at any time, but when strikes are clearly on the horizon it leaves him irrelevant - and himself part of a 'squeezed middle' who will become increasingly weak and marginal.

Unity is key - across the public sector unions and reaching out to the private sector. As PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said today: "We have always said that the more united we are, the harder it will be for the government to push through their ideologically-driven and damaging cuts. This is not just a fight for public servants, we want fair pensions for all."

Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary, has emphasised the need to link up with private sector workers over pensions, especially since the government is trying to divide and rule over supposedly 'gold plated' public sector pensions. Given the weakness of union organisation in the private sector, this is an essential part of building a movement across the whole working class. McCluskey has also stressed the need for a coalition of resistance, which can give a boost to the international conference against austerity on Saturday 1 October.

There will now need to be jointly-organised mass campaign rallies and protests throughout the country. These can be on a much bigger scale than before. Trade union activists will be campaigning for the highest possible Yes vote.

The pensions dispute is for the whole anti-cuts movement, not just public sector trade unionists. It is our movement's best chance to strike a blow against this government's austerity drive.

Also published at Counterfire

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Five reasons why we need Europe Against Austerity

1. We need unity and co-ordination, nationally and internationally. The European Conference Against Austerity in London will strengthen the links between different groups and activists, countering problems of division and fragmentation. Our government is a weak, fragile coalition which can only survive if the opposition to austerity is localised and fragmented. Much the same is true in many other countries. We need maximum unity in action.

2. The 1 October conference takes the step up to international co-ordination. The UK government's attacks on public services and welfare are part of a wider assault across Europe, an attempt to make the vast majority of people pay the price for bailing out the banks. We need to organise across borders in response.

3. This is the first major international initiative for the anti-cuts movement - it is on a significantly bigger scale, involving broader forces, than any previous initiatives. It is desperately overdue and may become the start of something even bigger in the longer term.

4. The conference is a superb chance to discuss the big political issues and talk about alternatives to the eurozone crisis and ruling class 'solutions' to it. Europe's economic and political crisis is one of the dominant themes of global politics in 2011. This is a unique opportunity to wrestle with the issues in the company of the anti-capitalist left and campaigners from across the continent.

5. The conference isn't just about activists across a wide range of countries communicating with each other. It holds out the hope of co-ordinated action. A first step will be the forums and demonstrations in France in early November, providing an antidote to the G20, but there is potential for much more. The conference can be the launchpad for co-ordinated action across Europe.

Find out more - and register for the conference - at Europe Against Austerity.



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Striking the streets on J30

J30 London: pic by Louise Whittle

Yesterday was an amazing show of strength by our side. I was enormously impressed by the lunchtime march and rally in Newcastle.

It brought together 2000 strikers and supporters, with a great atmosphere: determined, united and vibrant. From reading of events elsewhere, its clear that our local demo was typical.

There was no feel of a routine or token protest. Instead there was a sense of real commitment to winning, with an awareness that it will take further action and depend on broadening the movement still further. In the rally it was the comments linking pensions to the broader Tory-led attack on public services, and the appeals to build a broad-based movement beyond the unions, that drew the loudest, most passionate, response.

Political arguments about the majority being made to pay for a crisis we didn't create, busting myths about the 'inevitability' of cuts and instead outlining alternatives, got an especially warm reception.

An obvious characteristic of yesterday was the supreme importance of street protests: all those city and town centre rallies throughout the country. There's sometimes a tendency on the left to think that developing workplace resistance mean the streets become a less important site of struggle, the tactic of demonstrations somehow overtaken by the tactic of strikes.

As one assessment of the direction of the anti-cuts struggle, ahead of J30, put it: "resistance is now taking a different form—it is moving away from the street and into the workplace, where workers wield power as an organised force".

Yesterday illustrated why that is only half-right. The movement of the streets is in fact re-invigorated by strikes. The countless picket lines were essential, but our city centres were where yesterday's strikes found their most visible expression and where co-ordination and unity were made concrete.

The real prize is a broad political movement in which strikes and demonstrations are fused, where the streets and the workplaces are combined to create something that can't be dismissed as 'sectional' or 'self-interested'. A movement that reaches out beyond the unions' public sector bastions to millions of private sector workers, countering the Tories' 'divide and rule' propaganda.

We need a movement that uses the organised and collective resources of trade unions to involve workers who aren't in a trade union at all - they are the majority. A movement that links students, pensioners, unemployed people and every section of society with the trade unions.

