From Unite The Resistance
The TUC’s general council was split down the middle on a resolution calling for it to consider a general strike, at its meeting on Thursday 6 September.
The general council debated the resolution, from the prison officers’ POA union, calling on it to consider a general strike against austerity.
When the vote was taken, there were 16 votes in favour and 16 against.
It is understood that TUC general secretary Brendan Barber opposed the POA resolution, and that when the general council vote was tied, GMB leader Paul Kenny declined to use his chair’s casting vote to decide the question.
The resolution is now likely to go before the general council again for further discussion immediately ahead of next week’s TUC congress in Brighton.
The executive of the NUT union – whose members today voted for strikes over pay – congratulated union general secretary Christine Blower for backing the POA’s general strike resolution.
Meanwhile, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said he would back coordinated strikes over pay, in an interview ahead of the TUC congress.
A Future That Works – Just 6 weeks to go until the TUC Demo on Sat 20th October
Unite The Resistance Conference
The Fight Against Austerity
Saturday 17th November
This conference has been called to bring activists together to discuss and plan the way forward after the October 20 TUC demonstration.
Check www.uniteresist.org for planning meetings in your area.
4 Responses
There has been Far too Little Strike Action
A General Strike is Long Overdue
Scrap the Tory Anti Strike Diktats and Get the Con Dem Dictatorship Out of Office
general strike show them cant rule us as if we are animals with no say show they can be brought down and shown the error of their ways jeff3
A general strike, there is not other way to bring this government down.
Its about time, 4000 police have gone on strike in Greece against pay cuts and austerity measures, while their corrupt EU puppets of a government fritter away the country’s economy. Strikes all over Europe for the same reason. In Britain our dunce of a chancellor gives tens of billions to the IMF, while cutting tens of billions in welfare, welfare that is needed for the very vulnerable in our society in most cases billions paid in by the very same vulnerable over the years in taxes. Hundreds of billions given to the utterly corrupt banking system, so that our utterly corrupt politicians can buy their seats on the board. Why there has not been millions of people on the streets of Britain protesting against this transparent criminality is beyond belief. All I hear is yea but what can you do. We are being shown what to do by most of Europe and Ireland and some of the most eminent economists have told us what is needed for growth, but when it comes to common sense the criminals we have in parliament are not only corrupt, they are deaf and blind. They are traitors to this country and its people, they steal hundreds of billions to pay for their war games where innocent men, women and children are murdered in the name of terrorism. Thanks to Mo Mowlam terrorism became a thing of the past in Britain it took a Tory fascist like Blair to bring it back, again in the name of greed with his stupid brainless mate Bush. So by all means lets have a General Strike I’m sure it would get the backing of most people in this country, just remember to stock up on essentials for a month or two. The fascist regime that governs this country needs to know they have been found out.