The unions dip their toe into the water

It’s strange to think of the biggest, national walkout for years as a prelude to something even larger — but that’s how some of the union bosses would have it today. Schools are shutting, civil servants are downing their keyboards, UK Border Agency staff are pausing their vigilant watch over our shores, and all the while the talk is of more to come. Christine Blower, the head of the NUT, tells the Times (£) that today is the “first phase” of a “coordinated campaign”. Mark Serwotka — who appeared opposite Francis Maude on the Today Progamme earlier — warned yesterday that these are just the “opening skirmishes,” and that, “If you won’t talk to us we will ensure the next national strike has three to four million of us.”

Which, really, is what will make today so instructive. Blower is using the word “momentum” to describe how other unions are being swept up for the Big Push later this year, but momentum can operate in different directions. Already, other union leaders are expressing their concerns, with one suggesting, again to the Times (£), that Serwotka’s PCS union is impaired by “hard-left leadership”. And then there’s the public, who may look on sceptically at today’s agitations. If it becomes even clearer that popular opinion is heavily weighted against Blower, Serwotka & Co, then it will make the wisdom of further strikes even more questionable — and perhaps dissaude those union members who are holding back from the fray for now.

In the meantime, the government is clearly happy to wait and see. There are subtle threats, every so often, that they may recourse to the sort of strike legislation that Boris has been promoting. But, on the whole, they are wary of provoking the brothers even further. So long as the unions are divided on industrial action, or fighting only for their pension packages, then the coalition can say that they are not all in this together.