“What we want to do, at the present time, is to start fighting back and putting money into our members’ pockets,” said Jane Carolan of the NEC, introducing a composite on pay.
As UNISON’s national delegate conference entered the final day in Liverpool, an impassioned debate saw delegates pass a detailed plan to challenge low pay and the pay freeze.
Wendy Harris from Tower Hamlets told conference that she is “a low-paid kitchen worker” and that, in spite of originally being told that the Living Wage was “illegal” because of procurement rules, they finally won it.
Anne McCormack of St Helens College told delegates of the rise of child poverty – and how many of these children are living in working households.
It was, she said, an indication of the widespread nature of low pay. Tax credits and in-work benefits have “effectively subsidised employers from the public purse,” she said, adding that we need a return to an ethos of “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”.
She also cited mass underemployment and wage stagnation, describing such things as being intended to create a “compliant” workforce.
Dave Auger of West Midlands said that “giving us 1% is like throwing a feather to a drowning man”.
Introducing a motion on regional and local pay threats, Lynne Booth, from East Midlands told delegates: “This coalition makes no secret of the fact that they want to break our national pay bargaining … they want to divide and conquer.”
“Once again, it’s money and opportunity for the fat cats.”
She pointed out that large national companies do not organise their pay on regional lines. The only reason that it was being pushed for the public services was as a way of destroying those services, she added.
A delegate from Barnet UNISON described the attempts of Barnet’s council to introduce local pay as “a crude mechanism to break up the workforce.”
Delegates called on the national executive to “continue the national campaign, working with service groups and regions, to oppose coalition plans for regional and local public sector pay systems and further fragmentation of public sector pay.”
A motion on fighting localised pay in the National Health Service saw delegates reaffirmed the union’s commitment to “a truly National Health Service.”
“They thought we in the South West would be a pushover – well what a shock they got,” said a delegate from that region.