Strikes: Focus on the issues not the turnout

By Mik Sabiers

Well, we talked. But it seems that nobody in government was listening.

Now industrial action on June 30th seems inevitable. Cabinet office ministers from Maude to Gove try to ramp up the rhetoric with bluster about strike action legitimacy or Mums’ Armies of teachers. Poor Vince Cable – can’t you just feel his embarrassment?

Nearly a million ordinary workers, including teachers, low paid civil servants and public sector workers are expected to walk out on Thursday. One union – the ATL – hasn’t held a strike ballot in 25 years, wouldn’t that tell you that something was wrong?

As today’s poll in the Independent shows, even after months, if not years, of right-wing anti-union propaganda being pushed their way, the public can’t make up their minds over strikes. On one hand, they edge towards ruling out strikes when turnout is low, but the same poll showed that by 49 to 35% of people agree the workers have a legitimate reason to strike over attacks on their pensions.

And rather than deal with the issues behind the strike – the frustrations built up after months of trying to get a workable compromise – government would rather talk turnout.

And it’s not just Maude.

Education secretary Michael Gove took to the airwaves to seek strike breakers. And London mayor Boris Johnson can always be relied upon to wage war through his megaphone.

All this does is simply highlight government contempt that for ordinary workers, even those who would normally never take strike action.

But let’s indulge Maude, Gove and Johnson.

Why not look at the issue of turnout? Francis Maude is all very secure as 72% of the electorate turned out at the last general election and he gained a 52.7% share of the vote in Horsham. Michael Gove in Surrey Heath saw 70% turnout and secured 57.6% of the vote. But that was a general election.

What about at local elections?

Well London mayor Boris Johnson has been a strong advocate that a majority is needed for legitimacy, he however fails, and on two counts. Boris secured just 42.5% of first preference votes at the last London mayoral election, but he still won after second preferences were added. More importantly for someone arguing about minimum thresholds the turnout in London was just 45.3%.

There’s been a lot of talk about Boris and illegitimacy, not always relating to his share of the vote. On the evidence he might want to check his own share before shooting his mouth off.

Or how about Birmingham city council, the vanguard of the Tory council extreme?

In the 2011 local elections 40 seats were up for grabs and despite Labour becoming the largest party with 55 of 120 seats on the council, the authority remained a Tory/Lib Dem coalition set on a series of scandalous cuts.

It contemplated offloading the NEC. It wants to outsource jobs to India as well as cut thousands of local jobs, it has outsourced meals on wheels and its ‘heartless’ disability cuts were ruled unlawful; the council also recently lost a case involving cuts to the funding of voluntary organisations.

The Tories, who lost six seats in 2011, narrowly escaped a complete catastrophe by clinging on to the Weoley, Northfield and Edgbaston seats by a handful of votes. In Weoley, won by 12 votes, the turnout was 35.3%, in Northfield 36.0% while in Edgbaston, won by 21 votes, turnout was just 33.9%.

Does that give the Tory/Lib Dem coalition a mandate to enforce such deep cuts and changes that will have a major impact on Birmingham in years to come? Or is it one rule for the politicians and another for ordinary workers?

How about in Southampton?

Southampton is another council planning wholesale changes to workers’ terms and conditions as a way of dealing with central government cuts. Gunboat diplomacy reigns – council leader Royston Smith has told 4,300 council workers that they have until 11 July to sign away their jobs and hard fought terms and conditions, or be sacked.

Royston Smith was last elected in 2010, the same date as the general election. While the turnout was 61.2%, he did not secure a majority gaining 45% of the vote. What about his fellow councillors this year?

16 Southampton council seats were up for election in 2011, the Tories won six with a turnout ranging from a high of 42.4% to a low of 31.7%. Should they all stand down because they did not secure a majority?

It is on the issues that politicians should be judged, and I speak as a local councillor (turnout 58.7%).

The ballot does matter, I want to get more people out and voting and engaging, and the only way to do that is by campaigning on the issues.

But if turnout is your thing, look at improving it. The only ballot allowed is a postal vote. Why can’t members vote online, electronically or even by text message? In every election, from parish council to general, that would help to drive numbers up.

Those that shout “turnout” were probably first in the queue to condemn British Airways cabin crew.

In ballot after ballot, crew voted in massive numbers to defend their jobs. From the start Unite said the dispute could only be solved by negotiation, which it was in the end. That was good for the company, good for the workers and good for the customers.

So Maude, Gove and Johnson – and the business lobby sniping on the sidelines – as someone once said, it is the issues, stupid.

No worker withdraws his or her labour lightly. Ordinary people – whether in the private or public sector – are already struggling under a deadweight of tax rises and wage squeezes.

They can barely afford to lose a day’s pay. But hundreds of thousands are prepared to take the hit to make their voice heard, showing there is real anger.

It shows there is a real divide between the government and the people it is supposed to represent.

A fabricated obsession with numbers may get Gove and co over this hump, but attacking the unions and its members will only get them so far. This week, talks over pensions broke down. Workers in Southampton embarked on their fourth week of action. Health professionals are readying themselves to stop the destruction of the NHS.

But if legitimacy is what you’re after, then what about the biggest illegitimacy of all? That of a government nobody voted for pushing through cuts that are not needed and taking apart the state in a comprehensive programme kept secret from us all.