Transcript Presentation on alternatives to cuts and ideas for organisation(pps)

Organising to Meet the
Challenge
Presentation by John Stevenson to Branch Committee Seminar Sept 2010
Challenges we face from the Coalition Government
are fundamental:•Cuts and privatisation. Ideological
opposition to public services
•Co-ordinated lobby to cut pay and pensions
•Concerted plans to undermine trade union
rights and organisation.
•Explicit rolling back of the welfare state.
•Strategy designed to make changes
irreversible
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Compiled by UNISON
City of Edinburgh
Branch
With information from
Scottish Committee
Seminar
And thanks to a
presentation by
UNISON East
Midlands Region
Key terms
• National debt
The net total borrowing by government, i.e. the total
amount owed by government
• Deficit
If government spends more than the money it takes
in during a fiscal year there is a deficit
• Gross domestic product (GDP)
The total value of a nation's output, income, or
expenditure produced within its physical boundaries
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Budget June 2010
• Deficit reduction of £52bn by 2015/16
• Made up 85% spending cuts, 15% tax increases
• 25% cuts (over 4 years) across gov’t depts - apart
from health and overseas aid which are “protected”
• In Scotland between 12.5% and 20% (40% on
capital spend) next year depending on health
settlement. LOCAL CUTS WILL BE GREATER!
Organising to Meet the Challenge
The Chancellor said the Budget was….
• Unavoidable
• Progressive
• And “we’re all in this together”
Let’s see if that is true…….
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Progressive? The poor suffer most
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Q: Is the national debt too high?
A: No, not compared to historic levels
Organising to Meet the Challenge
How to lie with statistics –making the debt look worse
Organising to Meet the Challenge
How to lie with statistics –making the debt look worse
Organising to Meet the Challenge
But no-one would really do that, would they?
This was from Daily Telegraph 18 June 2009
Note the graph only shows ONE YEAR along the bottom
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Another way to look at what The Telegraph did…….
Organising to Meet the Challenge
So, we’ve seen that the right wing
media distort the facts about the
national debt and what it means.
Now let’s look at the deficit ……
Organising to Meet the Challenge
What is the deficit?
• Current deficit
This was around £156bn for 09/10 (in the 2009
budget it was predicted at £175bn so it is better than
expected)
• Why has this happened?
Is it too much spending and not enough income?
Or
Is it the right amount of spending but not enough
income?
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Deficit got bigger in 2009/10 by £132bn
At least health is protected!
Not really……..
• Health – Scottish govt say 2.5% real terms
growth
• But health inflation 4–5%
• Cuts already happening. BMA survey of
doctors in June 2010:
24% said redundancies were planned
62% said there was a recruitment freeze
42% were limiting prescribing
40% were limiting access to treatments
Organising to Meet the Challenge
So what do the cuts mean?
• Some areas of public sector will vanish, other areas will be
slashed
• Around 20% job losses across public sector over 4 years
• Huge impact on private sector as the public sector (and the
sacked workers) spend less in economy
• We won’t get out of recession and then more cuts will come
• We face the biggest cuts to public services ever seen.
• Designed to be permanent reduction in public services. Could
take to 2025 to get back to 2009 spending
• The cuts are politically driven – the deficit can be cut with a
fair tax system, investing in services and by waiting for the
economy to pick up
Organising to Meet the Challenge
What do the experts say?
• ALL of the G20 countries are dealing with the
recession through investment – except Britain and
Argentina
• Most mainstream economists argue for postponing
cuts to deficit until a robust recovery begins
• Plan to return to surplus by 2015 is ‘pointless’ (New
York Times) especially when it could cost a million jobs
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Economists who previously predicted the crash
are saying the cuts will damage the economy……..
• In 2008 Prof David Blanchflower said “something horrible” was
going to happen with the economy. Of the Budget he says:
– “this unnecessary and dangerous budget will push the
economy back into recession.”
