Scottish councils impose 3 years of pay cuts

we can haz no paycut plz

The placards, headlines and banners have been screaming about cuts, austerity measures and swingeing job cuts for what seems like ages now. We’ve all known that there’s a pending apocalypse coming our way – insert comparison about it being the worst attack on the working class since Thatcher/WWII/THE BEGINNING OF TIME  here – for ages, but when it actually comes to visualising it, it can be pretty difficult. There’s so many different facts, figures and quotes being thrown around all over the place, that it can be hard to know what’s mere speculation, what could be a government red herring, and what’s actually going on – so much so, that ‘the cuts’ can actually seem pretty remote and distant at the moment, something we can all hope surely wont be as bad as everyone’s saying it will be, or at least wont affect me personally, right?

Not so any longer for Scotland’s 150,000 council workers, who’ve just been hit with a non-negotiable “deal” by COSLA (consortium of stupid stupid stupid local authorities), the organisation that represents all of Scotland’s councils together, which effectively amounts to three years of pay cuts.

Initially, trade unions had approached COSLA asking for a 3% rise this year.  In real terms, this isn’t a pay rise at all – it’s just keeping up with inflation, currently hovering at just over 3%. But full of rhetoric about “tightening their belts” and the need for “public sector pay restraint”, the local authorities got back and offered  a 1% rise this year, a pay freeze in 2011, and an 0.5% rise in 2012. The unions put this to their members and it was quite rightly rejected, and with this mandate, they returned to the negotiating table hoping for a better offer.

Alas, COSLA had a better idea, so on Friday they tore up their old offer, and came up with a new one that’s even crappier. And what’s worse is that for the first time ever they’ve made imposed the offer and refused any further negotiations. Local authority workers across Scotland – encompassing cleansing workers, social services, roads, libraries and everyone else except teachers – can now expect an 0.65% increase this year, and a pay freeze in 2011 and 2012. With inflation well above this and liable to rise, this offer effectively amounts to a significant cut in wages, which the ConDems’ VAT rise, coming into effect in February, will only add to.

Wage cuts don’t have to be inevitable though, despite the propaganda of the capitalist press and the government who insist that we’ve “all got to share” the burden of the er, massive bank bail-outs and global recession that we er, didn’t cause. It remains to be seen how much will there is within the local authority trade unions – the main three being Unison, Unite and the GMB – to take action against the cuts. Sources have told Leftfield that in the current climate with huge fears over job security in the public sector, there persists a reluctance among large sections of the workforce to take industrial action. This reluctance only plays into the hands of the bosses though, who can then impose any pay offer they want, as they just have, assured that they wont have to suffer any consequences through industrial action.

There’s an urgent need for a movement to grow to resist the cuts. Above and beyond this latest measure  to slash pay for thousands of low paid council workers across Scotland, the Westminster government spending review – revealed in October – will paint a fuller picture of the cuts to come. In an ideal situation, there’d be unofficial walkouts at council offices and depots across the country next week, and official action over the next few months. Whether we can summon more than a demo at the end of October will depend on the ability of activists within the union movement to convince the workforce that they can fight and win on this issue – and whatever they come after next, be it pensions, holiday entitlement or jobs!