The organised force of the working class is mobilised on the streets as well as through strikes. If we've learnt anything from Cairo, Madrid and Athens it is surely that. In the autumn we need co-ordinated strikes, potentially involving 4 million workers, and another massive TUC-organised national demonstration - which would gain far greater charge from taking place in the context of large-scale strike action.

A number of elements underpin this phenomenon. When different unions are striking simultaneously, it makes sense to organise events which bring everyone together. No individual picket line - however vital picket lines are - is sufficient. 

We generally don't live in an age of large workplaces as the site of strike action. Dozens of different workplaces were represented at Newcastle's march and rally. We're not talking about big factories, shipyards and mines anymore. There are exceptions - PCS members at the the huge Longbenton 'Ministry' in Tyneside were on strike, but it's mostly smaller workplaces taking action. They need to be pulled together.

We've been through over two decades of low strike levels but a series of street-based protest movements, from the anti-poll tax movement through to 26 March and today. The streets are where we have been strongest. The student protests and 26 March, the numerous local anti-cuts marches and the UK Uncut actions, have all fed the confidence of trade unionists to take strike action. They fed, also, the mood for demonstrating our collective strength on the streets on J30.

Public sector strikes are primarily about making political impact, rather than directly cutting off profits at the point of production. This means that demonstrations take on special importance. They are vital in getting media coverage, gaining public support and fighting the battle of ideas. On the streets we put across the political arguments that Ed Miliband should be making (but emphatically isn't).

There is tremendous enthusiasm for building further co-ordinated strikes, but also for expanding the anti-cuts movement as a whole. The months ahead can see action on an even bigger scale.

Discuss the next steps at the Coalition of Resistance national conference.

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Mark Serwotka to speak at Coalition of Resistance conference

What's the way forward for our movement after J30? I'm happy to see Mark Serwotka is speaking at the Coalition of Resistance conference on 9 July, where that will be the dominant question.

Today was superb - an advance for the whole movement. Next Saturday's conference is a chance for serious discussion about how to build on the success.

Via Coalition of Resistance:

'The conference will debate resolutions, re-elect the National Council, and involve workshop-based discussions on economics, the NHS, education, disability care, work and the unions, and international solidarity.

Speakers include: Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary, Wendy Savage, Co-chair, Keep Our NHS Public, John McDonnell MP, Clare Solomon, ULU President, Zita Holbourne, BARAC Joint Chair, Mehdi Hasan, New Statesman, and Lindsey German, Stop the War.

All CoR supporters should register for the conference and encourage union branches, student unions, anti-cuts groups, and campaign groups to send representatives. We need a big, representative conference to debate the way forward after 30 June.'

See HERE for further details, including how to register.

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J30: Newcastle meeting pulls together threads of resistance

60 people attended an eve-of-strike public meeting in Newcastle on Wednesday evening. Called by the local Coalition of Resistance group - and supported by Keep Our NHS Public, Northern Region LRC and several other groups - it brought together a wide range of campaigners, trade unionists and supporters under the banner 'Unite the resistance to cuts'.

Teacher and NUT activist Tony Dowling, chairing the meeting, reminded us that public sector pensions is far from being the only issue: "The welfare state was built after the Second World War, when we had a greater deficit than now. We have to draw people together to defend it."
Veronica Killen, UCU regional convenor, said "It's clear that pensions are affordable - the Tories' arguments on pensions are very poor. But our strike is about more than pensions - it is part of a campaign by all of us."

Craig Singleton, a member of Unite's national executive, echoed this: "We need to be clear that we're not just opposed to some cuts but all cuts. This is an attack on our class - an attempt to make us pay collectively. We need to create jobs and grow the economy, support public and private sectors alike."

Mental health campaigner Alasdair Cameron talked powerfully about attacks on disabled people, mental health service users and others, saying "A lot of the attacks on the disabled are happening under the radar. We need an on-going campaign because these attacks are an assault on people's dignity, and are focused on the most vulnerable."

Pete Campbell, a medical student, spoke for Keep Our NHS Public: "The government is now trying to privatise the NHS, bit by bit. They are also making what they call efficiency savings which means cuts. Yet we didn't create the financial crisis. Tomorrow is about pensions and I'll be on the picket lines - and I know you will all support the fight for the NHS."

Solicitor Cris McCurley highlighted the impact of legal aid cuts: "I'm passionate about what we do as legal aid lawyers. There are human rights that are going to be taken away from us, because of cuts to legal aid. Let's all stand together."

