19.10.2005

No to pensions sell-out

Trade union bureaucrats have sacrificed future workers in their 'deal' with the government. Workers must fight back, says Peter Manson

Virtually all the fighting talk disappeared overnight, as public sector trade union bureaucrats collapsed into ignominious retreat over pensions earlier this week. At the Trade Union Congress in September we heard how 13 different unions, representing more than three million public sector workers, would engage in the biggest industrial action since the 1926 general strike if the government pressed ahead with its attacks. Yet on October 18 we saw that this was all so much hot air. Union representatives on the public services forum, which negotiates with the government, agreed to recommend a deal raising the retirement age for new workers in the civil service, NHS and education from 60 to 65. All they have won in exchange is a temporary truce in the assault on existing members' pension rights. Most union tops have been trumpeting the fact that the government has pulled back from its original plans to phase in the same change in the age of retirement for current employees by 2013. But now existing members will "suffer no detriment in their pension arrangements", according to the TUC. Trade and industry secretary Alan Johnson hailed the deal as a "breakthrough". The "normal pension age in education, health and the civil service will be 65 for new entrants from next year," he crowed. Ten years ago Johnson was joint general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, but, like so many others before him, he has crossed effortlessly to the other side of the negotiating table. He is much more comfortable removing hard won conditions for working people than he ever was trying to improve them. Unison general secretary Dave Prentis engaged in some mutual backslapping with the government, which had "honoured its pensions contract with the nation's healthworkers". Current workers will have "lifetime protection of their existing pensions provision, including their retirement age," he swaggered. The fate of new recruits is clearly of no concern to the union leaders, who are already talking of the (as yet unratified) agreement as a fait accompli and demanding the same "protection" for local government workers. In fact final details have to be negotiated for every sector, with only the main outline of each scheme covered by the deal. The unions are claiming that pensions for new entrants will continue to be index-linked with defined benefits, but after this sell-out who knows what else might be given away? Without the slightest hint of irony, the bureaucrats are boasting that new workers will still have the option to retire at 60 - if they pay for the extra years themselves through deductions from their pay. What a joke. According to Peter Allenson, Transport and General Workers Union national secretary for public services, "The threat of strike action is now on the back burner." Joining in the general congratulations at having negotiated this disgraceful deterioration in the conditions of future members, he said: "This set of principles is welcome progress towards tackling the pension pressure in the public sector with fairness all round" - unless you are a new entrant, of course. What about the left leadership of the Public and Commercial Services Union? Surely the PCSU has made a stand against this climbdown? Not a bit of it. Its statement "heralded an agreement with the government that secures the pensions of three million people working in the civil service, health and education as a significant achievement. The agreement follows a series of hard won talks and a joint campaign by public sector unions, including the threat of industrial action, and means that existing pension scheme members won't be forced to work longer to receive their expected pension, as the government originally proposed." So all the PCSU can boast about is having achieved "hard won talks" and placed the burden of an extra five years of wage-slavery exclusively on future union members. PCSU general secretary Mark Serwotka is quoted as saying: "Those people delivering passports, driving licences, the new deal, as well as those protecting our shores from drugs, no longer face having to work an extra five years to get their expected pension. And for future civil and public servants defined benefit schemes have been protected, as well as securing the choice to retire at 60." Some "choice". Serwotka attempted to keep up militant appearances with the claim that "public sector workers have shown that they have been willing to stand up to protect their pensions and there should be no doubt that, should the need arise, they will be willing to do so again." Clearly he thinks there is no such "need" any longer - who's worried about new recruits? They won't know any better, will they? The PCSU national executive will be meeting in the near future to discuss the proposed agreement and it remains to be seen whether members of the EC - dominated by the Socialist Party in England and Wales - will go along with their general secretary. PCSU president Janice Godrich is a member of the SP's Committee for a Workers' International in Scotland and is undoubtedly the most high-profile SPEW/CWI member in the PCSU. In an interview with The Socialist last month, she trustingly called for the TUC to be allowed to coordinate a common union response to the government's attacks on public sector pensions. Well, it has done so and is now in the process of coordinating a sell-out. Comrade Godrich told the SP weekly: "The right to dignity and financial security in retirement lies at the heart of a decent society. The fear of poverty and the isolation and anxiety this brings makes many people angry. Members of PCS have been told by their employer for many years that low pay rates are compensated by a decent pension. Now even this is under threat. Members see all their plans for their future at risk" (The Socialist September 22). Again, we have to ask, does this determination to defend pension rights apply to future as well as current members? Will comrade Godrich and other members of left groups tell Serwotka and his public services forum negotiators where to get off when the EC meets? They should follow the lead of the GMB union, whose EC met after the public services forum ended and accepted the recommendation of its public services national secretary, Brian Strutton, not to ratify the agreement. He said: "The protection that this deal brings to two million public sector workers comes at a price which is to concede worse terms, based on a retirement age of 65, for new starters. This creates two-tier pensions in public services, which GMB has campaigned vigorously against. We will continue to fight for the rights of all public service workers - past, present and future." A similar point was made by Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union. Interviewed on Radio Five Live on October 17, comrade Wrack said it was simply not acceptable to have two firefighters trying to put out a blaze side by side and yet one has to suffer much worse terms and conditions than the other. The FBU is not part of the public services forum arrangement, and negotiations over the local government and firefighters' pension scheme are said to be "nowhere near as advanced". So we will have to see whether the FBU maintains its militant stance further along the line. For the moment, then, the GMB is "out on a limb", according to a union source. The hope was expressed by an official that the executives of the other unions will overturn the recommendations of their negotiators. Quite right - they should reject it out of hand. And the PCSU should be the first to bring their general secretary to book. After all, here we have a union that is actually led by a section of the revolutionary left. Now the Socialist Party has the opportunity to show the way. The rush to sign up for this sell-out is a prime example of the short-term sectionalism of the union bureaucracy. Far from looking to serve the interests of the whole class, they always try to satisfy the narrowly defined claims of the few. If their own particular audience will buy the deal, that is all that matters. Even those who will become civil servants, healthworkers or teachers in just a few months time can go to hell. So why in that case should new entrants join unions that have already written them off as less worthy of protection? According to Johnson, the unions (apart from the GMB, presumably) "accepted all the facts about demographic change; they accepted the need to move to 65 as a normal pension age". He rattled out the tired old lie that the cost of running pension schemes can no longer be afforded, because people have been "living longer". Spokespersons for capital have been clamouring for a reduction in pension rights across the board - starting right now. Predictably they condemned the government for not attacking hard enough. David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, raged: "This deal is unacceptable from the standpoint of British business. The government needed to grasp the nettle and increase the public sector retirement age for existing employees on a sliding scale. They have failed to do this." Meanwhile Tory trade and industry spokesperson David Willets was also thinking of the needs of British capital as a whole. He slated the government for 'caving in' to union pressure: "There is a growing divide between public and private sector pensions which cannot be sustained. At this rate it could take 40 years for the public sector retirement age to rise. The Arctic ice cap is melting more rapidly than the government is reforming public sector pensions." This is the dismal future promised us by bourgeois politicians - work longer for worse conditions. By contrast we need to frame our own, working class, response. What the defenders of capital say their system can afford is not our concern. We must fight for what we need - in the full and certain knowledge that current capacity for wealth-creation could provide, right now, a full and decent life for every person on the planet.