unions postpone action for talks?

According to unison website tonight the NJC has called off action for talks. See here

forgive me for posting quickly, but we need to respond to this quickly

whats wrong with this picture?

after an upbeat mood from the membership and a very successful (even if more patchy in some parts) two days of action, we have not lifted the pressure by suspending action until September?

so we have agreement of talks (with no dates or timetables as yet)

yes we want the employers to come back to the table and since they said 2.45% was the final offer, if this means the employers are ready to increase this figure substaintially then good we should talk, but and its a big but, why lift the threat of further action.

were the NJC given a proposed figure that the employer would come up with? were the NJC convinced that the offer was good enough to not need the threat of further action?

we should be calling the shots more, keeping the pressure on. if they have agreed to talk then this is thanks to our action, we should at the very least agreed for the NJC to meet again in a week or 10 days time to set dates for further action if the employers offer was not worth putting to the membership,

but telling the employers we're calling off action, and will discuss again in September gives the employer the upper hand, they can string out discussions believing that as each day passes the membership will be less motivated to more action, with rumours about what amount we would be offered / accept misdirecting the membership, perhaps the delays would mean we would need the expense of another ballot for action in the autumn.

this is not inevitable with rallies, public meetings and getting public sector workers and service users together including political campaigning can prevent the membership from stepping down, but by agreeing to postpone even talk of further action until september when we are still in july doesnt help those of us who want to keep our members mobilised for action if and when necessary

could not this time while talking with employers have been used usefully to discuss the types of action with the regions and open activist meetings in every locality, i.e. discussing if selective action would work, if not why not and if yes, how would we improve on how it was used learning lessons from london weighting etc

we still need to ensure regions call these meetings, even if full timers are happy for us to wait

Ed

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