Solidarity with Southampton

A year on, UNISON (and UNITE) members in Southampton continue to resist the attack upon their pay and conditions (http://www.soton-unison-office.org.uk/latestnews.htm). Action short of strike action continues and plans are afoot to disrupt the opening of a museum, to build which the Tory Council has borrowed £5 Million while stealing the same £5 Million in attacks on their workers' pay and conditions.



Our members in Southampton are right to continue to resist - and the dispute illustrates the importance of having control in the hands of the elected lay representatives of the workers whose conditions are being attacked.



In other branches where conditions are under attack it is imperative that branches wishing to recommend opposition to reductions in conditions do not face obstruction from within their own trade union.



Branches tempted to acquiesce in reductions in conditions should remember that if you give the employers an inch they'll only want to come back and take a mile - and that each succesful attack emboldens reactionary elements in other authorities to mimic that attack.



Workers in Southampton who have fought hard against the employer's attacks have preserved the conditions of untold thousands of members elsewhere as they have discouraged other local authorities from following the example from the Solent.

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