A NATIONAL strike bigger than the General Strike of 1926 moved closer to reality yesterday after the biggest union said that it would ballot within weeks unless the Government honoured a pre-election pledge not to raise the retirement age of council workers.
Unison said that it would ballot about a million of its 1.3 million members if the Government did not revoke a parliamentary order paving the way to increase the local government retirement age from 60 to 65 within two weeks.
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A dispute would bring chaos to local government offices, affecting services from rubbish collection to benefit payments and could spread to transport services, higher education colleges and nurseries.
John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, had to back down over pensions before the general election when it became clear that health workers and civil servants were prepared to join the local government workers on a national strike over pensions.
Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison, told the union’s national conference in Glasgow that if the order was not withdrawn by the Government, the union would move straight to a ballot for strike action. He told delegates: “We want you back in your branches organising for the fight of your life. The message from this conference has to be: keep your hands off our pensions.”
Unison has said that 5 million public sector workers could join its industrial action if the Government does not stick to its deal. “This [the pensions issue] is going to be the biggest dispute of this Labour third term,” Mr Prentis said.
Industrial action is likely to spread from local government workers to Unison workers in the transport, health and environment services. The PCS, the Civil Service union, is also supporting Unison. Delegates backed the leader’s call for unity and said that the main public service unions should not allow themselves to be “picked off one by one”.
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Mr Prentis said that he expected Mr Prescott to revoke the order within two weeks. He added: “I am absolutely confident we would win a ‘yes’ vote. The Government does not understand the anger of public sector workers.”
Mr Prentis revealed that Mr Prescott was under huge pressure from the Local Government Association and fund managers of the 87 local government pension schemes not to revoke the order. He said that the Deputy Prime Minister was fighting a “massive rearguard action” against his civil servants and the LGA, who wanted to retain the order that was laid down in December.
Unison is willing to enter discussions with the Government over public sector pensions, once the order is withdrawn, but it wants to see evidence that the pensions schemes are not affordable. “We want to see the evidence on longevity. Longevity amongst manual workers has only increased by one year in the last thirty, yet it is our members who are being asked to pay,” Mr Prentis said.
Mr Prentis praised the Deputy Prime Minister who has held eight meetings to try to resolve the crisis. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister said: “Unison are aware of the tripartite committee meeting next week. That is the proper forum for discussion on this matter.”