show of strength against a concerted attempt by the Tory and Liberal
Democrat partners of this millionaire government to make workers pay
for the bankers? greed. Powerful demonstrations up and down the
country brought thousands, including many young workers onto the
streets in big cities and small towns, many for the
first time, determined to defend pensions, and to stop the immediate
huge pay cuts that the pension changes would mean.
We believe that 30th June was the opening salvo. To win we need to
turn this threequarters of a million into 4-5 million in the next
round of industrial action in the autumn, involving all public sector
unions, and thereby scuppering the machinations of the government to
drive a wedge into the trade union movement between the NUT, UCU, ATL
and PCS and the other three big unions Unison, Unite and GMB. Defence
of pensions has proved a unifying factor so far, and one of our best
opportunities to all come together, and collectively force Cameron and
Clegg into a massive U-turn.
To this end the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) is organising a
lobby of the TUC Conference in London on September 11th 2011.
We will be handing in a petition calling on the TUC General Council to
call for and coordinate a one-daystrike of all public sector unions as
the next step in this struggle.
The assembly point will be at Friends Meeting House, Euston Road,
London NW1 2BJ at 1:30pm for an indoor rally which will be addressed
by union leaders, including PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka,
alongside shop stewards and workplace reps involved in the pension
struggle.
The NSSN is encouraging all trade unionists to attend the rally and
the lobby as well as signing the petition at
www.shopstewards.net/sign. Why not use the text of the petition as the
basis of a branch resolution which you could forward to the TUC
general council to help keep the pressure up?
We would be grateful if you could circulate information about this
event around your trade union
branch, attend yourself and encourage others to do so. We would also
encourage unions to book
transport to the event. If your branch / trades council would like to
contribute to the cost of a
coach, please make a cheque payable to ?National Shop Stewards
Network? and post to NSSN, PO
Box 54498, London, E10 9DE.