Kevin McHugh, from PCS national executive, made a powerful call for unity and solidarity on 30 June and beyond: "Tomorrow isn't just about pensions. It's about cuts and - as Mark Serwotka put it - an orgy of privatisation. The money is there - just think of the public services the rich tax avoiders could pay for if we pursued them."

The public meeting got J30 off to an excellent start in Tyneside. It will be followed, at lunchtime today, by a march through Newcastle culminating in a city centre rally. Trade unionists and supporters are assembling at Centre for Life at midday, then marching to Grey's Monument.

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Dave Prentis: rhetoric and reality

Two thought-provoking articles both, in different ways, raise questions about how we should respond to the rhetorical flourishes of Dave Prentis, general secretary of the UK's biggest public sector trade union.

Gregor Gall is underwhelmed by the Unison leader's rhetoric about the biggest strike action since 1926, and urges a reality check. Andy Newman is concerned about possible divisions in the trade unions opposing cuts to pensions, due to possible negotiations between government ministers and Unison leaders over local government pensions.

I think the issues raised in both articles deserve serious engagement. They aren't reasons for gloom or fatalism, but helpfully draw attention to the considerable challenges that remain.

Gregor Gall, a professor of industrial relations, writes in his New Left Project piece:

'He [Prentis] should be aware that in 1979 when most of the ‘winter of discontent’ took place, 29m days were ‘lost’ and in another eleven years (1912, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1984) out of the last 100 more than 10m days were lost to strikes. Yet Prentis is only proposing – when you look at the detail – having regional rolling strikes, where clearly not all of his union members would be on strike on the same day.'

I can't help feeling Gall is a little too reliant on official strike statistics as the basis for his analysis. These don't tell the whole story. Nevertheless, his basic reality check about the current state of the union movement, compared to a number of highpoints in the history of working class struggle, is a necessary one.

He reminds us that the fightback still has a long way to go, and there are no guarantees about the direction we are heading in. He is also wary of the motivations underpinning the burst of radical talk from Prentis.

A number of his factual observations - and his citing of remarks by PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka - also reinforce the points I made recently when countering inflated 'general strike' rhetoric from sections of the left.

Andy Newman's post is concerned with a different issue: the differences between two types of pension fund in the public sector, and the potential for ministers to divide Unison's local government members from the teachers, lecturers and civil service workers who are striking on Thursday.

He writes:

'The difference in assessment of Monday’s pension talks between Mark Serwotka and Dave Prentis cannot be explained merely by the differing political outlooks of these two general secretaries. According to Mark the talks were “a farce”; whereas Dave Prentis said “there was a sense that today we were in real negotiations”.

The government seems to have made a substantive concession to the unions representing local government employees, whose pension arrangements are via the funded LPGS scheme; whereas no concessions seem to have been made to the unfunded schemes for teachers and civil servants.'

This is a serious danger. How effective such divide and rule proves to be could depend partly on the willingness of some union leaders - notably Prentis - to co-operate and negotiate over pensions. We shouldn't assume that co-ordinated mass strikes in the autumn are a foregone conclusion.

We will need to continually struggle for unity in action and pressure some of the labour movement's official leaders - who are subject to numerous conflicting pressures - to lead resistance. This isn't just a question of arguments inside the unions, but will partly reflect the strength of the whole anti-cuts movement. It is also dependent on conveying the big political arguments to millions of people, alongside the industrial action on 30 June and beyond.

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30 June: Gove urges parents into classrooms to break teachers' strike

This is, according to the editor of BBC Radio 4's What the Papers Say (via Twitter), the front page of tomorrow's Independent on Sunday.

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Newcastle: unite the resistance!

This comes via Tyne and Wear Coalition of Resistance:

Newcastle rally for the alternative: Unite the resistance to cuts!

Wednesday 29 June, 7pm

Newcastle Arts Centre (the Black Swan), 67 Westgate Road, Newcastle
public meeting - ALL WELCOME

See the facebook event: http://on.fb.me/kLXX5d

If you are on facebook, please share the event page on your facebook wall and invite friends to attend.

Speakers: Kevin McHugh (PCS national executive), Dipu Ahad (Labour councillor, Elswick), Cris McCurley (solicitor campaigning to stop legal aid cuts), Alasdair Cameron (mental health worker and campaigner), Veronica Killen (regional convenor, UCU), Peter Campbell (Keep Our NHS Public) and Craig Singleton (Unite the Union organiser).

