Now -read the book!

Here is a link to my memoirs which, if you are a glutton for punishment, you can purchase online at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history.
Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name. (William Morris - A Dream of John Ball)

Friday, April 05, 2013

Solidarity with the long weekend of action

Members of our sister union, PCS, are variously taking half day and one day strikes today and Monday following the civil service wide budget day strike (http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/pcs_comment/index.cfm/id/55F34F0B-1DA3-4C01-9F000054956E8DEF).



Given the intransigence and hostility of this Government, civil servants are clearly left with no option other than to resist by whatever means are available to defend their jobs, pay and pensions.



The same does not automatically apply on every issue for all of us. In some local authorities, for example, we continue to have a dialogue with our employers even through the deepest and most damaging cuts.



However, all we are achieving is, at best, modest damage limitation (and in a frighteningly large number of cases local authority employers have successfully attacked conditions of service as well as jobs).



The perpetrators of the attacks upon public service workers (and what's left of our Welfare State) can be found at numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street. To confront these villains we need co-ordinated national action not just across one sector, but across the whole movement.

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

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