uniteWORKS Comment
NEWS in pictures VOLUNTARY SECTOR
AMNESTY WORKERS
Len McCluskey General Secretary
No time to stay silent
Have you ever caught yourself saying you couldn't care less about politics or that you have no time for politicians? It’s certainly tempting to despair of our elected representatives, to ask when the goings on of the Westminster village have ever improved the lot of you and yours.
But if you care about your NHS, your local services, jobs, the price of fuel, your standard of living, your country's place in the world even, then you care about politics.
2013 will be an important year for our union. It is the first time that Unite has had to hold a ballot on our political fund. This fund is our political voice. It allows your union to speak truth to power.
Thatcher’s government, in an attempt to cow our movement, demanded that we refresh our mandate for political campaigning every 10 years. Unite’s executive will be urging you to vote yes this year. What a message that would send to this most anti- worker of governments.
As the government of today prepares to impoverish millions through welfare cuts, we face the very real prospect of these evils returning. This is not the time for your union to stay silent.
A Conservative-led government is raging against working people and the public sector, using the global financial crisis to shrink the state it detests, forcing you and yours to pay for the catastrophic mistakes of the banks with falling living standards and unending austerity.
A flick through the pages of uniteWORKS shows that day in, day out this union speaks out for you. But without a political fund, your union is gagged. We cannot defend you against assaults on your rights or cuts to services. We cannot defend bodies like the Agricultural Wages Board, or challenge the government as it destroys our NHS.
Working people have never won anything by staying silent. Every bit of progress gained, we have fought for. We have to continue to fight to hold onto these gains. Whatever we think of it, politics matters. So when the time comes this year to use your voice, be heard.
STRIKE Hundreds of staff members of Amnesty International UK (AIUK) and at Amnesty International’s global headquarters, both in London took industrial action in November, in separate disputes over job losses.
Unite regional officer, Alan Scott said, “Our highly dedicated members at both the AIUK and the International Secretariat are very reluctantly taking industrial action again. They want their respective managements to engage in a constructive dialogue to chart a fair and equitable way forward.”
uniteWORKS Published bi-monthly by Unite the union, 128 Theobalds Road, London, WC1X 8TN. Phone 0207 611 2500. Editor – Amanda Campbell Magazine enquiries and letters to the editor, by post, phone, or email
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