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View from Blackpool council strike picket line
IN THE summer of discontent, it's surprising how the honk of a car horn by a passing motorist can raise spirits.Men and women manning public service union Unison's picket line outside Blackpool town hall offer a ragged cheer in response.
They're on the steps of a building which is the symbol of the town's civic pride and Progress motto – but feel they're going backwards, not forwards.
A 48-hour strike is big step to take today. This is not the age of I'm Alright Jack, one out, all out, down tools, comrade, and where's the nearest pub, Brother Militant.
This is the age of being glad to have a job, any job, even if it doesn't keep the wolves from the door.
Last month 15,500 more people claimed Jobseekers' Allowance, the biggest monthly rise in 15 years.
That's before the housing slump hits the dole queue. The UK's biggest housebuilders made 5,000 workers redundant in recent days. In the three months to May, 118,000 jobs went, up 10,000 on the previous quarter.
Strike action is not taken lightly by Unison's members, ordinary men and women struggling to pay mortgages and other bills.
Yet around 3,000 have walked out locally, shutting 16 or so schools to pupils, closing libraries, council offices running on near empty, affecting vital services.
And once the uncollected rubbish, in Fylde and Wyre, starts to stink, public sympathy may begin to sink.
But Unison leaders stress we're all singing from the same hymn sheet – a lament of low pay, not enough cash to pay all the bills, and dire warnings.
Reviews threaten further cutbacks in staff and pay. One union rep tells me one local worker has already been asked to take an 8,000 pay cut. Another warns: "Elsewhere pay reviews have led to 2,000 cuts in salary."
They argue the proposed pay rise of 2.45 per cent, which forced the walk-out, is another cut, coming on top of 10 years of below-inflation pay rises.
It is, says Pete Marsden, full-time trade unionist, former Wakefield journalist, "the last straw."
Those with long memories hark back to the '70s rather than the '90s for the spectre of the recession haunting us now.
"We keep hearing there's no money, but the Government has just spent 4 billion on two new aircraft carriers. In the last three years local government efficiency savings have clawed back 3.5 billion. It's always the lowest paid council workers asked to make sacrifices."
With half a million workers out yesterday, more to come today, Unison's is one of the biggest strikes to hit Britain in years.
General Secretary Dave Prentis says anger has been fuelled by Tuesday's inflation figures.
He hails the industrial action as one of the greatest displays of public outrage since the General Strike of 1926.
The TUC called that one, in support of striking coal miners in northern England, making a stand against an enforced pay cut. "Not a minute on the day, not a penny off the pay," was the slogan.
It ended 10 days later. The Gazette and Herald of Thursday, May 13, was quick to break the news, “Strike Collapse”, for all of three ha’penny, produced by “loyal support accorded by the remainder of our various staffs.”
News broke during a mass meeting on the sands, with several thousand strikers near Central Pier and 1,000 more marching on the Prom, in a great show of solidarity, singing “It’s a long way to Tipperary” – and in the midst of hailstorms, too.
There’s been an equally unseasonal chill this week. Those on the town hall steps, not far from that historic march, huddle over lattes from a nearby coffee house.
Latte? Eeh, lass, says one elderly lady, who wants to know whether her local government “superannuated” will rise as a result of the action. “It was never like this in my day.”
She’s off, with pals, by coach to Skipton for the day, taking in Boundary Mill en route. Good bargain hunting there for pensioners on a tight budget.
Unison’s got the figures: petrol up 22 per cent, milk up 17 per cent, fuel bills up 15 per cent, bread up nine per cent, mortgages up eight per cent, inflation up 4.3 per cent. Try living with that, says housing benefits officer and union representative Trevor Tipton, 52, who has a mortgage, credit cards, three kids, the works.
Trevor’s seen two businesses fold, his guesthouse and his video shop, ended up in 27,000 debt, picked himself up, paid up, ended up evaluating jobs for others at a nuclear plant .
Now, he admits, he’s gamekeeper turned poacher. “You see people with real problems in this job – housing benefits,” he adds.
“I’ve got a job, but at what cost? It’s not keeping pace with the bills. I was born and bred in Blackpool but the town’s in big trouble. My wife works but we can’t remember when we last had a holiday. Our kids are grown up so it should be our time to live and take it easy but it’s a constant struggle and worry.”
Gail Dominik, Unison steward, and a home care worker, is married with three kids, again grown up, and gets paid 8.01 pence an hour. That penny’s important, she says.
She’s on the frontline, enabling people to live independent lives after crises or operations, assisting with toileting, medication, palliative care. Shiftwork too, 7am to 1pm most days, 4pm to 10pm others.
It’s a “vocation”, but she finds it hard to foot bills. “Petrol’s phenomenal and we use our own cars to reach clients. Prices for everything have rocketed. I never used to look at prices before but now we shop at Farm Foods and Morrisons rather than Sainsbury’s.
“We don’t eat out any more, we last had a holiday six years ago, quality of life has plummeted. I need to look after my family, and my pets, on 950 a month take home pay. I can’t afford to lose two days’ pay – but can I afford not to take this stand today? Enough is simply enough.”
jacqui.morley@blackpoolgazette.co.uk
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Weather for Blackpool
Saturday 11 February 2012
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