Plaid supports strikers

Tomorrow, one of the biggest days of industrial action will take place in the UK in living memory. I will stand with the many ordinary men and women who are calling for the pension schemes they signed up to and paid in to, to be honoured. It is not too much to ask for a retirement without poverty after a lifetime of work but that is exactly what is at stake if the Westminster coalition has their way with the public sector pension scheme.

This is precisely why this issue has garnered such wide-spread support, particularly from trades unions which have never previously taken part in industrial action. Refuse workers, teachers, nurses, civil servants, meals on wheels providers will all be screwed by this Westminster cabinet of millionaires. Yet if you swallowed the rhetoric, you would be forgiven for thinking that tomorrow’s strikers are greedy, self-serving and not living in the real world.

Education Secretary of State Michael Gove this week described some of the union leaders as “militants itching for a fight”; a statement rendered even more farcical by the emergence of pictures of him kneeling proudly on an NUJ picket line in the 1980s.

The Government’s lead negotiator with the trade unions is Francis Maude MP. This privileged son of a Tory MP has been hopelessly inept throughout the whole proceedings and shown an ignorance of Government policy that mystifies his appointment as the government's liaison person with the trade union movement. I'd say that it's the Westminster Coalition Government that is actually ‘itching for a fight’ with the public sector. After all, they have form when it comes to cracking down on the public sector in their brief, but incredibly destructive, 18 months in office.

In Plaid Cymru, we know whose side we are on. We recognise that public sector workers deserve to retire without facing grinding poverty after a lifetime of dedication. Most importantly, we are not afraid to declare our support for such a just cause….are you listening Ed Miliband? As a Unison member and chair of the cross-party PCS group in the Assembly, I will proudly take my place on the picket line tomorrow.

I have no doubt that moral argument is on our side. With solidarity and determination, victory will be ours too.

Questions for Carwyn

Why has it taken the actions of an anti-wind farm protest group from Powys for you to start publicly asking Westminster for powers over energy projects generating more than 50MW of electricity on land? This unfair restraint on Welsh autonomy – which does not apply in Scotland – has been the case for several years as you know, since you once held the Environment portfolio.

Do you base your demands at the various recent meetings of the four nations on what your counterparts in Scotland and the Six Counties are asking for? Do you have a clear idea as to what powers you want devolved from Westminster to Wales?

Why did your party colleagues rubbish Plaid Cymru’s ambitious plans to make finance available for capital projects, which would provide a buffer against the ConDem cuts and create thousands of jobs with our Build for Wales proposal when your cabinet colleagues are now refusing point blank to rule out seeking funding through the socially destructive Private Finance Initiative? And if the proposal was rubbish, why did Jane Hutt say yesterday that our Build4Wales idea is now being considered by your government as an option?

Why is it that the Welsh Government has yet to outline its position on the public sector services strike planned for next Thursday? I attempted to find out on two separate occasions in plenary this week what will happen but your Finance Minister, Jane Hutt, refused to answer the question both times. Are you afraid of upsetting your party colleagues in Westminster, particularly Ed Balls who shamefully called for the trade unions not to strike in defence of an unparalleled assault on their pensions? As a UNISON member yourself, you really need to make you and your Government’s position clear. This is an issue that is not going to go away anytime soon.

Carwyn, it's ‘time to lead.’

Strike ends

The 48-hour stoppage by members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union has now drawn to a close. An estimated 200,000 PCS union members withdrew their labour during the strike and widespread disruption was caused to public services everywhere. Plenary at the Welsh Assembly was postponed and Plaid Cymru and Labour AMs refused to cross the picket line. The Tories showed their true colours by criticising the halting of Assembly business. Should we expect any different from a party that always has and always will represent the interests of the ruling elite? As chair of the all-party PCS group, I was more than happy to show my solidarity with members of the union and their quest to defend their redundancy rights during the two-day strike by joining picket lines and speaking at a rally in Cardiff.

PCS Members have not taken the decision to strike lightly. Losing two days of pay is not an easy sacrifice to make, but they have certainly demonstrated that they are serious about protecting their contractual rights. More industrial action is planned for next week and an overtime ban is also in place. This of course will all be called off if the powers-that-be in Westminster do the sensible thing and get round the negotiating table with ACAS and the union.

It does not take Sherlock Holmes to deduce where the UK Labour Government is going with this downgrading of the civil service compensation scheme. They seem hell bent on doing the Tories’ dirty work for them by making it cheap to sack civil servants ahead of the anticipated post-General Election cull of public services. As an example of a party losing touch with its core support, this is up there with the abolition of the lower rate of income tax.

