Council Workers Strike
Next Wednesday (20 August) Scotland's council workers are being called out on a day's strike - following two days of strike action in July by council workers in the rest of the UK.
The reasons for the strike are perfectly understandable - the employers have offered only a 2.5% pay increase with inflation running at 4.4% - and likely to reach 5% later this year.
But the reality is that the economy is in an awful mess - double digit price hikes in food, fuel and utility bills means that everyone's feeling the pain - in some sectors unemployment is rising fast and people are losing their jobs.
So, the government - which holds the purse strings - is not going to cave in and award council workers a 5% pay increase - because everyone else would demand the same.
Gordon Brown was happy to claim great credit for his management of the UK economy in the good times - yet now he tries to shift the blame onto world events which, he says, are beyond government control.
But the reason the government's cupboard is bare is because of the policies that Gordon Brown has pursued over the past eleven years - for most of that period he was Labour's Iron Chancellor and made all the key decisions about public spending.
So, a strike is not going to achieve anything - it's going nowhere fast - and council workers will simply lose money they can ill afford.
A much better solution would be to negotiate a deal that helps the lower paid - after all a £400 increase in household bills hits someone on a salary of £10,000 much harder than someone on £30,000.
Not fair? No, not absolutely fair - because the lower paid would get more than 2.5% while the higher paid would get less.
But the lowest paid jobs - done mainly by women - have been low paid for years - and that's not fair either. Why do you think so many workers doing these jobs have equal pay claims?
The reasons for the strike are perfectly understandable - the employers have offered only a 2.5% pay increase with inflation running at 4.4% - and likely to reach 5% later this year.
But the reality is that the economy is in an awful mess - double digit price hikes in food, fuel and utility bills means that everyone's feeling the pain - in some sectors unemployment is rising fast and people are losing their jobs.
So, the government - which holds the purse strings - is not going to cave in and award council workers a 5% pay increase - because everyone else would demand the same.
Gordon Brown was happy to claim great credit for his management of the UK economy in the good times - yet now he tries to shift the blame onto world events which, he says, are beyond government control.
But the reason the government's cupboard is bare is because of the policies that Gordon Brown has pursued over the past eleven years - for most of that period he was Labour's Iron Chancellor and made all the key decisions about public spending.
So, a strike is not going to achieve anything - it's going nowhere fast - and council workers will simply lose money they can ill afford.
A much better solution would be to negotiate a deal that helps the lower paid - after all a £400 increase in household bills hits someone on a salary of £10,000 much harder than someone on £30,000.
Not fair? No, not absolutely fair - because the lower paid would get more than 2.5% while the higher paid would get less.
But the lowest paid jobs - done mainly by women - have been low paid for years - and that's not fair either. Why do you think so many workers doing these jobs have equal pay claims?
