Unions are vital in today’s climate of ‘I’m All Right Jack’
11:24am Wednesday 26th October 2011 in Comment
I WOULD like to say it would be very easy to enter into a private versus public sector worker ethic debate, however, like most things in life it is not that simple.
I have been a front line public sector worker for 39 years, first in the NHS as a nurse and for the last 25 years as a housing worker in Local Government.
I currently represent 6,000 UNISON members who work in the private, voluntary and public sectors.
I am familiar with working practices and conditions of service in a wide variety of employment but do not recognise the terms referred to by your anonymous contributor; “turneruppers“, “slackers“ and “performers“ and that the public sector is “full of slackers or at best turner uppers“.
At best this is a generalisation and at worst an insult to the overwhelming majority of dedicated workers who nurse the sick, teach the young, care for the elderly, police our community, put out the fires, ambulance the injured, bury the dead, clean the streets etc.
Your anonymous contributor states we don’t need unions “as a good employee negotiates his own deal”. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of shop workers office cleaners, construction workers or those care assistants at Southern Cross. Their bosses frequently treat them as commodities in the pursuit of profit whilst evading the taxes that PAYE workers are required to pay. The minimum wage legislation was introduced as a direct result of unscrupulous employers paying less than they could afford. For those workers in a trade union whether private or public sector, earnings are on average 8 percent higher.
Employees are likely to get more holidays better training, more maternity or paternal leave and less likely to get injured or be discriminated against.
Public Sector bodies are required to have pay policies which are fair and transparent. This law does not extend to the private sector which I assume your contributor supports, preferring to negotiate his/her own pay in the secrecy of the golf club no doubt. This kind of individual negotiation is why 40 years after the Equal Pay Act, women working full-time in the UK are still paid on average 15.5 per cent less per hour than men.
In response to the comment that “it’s the not my job mentality”
that led to the demise of manufacturing industry is pure fiction. Manufacturing declined as a result of cheaper overseas labour and the policies of successive governments including the reliance on the financial sector as our saviour.
And there are only two words to describe the current state of the economy “bankers’ greed”.
And finally with regards to pensions and the allegation the bin men and council workers don’t pay towards their pension.
This is yet another myth in the secret, dog eat dog, I’m all right jack, world of your anonymous letter writer.
Bernadette Gallagher Branch Secretary Bolton UNISON
