TOWER HAMLETS Unison has announced three more days of strike action as they fight to convince disgraced Executive Mayor John Biggs that reducing Council workers’ terms and conditions is not the way to balance the budget.
The strikes will be held on 13th, 14th and 17th August. There’s a great deal at stake for Unison. Councils up and down the country are building up deficits after expanding services to deal with the Coronavirus. The last thing that public sector trade unions need is for a Labour Council to lead the way in cutting wages to force staff to make up the shortfall.
That much is certain. Much else is not.
•Has Executive Mayor John Biggs not realised what very deep hot water he is in? He’s hunkered down in the Mulberry Place bunker, treating the dispute as if it were an administrative niggle rather than a major problem. From time to time he emerges – questioning whether Unison General Secretary Dave Prentis supports the Tower Hamlets Unison branch (usually after Prentis has just publicly repeated his support); or claiming that, as a staffing issue, Tower Rewards is nothing to do with him but is all something that the Chief Executive is getting on with (as if the Chief Executive would embark on something as massive as Tower Rewards without a green light from the political leadership of the Council).
•Tower Hamlets Labour Councillors hold an enormous majority in the Council Chamber – though that gives them little public leverage over the Executive Mayor as they have delegated most of their powers to him to exercise alone. Have they not realised that the labour movement across the UK is looking on aghast at the actions of what is supposed to be a Labour Council? They may have loaned the Executive Mayor their powers, but they have not abnegated their responsibility – even those members whom the Executive Mayor has given a post which attracts payment of a Special Responsibility Allowance.
•The Executive Mayor has at least three major crises looming. Dealing with them will be time consuming and difficult – and all three have the power to be severely embarrassing for the Executive Mayor, his councillors and his Party. Sometimes leadership is about sticking firmly to Plan A. At other times, it’s about admitting you have made a mistake and putting it right. It’s never about sitting on your hands and sticking your head in the sands. If the Executive Mayor cannot rescue himself from this fiasco, Labour Councillors must save him – and us – from himself.
•Read more about Tower Rewards: Tower Rewards
•Read more about the Biggs Administration: Executive Mayor John Biggs