Francis Maude presents himself as a man trying to help the unions out in today’s Financial Times. Some unions say they have to go ahead with strikes on November 30 – even
though negotiations on pension changes are still going on – or else they’d lose their mandate for any future strikes and have to conduct a whole new ballot.
Wagging an almost parental finger, Maude tells the unions:
But he’s clear that it must be a token strike and no more, again couching his warning in ‘it’s for your own good’ terms:‘You shouldn’t have got yourself into this mess but we’re willing to help you out because we want to protect the public. I can’t imagine any employer in the public sector would say if you have a token strike of a quarter of an hour during the day which doesn’t affect public services, you lose a day’s pay.’
On this claim – that the government has public opinion on its side – Maude is backed up by last week’s YouGov poll. It shows fairly strong support for asking public sector workers to pay more towards their pensions (51 per cent say it’s ‘right’, 35 per cent ‘wrong’) and linking pensions to average rather than final salaries (49-30). On the third main prong of the reforms – raising the pension age – the respondents are split fairly evenly (44-45).‘The public will find it absolutely intolerable if on November 30 public services are severely disrupted by strike action about negotiations which have not yet been completed and where the public is increasingly sympathetic to the government’s case.’
Most importantly, the public is against strikes over the proposed changes, with 53 per cent opposed and just 31 per cent in support. Given this, union bosses may be wise to heed Maude’s advice.
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