It seems that some staff have got it into their heads that we shouldn't demand a decent pay rise this year because of the economic crisis. In fact, the opposite is true: in hard economic times, we need a decent rise more than ever.
It was not us who created the financial mess. It was caused by bankers following the logic of the profit-obsessed capitalist system and indulging in a speculation frenzy until the bubble burst. We should not pay the price of an economic crisis that we did not make!
Further, although spin doctors keep repeating the mantra that we all have to settle for less because of the crisis, they don't explain why – because there is actually no logic to this. How does us going without help save anyone else's job? Or help revive the economy?!
Gordon Brown tells us that to revive the economy, people have to spend more. If he wants us to spend more, we need the money to spend!
Should we temper our demands because other workers are losing their jobs? No – those 'other workers' could be our partners, kids, other family members, so they will rely on our incomes more than ever.
<><><>
Perhaps there is no money for us to have a substantial rise? There is enough money for the government to bail out the banks to the tune of billions of pounds!
If we got to look at TfL’s books, then we would find shedloads of money going on bailouts of infracos, paying lawyers to haggle over contracts, and inflated salaries for fat cats. We did not sanction these payments, so we should not lose out because of them.
Even if TfL is in financial trouble, the answer is not to hold back workers' wages but to reintegrate it into a single, publicly-owned body, democratically run to prevent waste such as this, and with adequate public funding to provide a decent service and pay its staff what we deserve.
<><><>
Some people say that the unions 'shouldn't act like it is the 1970s' and should 'join the modern world' – meaning that we should link arms with the bosses and not strike. Well, a union did just that at Nissan when it set up its first factory in Sunderland in 1986. The AUEW – one of the forerunners of Amicus then Unite – signed a no-strike deal and signed up to the 'modern' idea that 'partnership' with the employer was the way forward.
Then what happened? Last week, Nissan announced that it will cut 1,200 jobs at the factory, around a quarter of the workforce. Unite now appears powerless to resist this jobs massacre, and could only do so if it completely abandoned its 'modern' approach.