I fear this dispute is just the start of brutal cuts to our public services. Apart from the misery huge job losses will bring to thousands of loyal civil servants, it also has some incredibly bright economists scratching their heads at the logic of reducing public spending in a recession. Making low-paid workers and users of public services pay the price for the mistakes of the banking elite in causing the UK’s huge spending deficit, is simply wrong. The PCSU are right to stand against that principle.

I hope that union members stay strong and stick together for the duration of this dispute. That's the only way they'll stop their contracts being ripped up by their employer, and the best way to stop the planned vicious cuts to our public services.

Statement on the Oil Refinery Protests

I am sure that Plaid members and supporters are concerned with the industrial unrest across Wales and the UK over the past week. I have prepared a statement on behalf of Undeb, our trade union section, explaining our position.

It is inevitable that in the current economic climate, workers will seek to express their grievances through protest. Plaid supports the right to protest and the right to organise in trade unions. We are proud of our growing links with the trade union movement, and have campaigned in the recent past to support industrial action by the fire fighters, local government workers and civil servants. We recognise that the demonstrations and solidarity strikes that have spread across the UK and Ireland are not sanctioned by any union and are in defiance of anti-union laws laid down by Thatcher. Categorically, the protestors are not protesting against the principle of foreign labour being used in Wales or the UK. Rather, the demonstrations are calling for labour to be sourced locally where possible due to the rising unemployment levels. Undeb sympathises with these demands although we do not agree with the slogans that have been used.

The discontent felt among the workers involved in the Oil Refinery dispute is genuine, and action has not been taken lightly. In South Wales a support action involving 50 workers took place at Aberthaw Power Station. The strikes and protests were spontaneous. However, Undeb is concerned that the slogan of ‘British jobs for British workers’ does not represent the best way to resolve this dispute, particularly as the jobs in question are linked to IREM, an Italian company.

Undeb lays the blame for this message at the feet of Gordon Brown. He irresponsibly promoted this slogan at a time when he must have known he could not deliver it. His promotion of ‘Britishness’ has helped create conditions in which non-British workers could be excluded from showing solidarity with other workers in disputes over pay and conditions. Undeb believes the Labour Party has undermined the trade unions by dividing workers against each other on the basis of nationality. In the coming months and years there will be further disputes, and because of Brown’s ‘Britishness’ mantra it will now be difficult to unite workers of varying nationalities even if they are campaigning for the same demands . Plaid has a history of campaigning with every section of the community for social justice and represents the interests of all people in Wales regardless of nationality, origin or ethnicity.

Undeb also believes that the strikes have been misrepresented and workers’ demands inaccurately portrayed. Demonstrators at Aberthaw made it clear that they were not protesting against foreign labour, and that they work alongside Polish staff in a friendly manner every day. We are proud of the internationalism of the people of Wales and support the free movement of people in the EU. We also opposed the anti-trade union laws which mean our workers are far easier to exploit than in other EU member states. We will support any progressive demands for changes at the UK-level or EU-level to Employment or Trade Union legislation that might emerge as a result of these protests, including making sure migrant workers are unionised as the Lindsey Refinery Strike Committee has suggested. Those kinds of demands do not suggest anything near racism or xenophobia.

A deal has now been reached at the refinery where the dispute began. The company has agreed to offer new jobs on the project at UK conditions and rates of pay. No migrant workers will lose their positions. This is a positive outcome but this dispute could surface again in Wales as we have a number of energy-related construction projects planned in the future.

The real basis of this dispute is not nationality but rests with the actions of Gordon Brown and previous Labour and Tory Governments in building a purely market economy rather than a balanced, moral economy.

Leanne Wood AM

PCS to strike on Monday

It was good to be able to host a drop-in briefing session from the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) at the Assembly yesterday. PCS' aim was to draw attention to the pay inequalities which exist in the civil service, particuarly at the DVLA in Swansea. Women workers at the DVLA are earning around 16% less than their counterparts who carry out comparative work in England. With threats from the UK government to roll out regional pay, which is already being piloted in the Ministry of Justice, this will result in an even greater wealth gap between Wales and the rest of the UK.

Next week I will be supporting the PCS members' strike, which is primarily against the further rolling out of regional pay. I hope that Assembly Members from all parties will support this strike. If regional pay goes ahead we can look forward to greater levels of poverty in Wales. This is something that none of us can allow to happen- particularly in areas which qualify for Objective One funding from the EU.

PCS strike

This week has seen strikes from staff in the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). DWP Management have imposed a three-year pay settlement – this has been overwhelmingly rejected in a ballot of union members – such a settlement would mean a measly average 1% annual increase for many staff and no increase at all in 2008.

Workers have been left with no option but to take strike action after departmental management refused to improve a pay offer that would mean a real cut in living standards. DWP staff are already poorly paid, with more than half on less than £17,700 and some earning as little as £12,500 a year; thousands have to rely on tax credits to make ends meet.