ReviewCity and County of Swansea

Public Service Not Private Profit December 2011

N30:BIRTHOFOURPOWER

Picture: 1500 local government workers, teachers, NHS workers, civil servants, lecturers and others rallied in Castle Square after acountry-wide mass strike to defend our pensions.

The 30 Novemberstrike was a fantasticexperience in many ways -especially for the 1500union members from allunion's that marched andrallied in Castle Square. Tobe applauded by shoppersand the public as wemarched was marvellous.The atmosphere was astrong and celebratoryshow of our trade unionpower. There wasteachers, nurses, lecturers,road-sweepers all together.There was even a

delegation of firefighters -who were not on strike -who came to support andwant to be with us the nexttime. Above all itshowcased our power - thestreets and workplaceswere quiet. Whatever theTories might claim inpublic, they know that thisaction rocked thegovernment like no other.Some politicians have triedto play down our strike bydismissing it as a mere“day of protest”. But it wasmore than a protest — it

was a strike on a scale notseen for generations.Strikes are the mostpowerful weapon that wepossess. They express ourcollective strength. OnWednesday it didn’t matterif you were a teacher or acook, if you were in oneunion or another, everyonewas on the same side.Most of us on strike onNovember 30th will neverhave seen action on thisscale before. For mygeneration Thatcher stolemy milk, now Cameron's

stealing my pension. Weneed further action to forcethe Tories to back down.When we strike societygrinds to a halt, whenpoliticians and bossesdon’t go to work, hardlyanyone notices. The Toriesare terrified of us getting ataste for this collectivepower. They will go to anylengths to stop us takingaction, including using thelaw to make it even harderto strike. But 30 Novemberhas been a historic daythat has created a different

mood amongst ourmembers. If the Toriesdon't improve their offer wecan and must escalate theaction and keep up themomentum of ourresistance. The stakescouldn’t be higher. TheTories want to smasheverything that we havefought for over manydecades. Today we face achoice. We can either benddown to accept cuts andpoverty, or we can resist.

Mass Strike Special Celebratory Issue

MillionsStrike forour Future

'Thatcher stole my milk, now Cameron steals my pension'

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UNISON picket,November 30th 2011

All Out to Win

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+++Crewe 150 +++Doncaster 2,000 +++Dundee 10,000 +++Edinburgh 15,000 +++Exete

+++Aberdeen 7,000 +++Barrow-in-Furness 500 +++Birmingham 20,000 +++Blackburn 2,

+++Brighton 3,500 +++Bristol 20,000 +++Burnley 200 +++Bury 1,500 +++Cambridge 4,0

+++Swindon 1,000 +++Telford 500 +++Truro 3,000 +++Wakefield 2,000 +++Wolverham+++Manchester 30,000 +++Newcastle 10,000 +++Oldham 1,000 +++Oxford 5,000 ++++++Hull 3,000 +++Lancaster 1,200 +++Leeds 10,000 +++Leicester 7,000 +++Lincoln 1

Glasgow

Birmingham London

Today you made history.Every single UNISON membersupporting the day of action hasplayed their part in this fantasticday.

UNISON members - mostlywomen, many low-paid andmany taking strike action for thefirst time ever - stood up andsaid, with quiet resolve: enoughis enough.

Our members work every day ofevery year to provide theservices our communities relyon. Many work behind thescenes in schools, hospitals,town halls, libraries and athousand other workplacesunseen by the media andpoliticians. But today they madetheir presence felt and theirvoices heard throughout the UK.

They told politicians that theywould not stand by and see theirpensions attacked andundermined and they would notbe made to pay for the crisiscaused by speculators andbankers.

A great day for UNISON and myproudest day as your generalsecretary.

Dave Prentis, Unison GeneralSecretary

November 30th was a historicday and was Britain’s biggeststrike since 1926. It saw theworking class march firmly on tocentre stage of the politicalarena. Over two and half millionstruck. It dealt the biggest blowyet to the government’s attemptto make us pay for the economiccrisis.Towns and cities across thecountry saw huge rallies that

brought public sector workerstogether to defy the cuts. Overhalf a million marched —including some 10,000 inDundee, 20,000 in Bristol and50,000 in London. The TUC saidthere had been 1000demonstrations across the UK.

Picket lines were solid, wellattended, and full of good spiritand determination. Fromgravediggers to chiropodists, thepeople who keep our essentialservices going stepped out toresist the attacks on ourpensions and the wider cuts.

The mainstream media didn’tknow quite how to react. It spentweeks ignoring or writing off theprospect of strikes. Then itswitched to denunciations ofstrikers, followed by desperateattempts to down-play the wholeday by claiming a low turnout, orthat strikers just went shopping.

But the reality of the picket lines,marches and rallies told adifferent story. In every town andcity there was a tremendoussense of solidarity as peoplecame together against a hatedtory-led government. For nurses,road-sweepers, lecturers,teachers, office workers andsocial workers - to name just afew - to unite together in strikeaction is unprecedented. Afterdecades in the wilderness, N30signals the return of massworking class resistance inBritain. The strike demonstratesthe enormous power that theorganised trade unionmovement has. Union afterunion delivered thumping votesfor action. This was the biggeststrike of women workers everseen in Britain.

