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Scotland still needs fair pay

Pressure is building among civil and public-service workers who’ve endured a raw deal for far too long, says LYNN HENDERSON

From June 12-30, members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) are participating in a national consultative ballot to support our campaign for a fair pay rise. 

Last month our annual delegate conference voted overwhelmingly to call on our members to vote Yes to join forces with a million public-sector workers in possible co-ordinated strike action on July 10. 

Our aim is for PCS members across civil and public services to take action alongside local government workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. 

This may grow in the autumn to include health, education and other public-sector workers in the build-up to the October 18 national demonstrations in London and Scotland.

Scottish ministers too have sought to lock civil and public servants across Scottish government areas into a two-year pay cap, but PCS will not sign up to a 1 per cent pay cap for members whether it is George Osborne or John Swinney holding the key. 

The PCS pay claim is for 5 per cent or £1,200 a year. This is a modest claim, around £20 a week, when viewed against prices that have risen by 16 per cent, essential bills by 25 per cent and food costs by 19 per cent between 2007 and 2011. 

The Scottish government’s white paper on independence states on page 365: “Good-quality public services require well-motivated and fairly rewarded workforces with a genuine sense of service to their community.” 

Nice words, but unfortunately the “fair reward” that its own workers currently receive is the same austerity pay punishment doled out by the Tory-led coalition in Westminster. 

Swinney, like Labour finance ministers before him Tom McCabe and Jack McConnell, chooses to merely place a tartan cover over the Westminster Cabinet Office’s headline pay mantra, and it is the workers and their families that suffer. Independence or not, Scottish public servants deserve fair pay, and Scottish ministers have the power to make the difference before September 18.

For now, in Scotland at least, PCS members may stand alone on July 10, albeit with strong messages of solidarity and class unity from all sectors of the Scottish trade union movement. 

However there is a growing demand across the Scottish public sector that we all need a pay rise. 

Scottish local government employers may think they have locked workers into a two-year pay deal, but Unison is balloting its local government members on their 2014 pay. 

The Educational Institute of Scotland is seeking discussions with the STUC and local government unions for a “common restorative pay claim” to balance out pay freezes and below-inflation rises in recent years.

Unless the Scottish government makes some serious commitments to meet our claim and put an end to the four-year pay squeeze, then in the final countdown to the independence referendum, it may find that its own workforce is out on the streets demanding fair pay. 

But it is not just the existing Westminster and Scottish administrations we need to influence. 

With SNP and Scottish Labour sticking to the same austerity budget caps for the foreseeable future, we have a real battle on our hands to restore public-sector pay to acceptable levels. 

Steely intensification of class solidarity and trade union collective action are required.

We all need a pay rise — whatever the outcome of the Scottish referendum. 

 

Lynn Henderson is Scottish secretary of PCS Scotland.

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