organising to meet the challenge

Organising to Meet the Challenge

Presentation by John Stevenson to Branch Committee Seminar Sept 2010

Challenges we face from the Coalition Government are fundamental:-

•Cuts and privatisation. Ideological opposition to public services

•Co-ordinated lobby to cut pay and pensions

•Concerted plans to undermine trade union rights and organisation.

•Explicit rolling back of the welfare state.

•Strategy designed to make changes irreversible Organising to Meet the Challenge

Compiled by UNISON City of Edinburgh Branch

With information from Scottish Committee Seminar

And thanks to a presentation by UNISON East Midlands Region

Key terms

• National debt The net total borrowing by government, i.e. the total amount owed by government

• Deficit If government spends more than the money it takes in during a fiscal year there is a deficit

• Gross domestic product (GDP) The total value of a nation's output, income, or expenditure produced within its physical boundaries


Budget June 2010

• Deficit reduction of £52bn by 2015/16

• Made up 85% spending cuts, 15% tax increases

• 25% cuts (over 4 years) across gov’t depts - apart from health and overseas aid which are “protected”

• In Scotland between 12.5% and 20% (40% on capital spend) next year depending on health settlement. LOCAL CUTS WILL BE GREATER!


The Chancellor said the Budget was….

• Unavoidable

• Progressive

• And “we’re all in this together”

Let’s see if that is true…….


Progressive? The poor suffer most


Q: Is the national debt too high?A: No, not compared to historic levels


How to lie with statistics –making the debt look worse


But no-one would really do that, would they?This was from Daily Telegraph 18 June 2009

Note the graph only shows ONE YEAR along the bottom


Another way to look at what The Telegraph did…….


So, we’ve seen that the right wing media distort the facts about the national debt and what it means.

Now let’s look at the deficit ……


What is the deficit?

• Current deficit This was around £156bn for 09/10 (in the 2009 budget it was predicted at £175bn so it is better than expected)

• Why has this happened? Is it too much spending and not enough income? Or Is it the right amount of spending but not enough income?


Deficit got bigger in 2009/10 by £132bn

At least health is protected!

Not really…….. • Health – Scottish govt say 2.5% real terms

growth • But health inflation 4–5% • Cuts already happening. BMA survey of

doctors in June 2010: 24% said redundancies were planned 62% said there was a recruitment freeze 42% were limiting prescribing 40% were limiting access to treatments


So what do the cuts mean?

• Some areas of public sector will vanish, other areas will be slashed

• Around 20% job losses across public sector over 4 years • Huge impact on private sector as the public sector (and the

sacked workers) spend less in economy • We won’t get out of recession and then more cuts will come• We face the biggest cuts to public services ever seen.• Designed to be permanent reduction in public services. Could

take to 2025 to get back to 2009 spending• The cuts are politically driven – the deficit can be cut with a

fair tax system, investing in services and by waiting for the economy to pick up


What do the experts say?

• ALL of the G20 countries are dealing with the recession through investment – except Britain and Argentina

• Most mainstream economists argue for postponing cuts to deficit until a robust recovery begins

• Plan to return to surplus by 2015 is ‘pointless’ (New

York Times) especially when it could cost a million jobs


Economists who previously predicted the crash are saying the cuts will damage the economy……..

• In 2008 Prof David Blanchflower said “something horrible” was going to happen with the economy. Of the Budget he says: – “this unnecessary and dangerous budget will push the

economy back into recession.”

• In October 2006 Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz said there would be a crash “ within 24 months.” Now he says : – “we're now looking at a long, hard, slow recovery…. if

everybody cuts back at the same time.”

• Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman (who also predicted the crash) recently said:

– “Spend now, while the economy remains depressed; save later, once it has recovered. How hard is that to understand?”


There is an alternative – raise income • Robin Hood Tax on the banks = £30bn • Airline Duty = £3bn • Tax Treatment of Pension contributions for the wealthy = £5bn • Deal with tax avoidance = £33bn • 25% of top companies pay no Corporation Tax at all but should

be paying around £285m (Google £1.6bn = 0 – Arcadia Phillip Green £1.2bn = 0)

• A one-off 20% tax on the richest 10% would give £800bn! (Greg Philo guardian.co.uk, Sunday 15 August 2010)

• And finally, when the economy picks up tax receipts will

increase by well over £60bn • The money is there – it’s just in the wrong hands!


http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Key messages• Cuts driven by ideology not economics• Nothing inevitable about cuts – does not make economic sense • For every £1 earned by public service worker 70p goes back into

local economy • Economy depends on healthy public sector – cuts risk a double dip

recession • No private/public divide. Private sector depends on public sector

contracts. For every 1 public sector job lost, at least 1 lost in private sector.

• Hit the poorest far more than the rich – we are not ‘all in this together’ • After war deficit at least three times (at peak 5 times) higher yet

we built the NHS and the Welfare State



Obstacles to campaigning:-

•Survey: Most members believe there is waste in public services•Half believe huge cuts needed because of national debt•Despite LG pay ballot, it is likely many members believe pay restraint needed because of financial situation•While membership levels holding, density not good enough•Lack of activists and lack of engagement/ involvement•Diffuse campaigning•ConDems winning the propaganda war?

What we face in Edinburgh

• Up to £100m in cuts (10%) over three years – might even be 12.5%-20%, ie almost double!

• Service prioritisation – whole services withdrawn, compulsory redundancy a reality – and that only saves £16 million over three years

• Possible 3,500 jobs to be privatised• Scale of cuts almost unimaginable. How do we get

the message through to members?

• How do we build confidence to act together?


What can we do?


•Recruit – resistance/action no good without strength in the first place

•Organise – how do we get stewards and get them organising members?

•Educate – what are the tools we need for the job?

•Involve – how do we get members involved in campaigns and ready to take action?

Recruit


• Edinburgh Branch membership up 61 since 2008. Lothian Health Branch up almost 1,000

• Last figures show UNISON has recruited highest number of members for 5 years – but also lost the highest number

•We have 140+ stewards but only 55 accredited at June 2010

• Need 70+ new members a month to stand still

• If every steward recruited one member a month, we would have almost 10,000 members least 60% density – real power!

Organise


• Steward’s role

• Staff role – can we move focus from admin to organising? Do we need all the meetings we have? Do we need all the circulations we have?

• Balance between representing and organising

• How do we make meetings more relevant – only 2 or 3 stewards’ committees actually meet

• With time-off issues, when do we have them?

• How do we get more face to face with members?

Educate


• Getting the key messages across to members

• Supporting stewards/reps/contacts

• Investing in our stewards. More local courses/seminars. Better surroundings – provide lunch etc.

• Skills, confidence

Involve


• Getting members involved in campaigns/action

• Getting stewards involved – less time at meetings, more for organising

• Stewards meetings as part of Branch Committee?

• Branch Officers going out regularly to stewards meetings and to workplaces?

Now let’s get on with it!


organising to meet the challenge

Documents

deficit organising

government deficit

worse organising

spending cuts

deficit reduction

local cuts

current deficit

areas of public sector