Whose side are you on?

This week presented a rare opportunity for opposition politicians to come together in the House of Commons to oppose the deeply unfair reforms of the public sector pensions. By supporting a motion laid by the SNP and Plaid Cymru which called for the UK Government to reverse unfair changes to public sector pensions, the Labour Party could have sent a clear message that this issue was more important that party politics. Labour MPs could also have sent a message to the two million or so people who stood on picket lines and marched on rallies last Wednesday that their fight was their fight and their number one priority.

Instead, Labour politicians showed that tribalism is more important than the protection of the public sector pension scheme. They took the side of the Con/Dems on Wednesday. The motion was defeated 242 to 11.

This debate was the first one to be heard in the Commons in the last year-and-a-half since pension changes were first mooted. In this time, there have been 36 opposition debates held by Labour where public sector workers and their pensions have been ignored. A significant number of Labour MPs also crossed picket lines at Westminster last week even though some vowed not to.

I was proud to visit a number of picket lines last week and march with my fellow Plaid Cymru members, including our leader Ieuan Wyn Jones, during the Cardiff rally. Labour politicians were conspicuous by their absence; a fact that did not go unnoticed by many of the people taking part in the rally. This non-committal position reflects the deep malaise their leader Ed Miliband now finds himself in by refusing to back the strikers and going as far as condemning the withdrawal of labour.

If Labour politicians cannot back the public sector workers on an issue as clear cut as the unjustified degradation of hard-earned pension rights then surely they should be asking themselves whose side are they on?

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.