"Fat Cats"? Hardly - more like stalking lions

I’m getting a little tired of the current trend amongst bloggers to go union bashing and in particular to attack the supposedly huge salaries their leaders earn. They do a superb job and, unlike those who write in the blogosphere, they were elected to the post and only stay there if they receive sufficient approval from their members.

It is true many of them do receive substantial incomes for their services. Bob Crow is reputed to earn over £133,000 per annum, but this is not exceptional for a union leader. Dave Prentis of Unison earns over £127,000, whilst the leader of USDAW earns about £105,000.

Compare this with the average earnings of a chief executive of a large company and it rather contextualises it. At a political level, a Minister of State earns substantially more and the director general of the BBC earns 4 times as much as the average union leader.

Even many executives working for local councils earn as much, if not more than the average union leader. The difference is that union leaders must face re-election and if the members are unhappy with their leader they can call for their resignation. Far from giving themselves “huge” salaries, these figures are agreed and ratified by the membership.

Noticeably, most of these criticisms are coming from the political right, who seem to be far les vocal about the salary earned by Boris Johnson last year - £143, 911. Nor did they starting screaming “fat cat” when Andrew Pierce, the Tory party chairman was awarded £120,000 a year.

The same bloggers who attack Bob Crow were far less angry about the £475,000 awarded to Andy Coulson whilst he was Director of Communications at Number 10.

Given this, one has to ask why bloggers like Guido Fawkes are so enthusiastic in their condemnation of union leaders. The answer is simple – they are scared. Until recently, the government were largely having things all their own way. Then last Saturday things changed. Suddenly, Cameron was being held to account and found to be failing.

In an interview with the BBC, Vince Cable arrogantly stated the government would not be thrown off course because of the demonstration. Fair enough – now we know where we stand with the Lib Dems – as if we didn’t know before. If Clegg and Cable want to tie themselves to the Tory banner, the left are quite happy to take them on too.

What we saw last Saturday was only the beginning and those union leaders that the right enjoy condemning will be at the heart of a campaign to oppose every aspect of Tory cuts. Over the coming months Cameron can look forward to opposition at a level that hasn’t been seen since the days of Maggie – in fact, he has helped achieve something that his predecessor helped to destroy – he has reunified the left.

Now Labour party members are standing shoulder to shoulder with trade unionists, Socialist party, SWP, Communist and Respect party members in unified opposition to what Cameron is trying to achieve.

Bloggers grumbling about union salaries will not be enough to stop us. Indeed, I was once told when I was much younger that sarcasm is the lowest kind of wit and their attempts to ridicule our union leaders are a perfect example of how true the statement remains.

My message to those bloggers is simple – carry on with your griping if you will, but you will not stop us. We will strike, we will march and we will occupy premises. Soon the government will see they cannot subjugate an entire country. Those who oppose Cameron will be watching to see those who are our friends and those who are not.

When I was a young man, we used to march against Maggie and in those days we would shout a very simple slogan. Twenty years on and it remains as relevant today as it was then:

The Workers united will never be defeated.

Tory public services will never be "open"

In the Daily Telegraph today, David Cameron writes about his vision for “open public services”. Quite what this means, when he intends to sack thousands of council workers and civil servants, remains to be seen.

Then, later in the article it all he becomes clear. First the prime minister described his vision of "open public services" and this is soon followed by his promise to release public services from the "grip of state control".

In other words, he is going to either privatise large chunks of public services or sub-contract them out to private enterprises. So, we can soon look forward to schools being run by organisations like Serco, or perhaps your local hospital might be renamed the Bristol Royal BUPA Centre , or the BMI Royal Hospital for Sick Children.

When you go to sign on, you might be met by an A4e worker, who would review your claim and sort out your benefit entitlement. Perhaps sections of our local constabularies could be part run by G4S or Reliance Security, but don’t worry, because the training industry will be waiting to ensure all the ‘private firm’ police have SIA cards, in accordance with security industry requirements.

Cameron argues this approach would make public services more accountable, but has he ever asked questions of any of the PFI contractors? Has he ever tried to acquire information about the inner workings of defence or welfare to work contractors? They are not ruled by the strictures of Freedom of Information, so they can keep their books closed and prying eyes out. This is the sort of openness he is really offering.

He also talks about public services needing an injection of creativity and innovation and here he has a point. For too long services have followed a route that sometimes defied logic, simply because ‘this has been how we always do it’.

There’s no doubt there is a need for a review of service delivery across the board, but throwing the baby out with the bath water is tantamount to lunacy. It will destroy jobs, make services less accessible because they will be driven by profit and not need, reduce accountability and threaten those who most use services.

The trade union movement need to force Cameron to rethink his entire policy and show how ill-conceive it really is. PCS and Unison should tackle this issue headlong and if the government threaten to proceed, organise full-scale strike action to force Cameron to rethink his ideas.

Will that happen? In my view, I think it unlikely. More probable is the unions will organise a demo or two and maybe a petition. Cameron will then barnstorm his ideas through and before we know it, we will be in the kind of society Thatcher could only dream of – scary isn’t it.