... check out the public sector morale. Strikes may be the least of the government’s worries as the cuts really start to hit home
Vince Cable’s strike warning to public sector workers misses the point entirely. It is not strikes that the government should be fretting about. It’s the impact of declining workforce morale on the longer-term future of public services.
A summer – or autumn – of discontent would add up to nothing very much compared to the routine ‘serious damage to our economic and social fabric’ (Cable, 6 June 2011) being inflicted by the government on almost any public service you can lay your hands on. Amidst the turmoil, Unison members and their colleagues are struggling to maintain services and morale is plummeting.
On top of a pay freeze and soaring inflation, jobs, hours, redundancy pay, resources, increments, basic pay, car allowances, unsocial hours payments, overtime pay, pensions and basic rights to equal pay and equal treatment, public sector workers are facing a daily battering – and nowhere more than in local councils. Here in Unison’s local government section, life is beginning to feel more like the industrial equivalent of a WW1 field hospital than a partner in a social dialogue process!
And that’s not to mention the very fear itself of privatisation amongst our members (heard of Southern Cross?) Being transferred without as much as a ‘by your leave’ to an unknown, minimum wage, no-pension, liable-to-go-bust-once-asset-strippers-have-had-their-day multinational is not a pleasant experience and certainly not what most local government workers went into the job for.
The Two-Tier Code which gave new starters on outsourced contracts the right to broadly equivalent pay and conditions is already in the Museum of Coalition Damage and pension rights for privatised workers are about to disappear too. Who’d be a public sector worker with ‘all of the above’ hanging over your head?
But let’s set aside the workers’ woes for a tic and consider the Coalition’s warnings over industrial action. While it is not exactly clear what the liberal Mr Cable has in mind, outlawing the right to strike is clearly being contemplated (except for police officers who have been offered that same right in exchange for some overtime pay!)
The Coalition is – of course – ably supported by the CBI, which has called for measures to make striking harder. The captains of industry – aka the beneficiaries of privatisation - want 40% support for strike action amongst those balloted, rather than amongst those returning ballot papers, the right to strike break using agency workers and longer notice before a strike begins. And let’s not forget a reduction in the period of consultation over large scale redundancies...
Can it be done? Industrial lawyers once clogged up the bars in the Middle Temple arguing the toss over whether the right to strike really existed in UK law. However, since the UK incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights, it has been widely accepted that Article 11, which enshrines the right to freedom of association, incorporates the right to strike into UK law. If banning public sector strikes is in the government’s mind, it is in for a tough time.
But as I said earlier, strikes may be the least of the government’s worries as the cuts really start to hit home. The CIPD – not always the worker’s friend – warned last month that employee trust and confidence in senior leaders is at an all-time low, while job satisfaction is tumbling. Just yesterday Stewart Lansley, in a new pamphlet entitled ‘Britain’s Livelihood Crisis’, showed that the wages of middle income Britain have grown on average by just 56% since 1978, while GDP increased by 108%. There has been a steady growth in ‘bad jobs’ offering poor wages and job security.
Despite the myth of ‘gold plating’, this sorry state of affairs applies as much to whole swathes of public service jobs as it does to some in the private sector. 70% of local government workers earn less than £21,000 – or its part-time equivalent - each year. Yet they alone have undergone two years of a pay freeze during a period of high inflation, no increase in car allowances despite ludicrous fuel costs, are being asked to pay up to 100% more in contributions for a worse pension and are suffering a myriad of other assaults on their wage packets and working conditions.
Most enter public service ‘to make a difference’ – whether school cleaners, environmental health officers or finance officers. Most workers want to do well and have a good relationship with their employers. Most want a quiet life and job satisfaction. Most want to be able to support their families without recourse to the state. What’s on offer to public sector workers now by the government and council employers undermines those aspirations 100%. Tesco and local call centres look more attractive than high stress, low pay council jobs, anger levels are high and morale is rock bottom. Many experienced employees are choosing to take voluntary redundancy rather than suffer further insult.
Our members in Southampton are currently taking strike action against the council’s plans to cut – yes cut – twice-frozen pay by up to 5% and inflict other serious damage on terms and conditions. Others will follow and there may – or may not – be co-ordinated strike action across the public sector. Whatever happens, it won't be strike action which damages our public services in the long term. It will be the loss of the dedication, hard work and knowledge of a dwindling, demoralised workforce which has had enough.
