Well 55% of UNISON members working in Local Government who voted in the ballot, voted for sustained industrial action. I was one of the 55% and I know many of my colleagues who have not been keen on losing a chunk of their salary before also voted YES because they are fed up with below inflation pay rises. One of my colleagues said that her gas bills had increased so much that she was paying £1000 a year and both she and her partner are out all day and unlike to me go to bed at a decent time. I commute to Blackpool using the trains and I have seen increasing costs every few months but no improved service. My gas and electricty has risen so much I try and avoid the meters being read. And as for food I try and avoid buying it.
At Blackpool, we still have not completed our pay reviews because the employers will not agree the pay spine on the basis that they do not want to increase the council tax. So we are still in limbo with that not knowing whether our salaries are going to decrease or increase. They reckon it will not be agreed in this financial year.
Union Futures has blogged that the NJC have agreed to strijke action and confirmed that the 16th and 17th will be the dates for industrial action. (Dependant on the ballot results, it will be the 18th in Scotland). However, we still have to see what the Industrial Action Committee says on Friday.
Tory leader David Cameron warned the government it was going to have to be "extremely tough" on unions to avert a wave of strikes. He said Labour was "so reliant" on unions for funding they felt they had a "stranglehold" over the party and could "dictate terms". And he backed tough action on strikes as they "rarely achieve their goal", he said.
If that was the case, we wouldn't be going on stike would we, duh! A taster of the anti-trde union laws that will put back in place should Shameron get in power.
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