Tomorrow ,Thursday 30th July, looks set to see extensive walkouts by teachers and other UK public sector workers in Union-led protests over changes to their largely publicly funded inflation proofed pension arrangments. Although the pro strike votes formed the majority of those cas the "yes" vote was a small minority of those entitled to vote. The silent majority foolishly did not vote at all so lost their voice. They will now pay for that. The walkouts could be the precursor to further disruptions from the autumn as some unions are keen to ratchet up the noise considerably in persuit of not only the issue itself but a seeming desire for conflict anyway with a government whose opposition party they sponsor and whose leader they put into power.
As is frequently the case in these episodes the emotional rhetoric employed to whip up enthusiasm for strike action ignores many of the realities of the case and a lot of those shouting in near hysterical terms appear to have only patchy knowledge of what the deal really is and how they will be affected. Hence the banding about of words such as "robbery", "akin to Maxwell" etc. which are emotive but largely ignore the facts.
The union leaders themselves, mainly in receipt of six figure salaries, will not of course lose a day's pay. Their members will though tomorrow and on any other day owhen they do not turn up for work. The personal financial pain is all theirs.
There are many arguments in support of unavoidable change here. The most basic is the need to avoid the public sector pensions becoming unaffordable and therefore liable to much more painful remedies later. It is obvious common sense that public sector people can not expect those in the private sector to fund endlessly their superior and totally state guaranteed pensions. A high percentage of private sector people have already had to accept far more severe reductions to their future entitlements and they will never be comprehensively state guaranteed in the way public sector deals are. The Government, as in many of its cuts and other policies, has not done well in getting its arguments and simple explanations out to the populace but that isn't entirely new and people do have to do some thinking and calculating for themselves.
The saddest thing for tomorrow's strikers this afternoon is that today may be the last day of long standing relationships and harmony between colleagues in their workplaces. Strikes are often devastatingly divisive, setting participants against non participants (something tacitly encouraged by unions who generally thrive better in places of disharmony rather than harmony). It can easily all become very bitter and people who have got along well enough for years are suddenly thrown into two camps. Trust goes and a lot of personal unpleasantness develops. This breakdown is not worth the tensions and the cloud it casts across the working lives of those involved. The end of work this afternoon could mark the end of an era for many and their enjoyment of the job may be about to be overwhelmed by long lasting post-strike acrimony. It is a dreadful prospect for their quality of life and yet they are sleepwalking into it. Union membership can be a very strange thing. People pay to join and then they surrender their right to stand out against the organisation of which they are now a member,- and they even pay good money for this loss of their own freedom. It is a bizarre notion. The other tragedy is that the status of people formerly seen as true professionals for whom the duty to provide and give care transcended all other considerations will be lost . Teachers in particular will emerge much reduced in stature. The unions, ostensibly there to look after their interests will care not a jot about that. They are far more concerned with their own power and muscle flexing than an individual's well being. Individuality rather than "solidarity" has never been part of most union cultures.
The other feature of this day of action or inaction and its likely successors is that the unions have clearly marked out their pitch as supporting their members in the public sector regardless of the interests of their other members in the private one. This is not new. Similarly they champion their members as suppliers of goods and services rather than their interests as purchasers and consumers.
Whereas businesses and even the public sector have changed considerably over the last few decades, some unions have moved very little and remain wedded to perpetuating old beliefs and behaviours.For many the addiction to old fashioned notions of class warfare and "struggles" is very deep. They blindly ignore the need for radical rethinking of their future role and relevance. If they continue with heads firmly in the sand their likely destiny is to follow those once glorious industries which now vanished into oblivion. Thursday is primarily a slip back into the old glory days of strife paid for by the members not the leadership. It is nobody's real interests. Pensions reform has to happen even if only due to our stubborn insistance on living longer. That's before the profligacy of the last Labour government and its massive increases in state employee numbers and remuneration come onto the stage. The bottom line is that everything in life has to be paid for and there is no way round that however much union leaders and the left in general like to believe there is. Even if they think it's the bankers who should pay there just aren't enough of those to go round. Game over and it's no use Ed Milli standing there wringing his hands and looking soulful while his friends the brothers do their old antedeluvian worst.
