Unions join forces to build two million-strong alliance against
coalition savagery
20 May 2011
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.
ENDS
For further information, contact Pauline Doyle on 07976 832
861
