Fired and Rehired: Shropshire Council SACKS 6,500 Workers

All 6,500 Shropshire County Council employees have been sent 90 – day redundancy notices last week, informing them that from the 1st October this year, they will effectively be fired and rehired on dramatically reduced terms and conditions, including a 5.4% pay cut and the withdrawal of sick pay and holiday benefits.

The vicious and draconian proposals echo those which have been proposed have attracted wide-spread criticism from many, including Tory councillor and former Mayor of Shrewsbury David Farmer, who has called on Council Leader Keith Barrow and Chief Executive Kim Ryley to resign “for sending such letters.” The proposals will affect every single worker at the council, and many believe they will be as much as £3000 worse off each year.

Alan James, branch secretary of Shrewsbury UNISON, has said of the proposals: “The plans put forward by the Tory council, led by Leader Keith Barrow and Chief Executive Kim Ryley, represent an unprecedented attack on council staff. The council claims that this is the only way to save enough money to stop compulsory redundancies, but we know they have already earmarked £13million of taxpayers’ money for a “rainy day” slush fund. We believe that these attacks are unnecessary as it is clear that the council have the resources to offer us a much better deal. The real purpose of these proposals is to undermine the terms and conditions of council workers and make us more attractive to private sector vultures such as SERCO Group. Our members are simply not prepared to accept these proposals and we are intending to ballot for industrial action.”

Chief Executive of the council, Kim Ryley, will be well known to anyone from Hull. Before becoming the first full-time Chief Executive ever at Shropshire County Council, he was one of the highest paid local government officials in the country, when he held the position of Chief Executive at Hull City Council, earning in excess of £200,000 per year and overseeing huge spending cuts.

Given that this tactic has also been used recently in Southampton, it is clear that the tactic of “fire and rehire” is one that we can expect other councils to employ in the future. This disgraceful treatment of public sector workers cannot be allowed to take place, and the entire trade union movement, in both the public and private sector, should offer solidarity and support to council workers in Shropshire, Southampton and anywhere else that these proposals are put forward. Council workers did not cause this crisis – they should not be made to pay for it with their hard won terms and conditions.

Sam Morecroft, GMB

30th June Shrewsbury Picket Line Report

On Thursday the 30^th June, some of the strongest and most determined picket lines in decades could be seen all over Shropshire, as striking public sector workers closed schools, colleges and local government offices in protest against the savage public sector pension cuts threatened by the ConDem coalition. Many workers on picket lines commented that June 30^th marked the most significant industrial action that Shrewsbury has seen, and that the strikes would act as a springboard for a 24-hour public sector general strike in the autumn.

At Copthorne barracks, striking PCS workers were upbeat and confident that the majority of the public supported the stikes – and who could blame them when even armed forces officers brought out tea and coffee to the pickets, and stood with them in solidarity! Russell Davies, Chair of Shrewsbury MoD PCS branch,  was keen to make clear that “The PCS is striking today not just against pension cuts, but also against a proposed two year pay freeze combined with 25,000 redundancies. We refuse to give up one day’s pay per month in order to work longer and get less. This government is taxing our members to pay for the mess the bankers made.”

At Shrewsbury Sixth Form College, strike action by NUT members shut the college down completely. The NUT representative for the college told us “I am not a militant – I am a professional who has dedicated 15 years of my life to my colleagues, to my students and to education. To expect me to take a three year pay freeze and pay an extra 3% pension contribution whilst working more and getting less is totally unacceptable. The government says we are all in this together – that is clearly not the case.”

PCS members from West Midlands HMRC branch were upbeat about the public response to the strike, saying that members of the public had been very supportive. One PCS member stated very clearly; “I have worked in HMRC for 31 years. I’ve earned my pension, and this ConDem coalition is undervaluing me as a worker.”

At a lunch time rally attended by around 120 trade unionists at Salop UNISON club, Sam Morecroft from the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign addressed the meeting, and pointed out how powerful a statement the forthcoming Jarrow March for Jobs would now make, if it took place against the backdrop of a public sector general strike. The enthusiastic response of the workers present spoke volumes for the anger and determination on show, with one NUT member expressing her pride in “the willingness of our young people to fight against austerity”.

The determined mood of the strikers, and the constant assertions that Thursday was “only the beginning” shows clearly that the organised working class knows the power it can potentially wield through coordinated strike action – and is ready to do so. Workers also saw that if these cuts are to be stopped, they must be stopped without the help of Ed Milliband and the Labour Party, who shamefully criticised the strikes. As trade unionists, we must redouble our calls for co-ordinated action against savage attacks on the pay, terms and conditions of public sector workers. For a 24-hour public sector general strike!

New Shropshire NSSN Leaflet

The latest Shropshire NSSN leaflet, for free distribution amongst all local trade union activists. Please email us at shropshirenssn@gmail.com to join our mailing list!

Shropshire NSSN – Public Meeting Monday 4th July 2011

STOP THE PENSIONS THEFT AND FIGHT THE CUTS

– “WHAT WAY FORWARD?”

Public Meeting – All Welcome

Hobbs Room, Shrewsbury Library

Monday 4th July 7.30pm

Speakers: Local Trade Union and Youth Fight for

Jobs activists

The National Shop Stewards Network invites all who want to stop these vicious ConDem cuts to come to the first Shropshire NSSN meeting.

Bankers and bosses, city speculators and landlords, all are determined to drive down our pay and living conditions. Big bosses and their political representatives are hell-bent on snatching back all the benefits we have won over generations. A decade of poverty wages – and all that privatisation means – faces us.

This meeting is aimed at hammering out a fighting strategy now – one that does not simply wait in vain for trade union leaders to take on the struggle, or await the return of a Labour Government. We will develop -our own strategy in discussion with all those who want to fight the cuts, and agree the next step – we then need to organise to do it.

These cuts are going to condemn whole generations to poor wages, reduced local services and privatisation.  There is already proposal to move inadequate resources and services from Shrewsbury to Telford Hospital, to facilitate savings in the NHS.  We do not want more re-organisation – we want more funds for our front-line services. 

Those of us who support the NSSN agree that all cuts in PENSIONS, SERVICES and JOBS are unacceptable and should be fought against.  Any politician, including Labour Councillors who put their hands up to vote through a cuts budget, is clearly siding with the CON-DEM Government in attacking ordinary people. 

 
What is the NSSN?

The NSSN was set up by the RMT in 2007 to help to re-vitalise unions from the bottom up. It consists of bona fide trade union reps “offering support to trade unions in their campaigns and disputes.” NSSN Conference 2010, a few days after Osborne’s emergency budget, agreed to broaden out to strengthen joint work with local anti-cuts campaigns, and community actions, to forge a serious challenge to cuts in jobs and services.

Our strategy is clear – to support a federation of Local trade union branches, regional or national trade union committees, trades councils ~ workplace representatives, local and national campaigns against cuts and privatisation, tenants’ bodies, student union bodies from schools, colleges and universities, pensioners unions in fighting against the cuts.