5 December, 2011
A day-long strike on 30 November in the UK brought a standstill to public services and a stark reminder that the Tory-led coalition government’s proposed rollbacks to public-sector pensions is intolerable and will be met by street resistance. An estimated two million British workers conducted strikes at over 1,000 separate manifestations and it marked the country’s largest mass actions since the “Winter of Discontent” strikes in 1979.
Dubbed “Pensions Justice Day of Action,” 30 unions in the UK held strike votes in the months before 30 November against a government trying to impose austerity measures that include making public-sector employees work longer and pay more into what will result in smaller pension benefits.
Photo: Mac Urata
The rallying cry on 30 November was that it was bankers and lack of government oversight that caused revenue shortfalls, so why should the men and women who make Britain’s public services work pay the price with lower pensions and more working years?
The 30 November strikes brought 75% of all schools to a close, with teachers protesting more work through larger class sizes and less pay and pension money. Work stoppages brought reduced services inside hospitals, to National Health Service agencies, to public transport, in the courts, and throughout government departments and agencies.
Perhaps the shrillest message against the Cameron/Osborne government’s austerity plan came from civil servants at the Tax Ministry. A full 90% of them abandoned their jobs and took part in the day of protest last week.
A group from Occupy London used the day to protest against global mining company Xstrata and its CEO Mick Davis. Activists were arrested at a sit-in inside Xstrata’s London headquarters near Piccadilly Circus. They were protesting Davis’s £18 million compensation packaging, the largest among executives of the FTSE 100.
Mass demonstrations shut down the city centre of Manchester, brought picket lines to government buildings and a 25,000 march through Liverpool, made 150,000 court workers leave their jobs, delaying and postponing court dockets, and saw the largest strike in Northern Ireland history where 10,000 civil servants rallied at city hall in Belfast.
NGWF, ITGLWF lead Bangladesh solidarity march for UK strikers
The UK strikes were felt globally as well. The ICEM was informed that the National Garment Workers’ Federation (NGWF) of Bangladesh held a sympathy strike for British workers in Dhaka at mid-day on 30 November that included addresses by NGWF President Amirul Haque Amin and International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation Education Secretary Steve Grinter.
The Tory coalition government’s public-sector austerity plan calls for an increase in the pension age from 60 to 66 in the year 2020, and then to 67 in 2026. It seeks increased pension contributions to come out of the pockets of workers, and a pension formula based on average lifetime earnings rather than the current end-of-career pay.
And a day before the 30 November strikes, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne further fueled worker discontent by announcing that when the current public-sector pay freeze expires in 2012, the government will insist on a 1% cap to salary increases over the following two years.