The protests, civil disobedience and strikes in Spain and Greece in recent weeks have shown how mass resistance can challenge austerity. Across Europe, the majority of people are being made to pay for a crisis they didn't create, while the bankers, speculators and super-rich tax cheats continue to increase their wealth.

This major public meeting is on 29 June, the eve of national strike action by 750,000 trade union members. PCS, NUT, ATL and UCU members are taking co-ordinated action with the message 'stop the cuts - hands off our pensions'.

We are bringing together leading trade unionists in the North East with other campaigners to talk about cuts, the alternatives, and the resistance.

Groups supporting the meeting include: Coalition of Resistance, Keep Our NHS Public, Northumberland Labour Representation Committee (LRC), North East Pensioners Association, South East Northumberland Trades Council, North East LRC, Gateshead Public Services Alliance, North East Youth, School and College Union (NEYSCU) and Durham's People's Bookshop (who will be running a bookstall for us!).

If you want to add your organisation's name to the list, please let us know: cornortheast@gmail.com

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Ed Balls and public sector pensions

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls

BBC News informs us: 'Shadow chancellor Ed Balls has urged the unions not to fall into a government "trap" by striking over plans to reform public sector pensions.'

In his Sunday Mirror article today, he apparently claims that Tory and Lib Dem ministers want a fight and are saying "bring it on" to the unions. Balls also makes it clear he broadly supports reform of public sector pensions.

Let's rewind for a moment. When Ed Miliband was elected Labour leader last September it was a setback for the Blairites, indicating at least a small shift away from the notion that the most right-wing position available must always be the correct one.

When Ed Balls later replaced Alan Johnson as shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer it was another sign that the most Blairite elements were losing ground, if only to be replaced by the kind of people who regard Neil Kinnock as a political mentor.

In the last week or so there has been a small but unmistakeable lurch to the right, with the two Eds succumbing easily to pressure from the Labour Party's extreme right. Miliband's lazy rhetoric about welfare claimants - bracketing 'benefit fraudsters' as part of the same malaise as bankers raking in huge bonuses - has been swiftly followed by Balls distancing the Labour front bench from the trade unions.

Balls is adopting a rather strange line on this. He suggests Osborne will blame unions for any failures of economic recovery. Really? Maybe Osborne will do that, but it's hardly an argument likely to have much resonance. The unions today simply aren't powerful enough for union-blaming to connect with people. Why on earth would a few one-day strikes in the public sector have any discernible effect on the prospects for economic recovery?

David Harvey recently commented that a welcome feature of media and public discourse about the financial crash of 2008, and ensuing crisis, has been the absence of blaming it on 'union power'. This is, of course, because the unions have so transparently not been powerful in the last two decades or more. If the shadow chancellor trots out such silly and dishonest arguments as this, however, then any Tory attempts to blame unions for economic woes are likely to gain more currency.

In a post the other day I wrote: 'Labour is bitterly hostile to strike action which falls a long way short of a general strike. There will be massive pressure on the unions from leading Labour politicians to dampen any resistance. Labourism remains a powerful force in the working class. The relationship between Labour and the union bureaucracy is tight.'

Labour leaders are compromised on this particular issue. It was a report by John Hutton, a former Labout minister, that laid the basis for government policy. Whatever differences about the details, there has been a large degree of consenus about pensions between Tories, Lib Dems and Labour.

Three things aren't yet entirely clear. The first is what effect Labour's firmly right-wing political position on pensions will have on the more cautious union leaders. Dave Prentis of Unison is engaging in militant fighting talk, but it is still possible he will be pulled by pressure from Labour to tone it down. Taking the kind of action he envisages will put Unison, a major Labour Party donor, on a collision course with Milband and Balls.

The second thing to watch is the response from Labour's 'soft left'. At present they appear preoccupied with defending Labour's beleagured leader from attacks by Blairite supporters of David Miliband. While the unashamedly pro-cuts, hard-right elements should be resisted, 'rallying around Ed' is an untenable position and a dead-end cause which merely pulls Labour's left further to the right. In the two Eds you will find so very little worth championing.

Finally, it's unclear what course public opinion will take. I suspect there is widespread public sympathy for strikes, but co-existing with right-wing attitudes like thinking public sector workers have 'gold-plated pensions' or cuts to pensions are unavoidable. Labour leaders attacking the unions will obviously not help our cause, but whether it especially damages it remains to be seen.

