The New Dark Age

28 June 2011 — New Left Project

by Sally Hunt, Owen Jones
Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the University and College Union, and Owen Jones, author of Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, analyse the political context of the June 30 strikes and discuss how to make them part of a successful movement against attacks by the government.

Sally Hunt

On Thursday hundreds of thousands of teachers, lecturers and civil servants will go on strike in defence of their pensions.

You would have thought the prospect of the largest day of co-ordinated action in a generation would have focused government minds on trying to resolve the dispute, but instead ministers have taken to the airwaves and other public platforms to condemn the unions.

In playing to the gallery, they are avoiding dealing with the substantive grievances that teachers have. College lecturers face paying an extra 3 per cent on top of their current pension contribution rates, which represents an extra £88 a month or over £95 in London. Government plans to change the indexation of yearly pension rises from the Retail Price Index (RPI) to the lower Consumer Price Index (CPI) would see lecturers lose thousands of pounds over their retirement.

The pension debate is just another example of where the government and media have been allowed to lead the narrative.  Anyone following the story could be forgiven for thinking that people go on strike for the sake it or even worse for fun, when the reality is that losing a day pay is never taken lightly.

All this must give trade unionists pause for thought. Strikes are a vital part of our armoury but we must do much more besides. Our greatest challenge is to persuade the public that the public services we provide matter too much to cut.

Winning that argument is about making a positive, not just a negative, argument about our country’s future. Public services like education are central to our prospects of future, sustainable economic growth and to social justice.

Yet too often we allow ourselves to be portrayed as a drain on resources rather than a platform for prosperity and fairness.  If you take higher education for example, every one million pounds invested in our universities generates an additional one and half million pounds back. Similarly, further education generates billions for our economy every year.

Far from being bloated the public sector is continuing to perform miracles despite being cut to the bone. Figures released by the Office of National Statistics this month show that the number of people employed in the public sector decreased by 24,000 in the first three months of this year, half of those in education, as schools and colleges shed staff at the rate of 1,000 a week. So on top of pay freezes and attacks on their pensions, staff are expected to pick up the workloads their colleagues have left behind.

Persuading the public that what we do matters is the key to unlocking support in our struggles to defend pay, pensions and jobs.

We will be out on strike on Thursday, despite the threats and propaganda from government. Our job that day (and beyond) is to win over the hearts and minds of the public and demonstrate why education, and the people who deliver it, are so important to all our futures.

For more information about the UCU strikes, see here

Owen Jones

This is a battle we cannot afford to lose. We still live with the consequences of the repeated defeats suffered by the labour movement in the 1980s. Our unions never recovered. And – because the organised workers’ movement has always represented the backbone of socialism – the left never recovered either. Class war was waged in the 1980s, and capital emerged victorious – and, ever since, has enjoyed a triumphalist march as billions pour into the bank accounts of the wealthy while living standards for everyone else go into reverse.

J30 can only be a start – and, more importantly, a catalyst. Think back to the first student demonstration in November. 52,000 students turned up, taking everyone by surprise – not least the demonstrators themselves. For the first time, many of them felt a sense of power. It kickstarted a wave of student protests and occupations. J30 must have a similar role for the labour movement, encouraging other workers to think that it is possible to resist.

Students were responsible for unleashing the first wave of resistance. On Thursday, the baton will pass from youth to the labour movement.

There are grounds to be optimistic: polls show that, as things stand, there is broad support for public sector workers striking over pensions.

But we must be clear: pensions has been chosen as an issue to strike over because of anti-union laws, which prevent industrial action unless workers are in direct conflict with their employers. And of course the robbery of workers’ pensions is a disgrace that must be fought. But the labour movement and the left must make clear that workers are really striking over a programme of cuts that lacks a meaningful democratic mandate.

The government will try to play divide and rule with public sector and private sector workers. After all, while over half of public sector workers are unionised, that is true with only 14% of private sector workers – and 11% of that are ex-public sector workers who were contracted out. Unions will be portrayed by right-wing politicians and journalists as ‘sectional’ interests. So it is crucial that unions make clear that they are fighting for working people as a whole, all of whom are being made to pay for a crisis they had no part in creating. This means a huge amount of ‘outreach’ – for want of a better word – and building links with wider community groups

But we need political direction too. Now, whether or not you believe a transformed Labour Party is the only hope for working-class representation, it is self-evident that, if the Government falls, it will be Labour that takes power. So, however you intend to vote, that means at least placing demands on the Labour Party. A mass movement – with broad popular support – could drag the Labour leadership into a position of properly fighting the Tories’ cuts agenda. And that would open a political space for the left in its broadest sense.

So let’s prepare for the next stage of the struggle against a government that lacks a mandate for its cuts offensive. It will not be an easy struggle – but it is one we must win.