Council Workers Strike (2)
Yesterday's council workers strike resulted in the usual pantomime of claim and counter claim - as employers and trade unions accused each other of refusing to meet to thrash out a negotiated settlement to their pay dispute.
"Oh, yes we did" was met by "Oh, no you didn't" - while thousands of members lost a day's pay and small groups of pickets stood outside council premises - in torrential rain.
The employers tactics are to sound very reasonable and wait for an unpopular strike to run out of steam - after all two thirds of members didn't even bother to vote in their union strike ballots.
So, for the moment, the windy rhetoric of trade union leaders will continue - but what is clear is that the employers are not going to run up the white flag and award a pay increase of 5%.
What the employers will do is to offer a re-packaged settlement - at the moment the offer is 2.5% for the next 3 years - i.e. 2.5% for 2008, 2.5% for 2009 and 2.5% for 2010.
Doesn't take a genius to work out that the employers are likely to offer a better increase in Year 1 (2008) - but then reduce the present offer in subsequent years - so that over the full 3 years the total value of the offer remains much the same - the logic being that inflation will fall next year and begin to come back under control.
Now, this is not as favourable a deal for the low paid (see post dated 15 August 2008) - but as we've seen over equal pay - getting to grips with low pay is not the top priority of either the employers or the trade unions - despite what they say.
So, does it really require widespread strike action, union members losing pay they can ill afford - and huge disruption to council services to sort this out?
Not on your life.
"Oh, yes we did" was met by "Oh, no you didn't" - while thousands of members lost a day's pay and small groups of pickets stood outside council premises - in torrential rain.
The employers tactics are to sound very reasonable and wait for an unpopular strike to run out of steam - after all two thirds of members didn't even bother to vote in their union strike ballots.
So, for the moment, the windy rhetoric of trade union leaders will continue - but what is clear is that the employers are not going to run up the white flag and award a pay increase of 5%.
What the employers will do is to offer a re-packaged settlement - at the moment the offer is 2.5% for the next 3 years - i.e. 2.5% for 2008, 2.5% for 2009 and 2.5% for 2010.
Doesn't take a genius to work out that the employers are likely to offer a better increase in Year 1 (2008) - but then reduce the present offer in subsequent years - so that over the full 3 years the total value of the offer remains much the same - the logic being that inflation will fall next year and begin to come back under control.
Now, this is not as favourable a deal for the low paid (see post dated 15 August 2008) - but as we've seen over equal pay - getting to grips with low pay is not the top priority of either the employers or the trade unions - despite what they say.
So, does it really require widespread strike action, union members losing pay they can ill afford - and huge disruption to council services to sort this out?
Not on your life.
