A million council workers strike
By Dion D'Silva
from the latest issue of the fortnightly paper "Solidarity"

On 17 July, for the first time in 23 years local government unions
joined together to take national strike action - over pay. The
Government have offered us a miserable 3%.

All the national reports were that the strike was very successful.

Jack Dromey said that by 10.30 am there were over 750,000 workers on
strike, with more joining as they were due to begin their shifts.

Heather Wakefield, a Unison official said it was "solid in Bath,
Belfast was at a standstill and Birmingham city centre was blocked
up". Thousands of staff have been joining the unions to take part in
the action.

The ballot result in the three unions had been varied. Unison had the
lowest vote for action, 57%, while GMB voted yes by 66% and TGWU by
80%.

This probably reflected two things: the weight of the national
machine and the proportion of low pay manual workers in the
respective unions.

This was a strike about pay but there are also
pent-up feelings about privatisation and this New Labour government
Unfortunately privatisation and the anti-union laws meant that some
members couldn't take action.

Many Direct Labour Organisations and services such as bin
collection have been privatised and workers
forced to come out of the national terms and conditions.

The TGWU said that members had been threatened with disciplinary action if
they went on strike. At a lot of picket lines this morning the dust
workers drove past in slow convoy to show their support. Next time we
need to be all out.

What next:
l Step up the action to two-days and three-days.
l Organise selective on-going action.
l Co-ordinate with other unions for further action, e.g. RMT and NATFHE.
l Build for a one day national strike and demonstration in September.
l Lobby all our councillors and MPs.
l Demand that councils and central government stop all privatisations including PFI.
l For national pay rates of terms and conditions to cover all workers.
l For a national 35-hour week without loss of pay.
l Organise a Public Sector Alliance of all the unions to pursue our demands.

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Solidarity is a paper of the Socialist Alliance.