Tail Wagging the Dog

A major pay battle looms for council workers in London - with large scale industrial action on the cards for the first time in years.

The unions have rejected a 2.45% pay offer from the employers - and Unison is now gearing up for two days of strikes later in July - after its council worker members voted by 55% to 45% to support a campaign of industrial action.

But what Unison is not telling its members is that only 27% of them bothered to take part in the recent industrial action ballot - which means that fewer than 90,000 members (out of 600,000) actively voted in support of strike action - while more than 500,000 voted No or voted with their feet - by not returning their ballot papers.

Either way it´s hardly a resounding vote of confidence in the strategy of union leaders - when almost three quarters of the grassroots membership can´t even be bothered to participate in such an important ballot.

The result is that the planned campaign of strike action will be hugely unpopular with members - even before it begins - which is hardly a recipe for success.

No one really believes that industrial action will bring about a great improvement in the recent 2.45% offer - and there is a ready alternative to pointless days of strike action - access to independent arbitration - which has the great advantage of not costing low paid members lots of money they can ill afford to lose.

So, quite why Unison is allowing the tail to wag the dog is a mystery - an unpopular strike that fails to engage with the members - will never shift the employers - especially when both sides can put their respective cases to an independent arbitration panel.