• In October 2006 Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz said there
would be a crash “ within 24 months.” Now he says :
– “we're now looking at a long, hard, slow recovery…. if
everybody cuts back at the same time.”
• Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman (who also predicted the
crash) recently said:
–
“Spend
now, while the economy remains depressed; save
later, once it has recovered. How hard is that to understand?”
Organising to Meet the Challenge
There is an alternative – raise income
•
•
•
•
•
Robin Hood Tax on the banks = £30bn
Airline Duty = £3bn
Tax Treatment of Pension contributions for the wealthy = £5bn
Deal with tax avoidance = £33bn
25% of top companies pay no Corporation Tax at all but should
be paying around £285m (Google £1.6bn = 0 – Arcadia Phillip
Green £1.2bn = 0)
• A one-off 20% tax on the richest 10% would give £800bn! (Greg
Philo guardian.co.uk, Sunday 15 August 2010)
• And finally, when the economy picks up tax receipts will
increase by well over £60bn
• The money is there – it’s just in the wrong hands!
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Key messages
• Cuts driven by ideology not economics
• Nothing inevitable about cuts – does not make economic sense
• For every £1 earned by public service worker 70p goes back
into local economy
• Economy depends on healthy public sector – cuts risk a double
dip recession
• No private/public divide. Private sector depends on public
sector contracts. For every 1 public sector job lost, at least 1
lost in private sector.
• Hit the poorest far more than the rich – we are not ‘all in this
together’
• After war deficit at least three times (at peak 5 times) higher
yet we built the NHS and the Welfare State
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Obstacles to campaigning:•Survey: Most members believe there is waste in
public services
•Half believe huge cuts needed because of national
debt
•Despite LG pay ballot, it is likely many members
believe pay restraint needed because of financial
situation
•While membership levels holding, density not good
enough
•Lack of activists and lack of engagement/
involvement
•Diffuse campaigning
Organising
Meet the Challenge
•ConDems winning
thetopropaganda
war?
What we face in Edinburgh
• Up to £100m in cuts (10%) over three years – might
even be 12.5%-20%, ie almost double!
• Service prioritisation – whole services withdrawn,
compulsory redundancy a reality – and that only
saves £16 million over three years
• Possible 3,500 jobs to be privatised
• Scale of cuts almost unimaginable. How do we get
the message through to members?
• How do we build confidence to act together?
Organising to Meet the Challenge
What can we do?
•Recruit – resistance/action no good without
strength in the first place
•Organise – how do we get stewards and get
them organising members?
•Educate – what are the tools we need for the
job?
•Involve – how do we get members involved
in campaigns and ready to take action?
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Recruit
• Edinburgh Branch membership up 61 since 2008.
Lothian Health Branch up almost 1,000
• Last figures show UNISON has recruited highest
number of members for 5 years – but also lost the
highest number
•We have 140+ stewards but only 55 accredited at
June 2010
• Need 70+ new members a month to stand still
• If every steward recruited one member a month, we
would have almost 10,000 members least 60% density
– real power!
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Organise
• Steward’s role
• Staff role – can we move focus from admin to
organising? Do we need all the meetings we
have? Do we need all the circulations we have?
• Balance between representing and organising
• How do we make meetings more relevant – only
2 or 3 stewards’ committees actually meet
• With time-off issues, when do we have them?
• How do we get more face to face with members?
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Educate
• Getting the key messages across to members
• Supporting stewards/reps/contacts
• Investing in our stewards. More local
courses/seminars. Better surroundings – provide
lunch etc.
• Skills, confidence
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Involve
• Getting members involved in campaigns/action
• Getting stewards involved – less time at
meetings, more for organising
• Stewards meetings as part of Branch
Committee?
• Branch Officers going out regularly to stewards
meetings and to workplaces?
Organising to Meet the Challenge
Now let’s get on with it!
Organising to Meet the Challenge