Camden's Labour councillors set to back staff strike action over cuts

Unison battle bus. ‘We’ve had enough. It’s time to say no,’ said one member

Published: 20 October 2011
by WILLIAM MCLENNAN and RICHARD OSLEY

LABOUR councillors in Camden are set to take a different line on strike action from their national leadership and back union members who want to protest over public service cuts and pension changes.

While party leader Ed Miliband has famously irritated unions by not supporting strike action nationally, Labour members in Camden are working on a council motion that would acknowledge the drive by some members of the Town Hall workforce to take industrial action.

Labour members will ask councillors at the next full council meeting to agree that “while regretting the potential implications for local residents and service users of industrial action, the council recognises that trade union members have an entirely legitimate grievance in a dispute that is not of their making and that such action would only come after an extensive balloting process”.

Councillors in neighbouring Islington are likely to take a similar stance.

The pledge came as members of Unison, the best-represented union at the council, toured the borough in a double-decker battle bus on Tuesday to press home their point. They want members to vote “yes” in a ballot on whether to strike or not at the end of November.

Unison claims the changes will increase pension contributions made by public sector workers by as much as 50 per cent and increase the retirement age beyond 65.

Phoebe Watkins, Camden Unison branch chairwoman, said: “This is about the government taxing working people and making the public sector pay.

It’s not about a pension fund not being able to afford it. If nobody paid into our pension fund for the next 20 years it would still pay out our pensions no problem at all.”

The union’s battle bus stopped at Camden Town Hall, University College Hospital and Westminster Kingsway College, to raise support for the strikes.

Philip Lewis, of Camden Unison, said: “We’ve had enough. They’ve attacked us in every way. It’s time to say no.

“It’s time to take action and show this government they don’t have a majority and they don’t have a mandate.”

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Comments

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2011-10-20 18:18.

Councils defending local government pensions

Islington Labour Councillors have taken a similar stance to our colleagues in Camden. We passed a motion to that effect at our council meeting on 6th October and our council leader Catherine West has written to Danny Alexander in protest at the proposed imposition of a government tax on local government pension scheme. Staff contributions are set to increase by 50%, but the money will be clawed back by the Treasury, so the pension fund will not benefit.

The average pension paid under the scheme is £4,000 and the average pension paid to female staff is just £2,600. These pensions are not gold plated or over generous as government ministers' spin might indicate.

It is likely that a large number of staff will leave the local government pension scheme rather than pay this tax. This may well turn the fund's deficit into an immediate problem requiring additional contributions from council tax rather than a problem to be solved over the next 15-20 years.

The government's proposals are economically illiterate as well as unfair and we are opposing them because they are likely to have a negative effect on local taxpayers as well as our staff.

Cllr Richard Greening
Deputy Leader of Islington Council