Public sector Pensions sellout: No Way!

Treachery is afoot as the public sector workers of Britain are in serious danger of being sold out by the parasitic leaders of the trade unions. Nurses, teachers, civil servants and the rest of Britain’s public sector workers who bravely defied the government in their millions on the 30 November in defence of a dignity in old age are being betrayed. The heads of the trade union movement such as Brendan Barber and Dave Prentis -who in words claim to act in the interest of the workers they represent- are indeed making deals with the government. These deals will ensure their own privileged position and enormous salaries. However, they will condemn ordinary workers to an old age of miserable poverty and a working life of being forced to pay for an economic crisis they did not cause.

The true objectives of the union bureaucrats in the dispute were revealed when TUC general secretary Brendan Barber announced in December that, “we have reached a stage where the emphasis in most cases is giving active consideration to the new proposals that have emerged rather than considering the prospect of further industrial action.” So, the leader of the trade union movement wants workers to believe that he is unwilling to consider the prospect of strike action, as the new deal is so much better than the one 2.6 million workers firmly rejected on 30 November. We ask then, what is the government offering now that it wasn’t before?

Well prior to the November 30 Strike the deal on the table consisted of:

*Workers paying more in contributions, about 50% more on average or 3% of their gross pay than they are at present.

*Workers having to work longer before they can retire, 67 for those under 51 years old and 68 for those under 34.

*Workers being entitled to a smaller fund upon retirement as their pension pot will now be tied to the lower Consumer Price Index rate of inflation.

Danny Alexander ever so slightly tweaked this on the eve of the strike by offering an accrual rate of 1/80^th instead of 1/85^th, a rise which is offset by a switch to career salary average anyway. The government also attempted to use the tried and tested “divide and rule” tactic by removing those within 10 years of retirement from the reforms, an offer to buy the workers birthright in return for a mess of pottage.

The government has refused to budge on its paltry offer and many unions leaders are using as their defence for selling out their members that it is the governments’ tough stance forcing them to capitulate. Leader of the health section of Unite Christina McArea described the negotiations as a “damage limitation exercise” while the Royal College of Nursing called the offer, “the best that can be achieved through negotiations.” Their argument is simply absurd, as if any businessman or politician-when he says this is his final offer-actually means it. It’s simply a ploy, a ruse in the hope that the union leaders will do what they have in fact done and refuse to rely on the collective action of their membership as the way to force the governments’ hand.

Unfortunately the willingness of the union bosses to capitulate to the government imposing the will of finance capitalism is nothing new; it’s a problem nearly as old as the unions themselves. The leaders of the unions rake in six figure salaries and receive CEO-esque payments when they retire, such as former Unite leader Derek Simpson who received a £500,000 golden goodbye. They occupy a privileged position in society and are reluctant to threaten their own privilege by encouraging workers to take action against their bosses.

The Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky wrote in 1940 that the, “trade unions of our time can either serve as secondary instruments of imperialist capitalism for the subordination and discipline of workers and for obstructing the revolution, or, on the contrary, the trade unions can become the instruments of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat.”

Those words have never rang truer than they do now, during the biggest recession since the Great Depression, and the complete onslaught instigated against the working class by the capitalist class. This includes a two year pay freeze for public sector workers, on top of pay rises limited to just 1%; way below the rise in the cost of living. The union bosses continue to serve as the willing sergeant majors of imperialism; whipping the industrial army into shape for their capitalist masters.

The industrial action over pensions was the least the unions could have done, as a race to the bottom in pay and conditions combined with hundreds of thousands of job losses (710,000 to be precise) created a groundswell of anger and a desire to fight back amongst the rank and file of union members. If the capitalist onslaught is to be at least halted, then it is up to these rank and file members to fight within the unions against the corrupt leaderships for a complete rejection of the governments’ offer and to organize further co-ordinated strike action be it legal or otherwise.

However a strike that is powerful enough to make the government concede to the strikers’ demands poses in itself the question of who holds power in society. As then prime minister David Lloyd George pointed out to the leaders of the looming miners strike in 1919, “if you carry out your threat you will defeat us. But if you do so, have you weighed up the consequences?” He meant that when they won, the workers needed to be prepared to take power and run society for themselves. Then right wing leader of the miners union Robert Smillie-terrified by the prospect of working class power-commented that, “from that moment on we knew we were beaten.”

Today the problem is the same. If the working class is to turn the tide in its battle against oppression then it needs to take seriously the prospect of taking power itself and running society not in the interests of a tiny number of parasites who make up the ruling class, but in the interests of the great many people who toil day in day out only to be trapped in a cycle of ever increasing poverty. The consciousness that it is us, the working class, who create the wealth in society and it is us who should decide how it is distributed is currently lacking in broad sections of the working class, and this weakness is an important part of the union leaders’ cowardice. The only way to turn the state of affairs around is to fight everyday in the workplaces and in the communities for working class organization, and eventually for working class power and the setting of humanity on the road to communism.