dismiss it, but describe it as dreadful ? well, it s a really poor offer. the people that have accepted it are managers. they re the people that go to work when we re on strike. the tssa doesn t take strike action as often as we do, so they ve decided to do that. and they re receiving bonuses when they go to work to break our strike. so, that s a fairly simple formula, and you have to decide which team you re playing for. the inflation rate during that period, just those two years, is in excess of 21% on the retail price index. so, it s less than way, way short of half. and most of our members haven t had a pay rise now for four years, because there were 2 3 years of austerity during the pandemic where we didn t get any pay rise. right, so if you say, myjob is to protect my members against inflation , are you seriously telling me but more importantly them, your members that you believe you can get anything like a 21% deal over two years? that d be really tough, but what we ve
we think it s the future of the industry, what type of industries we have. and that s true across many public services what kind of nhs, what kind of education and what kind of transport system ? we either have it for the purposes of profit, or we do it for the needs of the people and the needs of the economy and, of course, the environment as well. and that s all about whether there s a profit motive at the centre of everything, or whether you provide on the basis of need and the basis of utility, that people need the services to keep the country going. and as you ve already alluded to, you re one dispute amongst quite a number in the public sector, or the quasi public sector. yeah. in the end, it s about money, and it s about other things as well, terms and conditions. but let s just stick to the money first. in december, it was clear that there was an offer on the table that some people in the rail industry were prepared to accept. 0ne union, the tssa, its members, even across the
seems to be souring even more by the day, the atmosphere between unions and the government. behind the scenes, we do not really know, there is certainly a discussion that has begun or has happened about potentially a one off payment to compensate workers in the nhs for the rising cost of living over the last few months, perhaps backdating pay to earlier in the current financial year. these ideas are floating around government, may be more enthusiastically in some departments than others, but none of it has contributed to a breakthrough, and as i said, unions today sounding very fed up with the entire pay review process, which does not bode well for an agreement. in the meantime, rishi sunak has said that he has used private health care in the past, i wondered what you made of the admission, given that he had refused to answer the question just a few days ago. question ust a few days ago. really bizarre, question just a few days ago. really bizarre, i mean, question just a few days a
gordon has more on this. we are at st andrews roman catholic secondary school in glasgow. normally there would be 1800 students here at attending classes every day, but instead the school is shut for the day. that is because secondary school teachers are out on strike picket lines here telling me they are in it for the long haul. yeah, we really prepared. we ll come out as often as we need to in order to reach a better pay deal, and a fair pay deal. they ve really been supportive, though, ourstudents are saying things like, can you have a few of us across the picket line to support you, miss? and they ve just been wishing us luck even as we were in the classroom yesterday. there were talks earlier this week between the unions involved in this dispute in the scottish government. the minister in charge of the scottish government site of the scottish government side of the negotiations said she will leave no stone unturned in her attempts to resolve this dispute. teachers want a 10% pay