Brown's efforts to avoid protecting agency & temporary workers

Despite being seriously out-numbered on the proposed EU directive, Brown is still trying to dodge it.

He's still listening more to the needs of the CBI more than the millions of union members and other workers. No wonder he's in trouble in the polls.

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Defend the Prison Officers' right to strike

If anyone still had any illusions that Gordon Brown was more union-friendly than Bliar, surely the news that the government proposes to ban Prison Officers taking strike action will dispel them.

The irony of the recent Prison Officers Association (POA) strike was that it was conducted as a wildcat strike, causing more disruption, precisely because they believed that going through all the legal hoops would have given the government time to ban the action altogether. And as with most unofficial action, the POA walkout did not lead to the union having its funds sequestrated or the sky falling in. If action is united, determined and successful, employers are generally reluctant to use the law for fear of escalating the dispute.

The news makes a Manchester "Organising For Fighting Unions" day school I'm helping organise for 26th January look even more interesting. The opening session is on Trade Union Freedom and the Right To Strike, and will be addressed by Brian Caton (the POA General Secretary) and Jane Loftus (Liverpool postal worker and CWU President). You can get a leaflet here.

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Pay revolt

The pay issue just won't go away, with RPI inflation figures revised upwards to 4.2%. The government's attempts to baffle us all with talk of CPI inflation at 2.1% (fine as long as you don't need housing or fuel!) won't wash as most working people are experiencing falling real wages for the first time in 30 years.

Locally in Manchester, UNITE members at Stagecoach have voted (by 94%!) to strike for better pay, and strike dates have now been announced. Let's hope they can make a breakthrough.

It's been a great disappointment that the unions in the UK have allowed the opportunity of a breakthrough on public sector pay to slip through our fingers. At the moment, it is the government that is leading the way on pay "restraint", not by restraining their own salaries, but by restraining those of public sector employees. Not surprisingly, private sector employers are only too happy to follow this lead.

With the UK public sector having a far higher union density than the private sector, there was a real opportunity for united action (building on fights by posties, civil servants and even prison officers) defeating the pay cap and getting much-needed headlines about unions WINNING, which would help us build the union everywhere. Sadly, most of the union leaders seemed more interested in saving Gordon Brown embarassment than in standing up effectively for members, so the opportunity has receded - at least for now.

What a contrast to the headlines coming from France!

But with Brown saying he wants to restrict public sector pay rises to 2% for three years, the chances of the lid staying on seem slim to me.

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Pay - fat cats and the rest of us

Today's paper reports findings by Incomes Data Services (IDS) that the earnings of the chief executives of FTSE100 companies are still going up - fast.

Last financial year, the average salary was £737,000. Don't worry though, they didn't really have to scrape by on that, once you include incentive schemes and share options their average earnings rose to £3,174,000!

Meanwhile we've seen average earnings for the rest of us falling behind prices for the first time in 20 years. Sadly, Gordon Brown is leading the way on the employers' side, trying to hold public sector pay down below 2% - a significant pay cut in real terms. Naturally every other employer wants to copy this.

It reminds me of a slogan I saw years ago "To make the rich work harder, we pay them more. To make the poor work harder, we pay them less".

Productivity keeps rising, but the share of what we produce that working people get keeps shrinking.

The outcomes of disputes involving the CWU in Royal Mail, PCS in the civil service and UNISON in local government will have a big impact on whether employers in public & private sector alike continue to get away with it.

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Postal strikes

Royal Mail management have sparked a wave of unofficial strikes by imposing savage changes to working conditions today.

It seems that Royal Mail are setting out to smash the CWU - it's not in the interests of any trade unionist to let that happen.

At Prime Minister's Questions, Gordon Brown said that the dispute "should be brought to an end on the terms that have been offered". The TUC's response seems mild, to say the least!

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