What next? See back page

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A great range of photos of November 30th can be found atthe links below:http://j.mp/N30Waleshttp://righttowork.org.uk/2011/11/pictures-from-n30/http://www.unison.org.uk/n30/photogallery.asp

er 5,000 +++Glasgow 25,000 +++Halifax 500 +++Huddersifeld 2,000

,000 +++Bolton 1,500 +++Bournemouth 2,000 +++Bradford 4,000

000 +++Cardiff 5,000 +++Chester 1,000 +++Coventry 3,000

mpton 2,000 +++Worthing 700 +++York 2,500 PLUS MANY MORE+Portsmouth 2,000 +++Preston 2,500 +++Sheffield 6,000 +++Stoke 500,000 +++Liverpool 20,000 +++London 50,000 +++Luton 600

London

Oxford

Leicester

This newsletter is produced by the City and County of Swansea Unison Branch. Any letters, comments or suggestions for articles should be posted to the branch addressor emailed to Unison@swansea.gov.uk. Correspondence is not guaranteed to be published and contents may not necessarily reflect Unison policy.

YOURUNION

Spor ts & Socia l websi te : www.suss.me.uk www.unison.co.uk

Contact us: Unison Office The Guildhall Swansea SA1 4PE01792 635271 unison@swansea.gov.uk

Unison has over 100 trained union reps throughout the council, schools andFEcolleges.Wewill advise,support and represent you collectively and individually on issues from sickness, discipliners to legalmatters insideandoutside theworkplace. If youneedadviceor representationpleasecontact theSeniorSteward(s) for your department below or go to your workplace steward. Alternatively please contact thebranch office.

Joint Branch Secretaries: Nicky Symons & Mike Davies

EnvironmentIan Alexander - 07584 505793Tony Dearden - 07971 121533Pat Lopez - 07584 505792Social ServicesAlison Bell - 07941 757853Bill Williams - 07557 560092ResourcesGareth Parry - 07584 341240

EducationChris Bell - 07967 551025Karen Verallo - 07771 922985Regeneration/HousingJohn Llewellyn - 07557 560093Roger Owen - 07941819229Sallyann Taylor - 07825 401711Gower CollegeRon Job - 07963 454041

The Tories were shaken by themassstrikes on November 30th but havenot backed down yet.

Tory chancellor Osborne used theday before our strike to announce acut to our pay and an increase in ourretirement age - again. Public sectorworkers who are already suffering atwo-year pay freeze will seeincreases 'capped’ at 1 percent.Withinflation running at 5.4 percent, this iseffectively a 20 percent pay cut overfour years.

Osborne also brought forward hisplanned increase in the pension age.Workers set to retire after 2026 willnow have to work until 67. And heannounced that, instead of slashing400,000 public sector jobs, he’ddestroy 710,000.Osborne said he would do “whatever

it takes” to cut the deficit. Apparently,what it takes is to throwmoney at thebosses and the bankers—and take itfrom the rest of us.

Every spiteful announcementmeanshuge cuts in living standards formillions of workers. Tax credits havebeen frozen, except for working taxcredit which has been moved to thelower CPI rate of inflation. Anincrease in child tax credits has beencancelled. Osborne also announcedplans to attack regional payadjustments, Tupe employmenttransfer rights and working hours.

UNISON will obviously continue tonegotiate, but Osborne’s statementshow there is little chance for anyqualitatively improved offer this sideofmoreaction. Itwill alsoonly fuel theanger against the Tories like pouring

petrol on a fire.The government isdigging its heels in,so we have to digours in as well. Thestrike wasn’t justabout expressing ouropinion. We are notjust a stage army tobe used to get 5pextra in negotiationsand settle by the endof the year.

There are some inthe trade unionmovement and theTUC who wouldaccept a shoddycompromise. We

also cannot rely on a change ofgovernment to make things better -David Miliband might have saidhe does not want to ‘demon-ise the dinner lady’ onstrike in Parliament, but hewalked through a picket line tosay it and does not supportour strikes.

The stakes are extremely highand the outcome will influenceour lives for years to come. We haveto be in this for a serious fight.Weareall worried about losing money withmore strikes, but we know that if theTories win they want to freeze ourpay for years and a lot more besides.It really is a situation of can we affordnot to strike?

One of the great benefits of N30 isthat everyone is really committed to

the unions fighting together. It wasthat unity that gave many tradeunionists the confidence to come outand strike, many for the first time.

We need a discussion in everyworkplace about the way forward butthe strategy we havemust match theseriousness of the task. Otherwisemembers of all unions will as whythey are losing pay for a strategy thatwill not win. We have to strike again,escalate and pull more unions in.This battle can’t be left in thehandsofa few tradeunion leaders or theTUC.We need to support every strike tostop cuts and defend jobs. And wealso need to name the date for thenext united strike day and take thestruggle forward.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our members

Members will be aware of the 90-day notice given by the Authority over terms and condition and Single Status. UNISON is currently in negotiationin this time-scale and will be organising a series of branch wide meetings to update all members early in the New Year.

Where next after N30?Where next after N30?