It makes it abundantly clear there will be no political opposition to pension cuts from Labour's front bench. The political arguments will have to come from the anti-cuts movement, the Left and trade unions. We need to assert exactly the points which Balls should be making.

This means alerting people to the scale of what many teachers, lecturers, civil sevants and others will lose. It involves linking the pensions campaign to the broader defence of public services: any victory for unions on pensions will assist the whole struggle to defend the public sector and stop cuts. It requires us to point out that bank bailouts, tax cheats and the soaring wealth of the super-rich give the lie to the idea that there's simply no money.

It isn't just a battle of ideas either. It's about building a mass movement which embodies those ideas, and the alternatives to cuts, in co-ordinated and united action on the streets, in communities, and throughout the trade union movement.

The Tories are desperate to cause divisions: between Labour and the unions, between different unions, between workers and service users, between public and private sctors. Labour leaders are parroting Tory arguments. Some union leaders resent strike action on 30 June and are vulnerable to pressure from their right.

In response we need to combine a clear rejection of the ideological myths underpinning the attack on pensions with mass practical solidarity for those who, by taking strike action on 30 June, are on the front line of fighting cuts. 30 June is part of something much bigger.

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30 June: Newcastle march and rally

Newcastle on Thursday 30 June: assemble midday at Centre for Life, march to Monument for 1pm rally

Rallies, marches and picnics are being organised across the country for 30 June in support of the strike by members of PCS and three education unions - NUT, ATL and UCU - over cuts to public sector pensions.

In Newcastle strikers and their supporters will meet at noon at Centre for Life, Times Square. The march will go to Grey's Monument for a rally at 1pm with speakers from striking unions plus Kevin Rowan, secretary of Northern TUC.

The march and rally are supported by a range of trade unions, anti-cuts organisations and other groups.

See Facebook Event

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Teaching unions vote to strike

Teachers have voted overwhelmingly for strike action to defend pensions. Today's results from two teaching unions indicate widespread backing for national strike action.

92% voted yes in the National Union of Teachers (NUT), with 83% voting for action in the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), traditionally regarded as a very moderate union. The turnouts were 40% in NUT and 35% in ATL.

The government is pursuing the recommendations of the recent Hutton Report, which means teachers (and many other public sector workers) having to pay more in pension contributions, working longer, and receiving less in retirement. It effectively means a pay cut for all teachers, as well as drastically cuttting the value of pensions.

It is now expected hundreds of thousands of NUT and ATL members will join lecturers in the UCU union for co-ordinated strike action on Thursday 30 June. The NUT's executive meets tomorrow and is expected to confirm the union's next steps. Tomorrow will also see the PCS ballot result being announced, which is expected to show a large majority voting to walk out on 30 June.

These ballot results follow hot on the heels of Dave Prentis (UNISON General Secretary) announcing that Unison, the UK's largest public sector union, is gearing up to ballot members for strike action this autumn. The scale of the majorities today will embolden every union activist campaigning for co-ordinated action across the public sector unions.

The UCU and PCS unions have already publicly welcomed today's results in the teaching unions. UCU general secretary Sally Hunt noted that cuts to pensions are part of a bigger project by the Tory-led government. She said:

'While ordinary people suffer huge cuts in their standards of living, the richest 1,000 people in Britain saw their collective wealth rise by 18% last year.'

Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “These results send a clear message to the government that public sector workers do not believe they should be made to pay with their pensions for a recession they did not cause, and we send our support and solidarity to all NUT and ATL members."

First published on Counterfire

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Will Unison join other public sector unions in autumn strikes?

This is from The Guardian (see link for full article):

'The UK's largest public sector union has warned that it is gearing up for strike action in the autumn unless ministers pull back from controversial pension changes.

Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, said huge numbers of local government workers and NHS staff are "on the road" to long-term industrial action over pension changes that would lead to public sector workers paying more into the schemes, receiving less in retirement and working longer.

Balloting of around 1.2 million workers will start soon unless a crunch meeting with the government on 28 June leads to a deal, Prentis said, accusing the government of preventing proper negotiations over the controversial plans.

Speaking ahead of the union's annual conference next week, Prentis signalled that members would be balloted for a sustained period of industrial unrest unless the government alters course.

"If we are prevented from reaching agreement we will move to a ballot in the summer or early autumn," Prentis told reporters. "It will not be one day of action – it will be long-term industrial action throughout all our public services to prevent destruction of our pension schemes."'

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