|
UCU members in both Higher and Further Education in Coventry were out in
force on picket lines as a one-day strike hit Coventry University
and City College Coventry.
At
the University six buildings were picketed. One picket reported that,
"Lots of staff across the university were on strike or not in work.
Students were supportive with some joining picket lines. Police officers
were also sympathetic with a couple of them even helping to give out
leaflets"
The pattern was repeated at
City College where three entrances were picketed and leaflets given out.
When asked what was thought of the government's plans to "reform"
pensions one picket said, "If that is the value that they put on my
expertise, they can go and f..k themselves". Support came from passers
by, on foot or in cars, and even police cars blew their car horns in
support.
The reception from both staff and
students going in was excellent with one Unison member asking why her
union was not taking action in defence of pensions. This is a view held
by many that only by united joint action by all unions in defence of
pensions will there be a chance of burying the pension "reform" plans of
a government dominate by Big Business with 22 millionaires in the
Cabinet.
And what does this government want to
do? It is demanding cuts of £852 million from the Teachers' Pension
Scheme. Lecturers will be required to pay more for their pensions with
FE lecturers paying on average an extra £22 per week and HE lecturers
£31 per week more. In addition the retirement age is to be raised to 65.
But
even worse is the proposed change in pension calculations from RPI to
CPI. Latest figure show that RPI is rising by 1% more than the CPI
figure of 4.4% and that is usually the case. The UCU has calculated that
this change will mean that, "For a typical FE lecturer, this could mean
a loss of £36,000 or more over the course of their retirement. For a
university lecturer, it could mean more than £65,000."
After
a lifetime of work many people are looking forward to a reasonable
standard of living in retirement. Throughout their working lives they
have created wealth either directly or indirectly. Teachers help to
develop skills in generations of workers and thereby help to make labour
more productive so that even more wealth can be produced. The problem
is that those who produce the wealth only receive part of it back in the
form of wages and salaries. The rest is taken by those who own the
means of production. They call it profit. Marxists call it surplus
value. When workers then receive a pension they are getting back part of
the surplus value that was taken from them as well as the contributions
that they made to the pension fund from the wages that they actually
got. Pensions therefore are the unpaid wages of working people.
We
should not forget this. It is our wealth that those who own and control
society say we should not have as the "country" cannot afford it. What
they mean is that if we have more of the wealth that we create, they
will have less in the form of profits. To protect their profits they try
to con us into believing that we are paid too much, we have "gold
plated" pensions, that final salary schemes are too expensive, that we
should work longer as we are living longer.
Let
us take this last lie about us living longer. Figures produced by the
government claim that average life expectancy in England is 78 for men
and 82 for women. But what dos this average mean? In Blackpool it is 73
for men, 5 years below the national average. In Kensington and Chelsea
it is 84 for men, 6 years above the average. For women in Hartlepool it
is 78, 4 years below. Yet for women in Kensington and Chelsea it is 87, 5
years above the national average. What these figures do show is that if
you are rich, you live on average longer than if you are poor. Here in
Coventry in two of the poorest areas in the city we have an average life
expectancy for men of 64 in Foleshill and 65 in Hillfields. Working
class people either die before drawing a pension or live for just a few
years after retiring from a life of producing wealth.
What
these figures show is that capitalism cannot afford to give retired
people a decent lifestyle and would prefer such people to fade away
quietly as they are "living too long". What a condemnation of the
system. We can only have decent pensions and schools, homes, hospitals,
jobs and social services when we own and control the wealth that we
produce. That means fighting to end this system of capitalism and
replacing it with a system of social ownership of the means of producing
wealth, that is socialism.
Darrall Cozens, Chair, West Midlands RMB of UCU.
|
