Connecting Together The Birmingham Public Sector Unions

One of the most impressive aspects of November 30 in Birmingham was the sheer range of public sector trade unions who were taking part in the Pensions Strike.

As I walked across Birmingham city centre after my tour of outer-city pickets, it seemed that every 50 or so yards I came across another picket line - Hospital workers outside the Childrens' Hospital, PCS members on Bull Street, the First Division Association on Colmore Circus, our UNISON members outside Louisa Ryland House and so on.

Then the demonstration and the NIA was packed with teachers, health workers, civil servants, college workers, probation staff and council workers. In all my years (and to be frank decades !) of trade union involvement, I don't think I have ever experienced anything remotely like November 30th for the sheer scale and range of participation from all over the public services. It was inspiring and empowering.

We really need to keep our links strong with all the other public sector unions in Birmingham.

We have had close working relationships with Unite, GMB and UCATT for many years in the council. And we take a regular part in our UNISON West Midlands Regional Council where we keep in touch with our health, energy, police staff, universities and other UNISON branches. But our contacts with the teaching unions, the civil service, UCU the college union, FBU the fire brigades union, CWU the post office union and many other public sector unions have been limited over the years.

But recently we have been successful in making the person-to-person contacts at local branch level which are so vital in building strong, productive alliances. It started with the Pensions disputes in 2006 and 2007. Then when we helped establish Birmingham Against The Cuts in 2010 we found ourselves campaigning again alongside teachers, civil servants, college workers - you name it they were there ! June 30th was a big step forward when we took our first day's strike against the Martini Contract and had a joint rally in Victoria Square with thousands of members of NUT, PCS, UCU, ATL and other unions striking over pensions, pay cuts and against redundancies.

So in the run up to November 30th, we met regularly with activists at branch and regional level of all the public sector unions in the city. We produced joint leaflets and posters, coordinated the four street protests on the day and held a joint media conference in the branch office on the day before the strike with lay activists from NUT, PCS, GMB and UNISON. We even managed to get film of this media conference on national news and 'Have I Got News For You' !

Now we are even more determined to keep the momentum up. So on Wednesday of last week at the end of a long day, we met again, branch and regional activists, with local stewards from a number of schools, colleges, and benefit offices. From such small but vital meetings, big developments can arise.

What are we going to do next ?

1. produce a joint union newsletter for general release in the New Year with messages of support from all the local union branches we can involve.
2. look into organising in late January a Saturday morning open meeting for all our stewards, officers and members, with hopefully some big national union speakers.
3. publicise in our own branches the activities and campaigns which different unions are running - from reducing the overload of teachers workload, to the saving of our Connexions services.
4. meet again in early January to keep the contact going.

I believe all our members taking part on November 30th got at least a glimpse of the power of united public sector unions. Now we need to make that glimpse into a sustainable vision for the future of joint work across the public sector union branches in Birmingham. Standing together we can defend public services.

Graeme Horn, Joint Branch Secretary