Strike Ballots (07/10/14)

I read this report about Unison strike action in The Herald the other day and had a little look on the union's web site to see what more this had to say about the wisdom of taking strike action on such a slim majority of 53%.

Now the Herald does not on the turnout in the ballot can be very significant, especially if the number of members voting is either very high or very low - even though union members are entitled to this information and you would have thought that any serious journalist would ask for these details.

But no, the Unison web site doesn't even report the detailed results of its own ballot which doesn't seem very democratic to me and would never have happened in the days when I was the union's Head of Local Government for Scotland.

So I suspect the turnout was quite low, probably less than 30% of Unison's membership in Scotland, and if so that is a very risky platform on which to mount a major strike as it would suggest that only around 15% of members are really supporting industrial action.

And as I've said before on the blog site, how many times in the past 15 years have you heard of Unison, or any other trade union for that matter, proposing a national campaign of industrial action in support of equal pay?

Never.  

Scottish local government workers join strike action

The Herald - Monday 6 October 2014

Local government workers in Scotland have voted to go on strike in a move which will worsen a long-running pay dispute.

Council employees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are set to take industrial action next Tuesday in protest at a pay offer worth 1% for most employees.

Unison announced that its local government members in Scotland had now voted in favour of walkouts.

Douglas Black, Unison's regional officer for local government said: "Unison has consulted its members and the clear democratic decision is to take further industrial action.

"We will be running a programme of action which will affect every area of Scotland. We do not take decisions like this lightly. Our members know how many people rely on our services, but local government pay has dropped 14% since 2007.

"We have seen 39,400 job losses, and Unison members feel they have to say enough is enough."

The ballot result was 53.5% in favour of taking industrial action.

Mr Black added: "This is a clear democratic decision, and our action will start in October. Our demands are simple. Fair pay for all workers and an end to low pay, and for employers get back round the table to discuss the big issues facing local government. There is real anger out there and so they need to talk to us as soon as possible.''

Unison said it was protesting at an imposed pay rise of 1% from April.

The Government is facing a week of strikes and other forms of industrial action from next Monday by public sector workers including NHS staff, civil servants and council employees.