Should public sector strikes and mass action be stopped?

Yes - James Clough

Public sector workers do the jobs that we deem to be so important that taxpayers cannot exempt themselves from paying for them. We rely upon the NHS, police force and public transport every day; they are essential parts of our lives and without them society would be completely different.

Public sector jobs are fundamentally different to private sector jobs because the customer – the taxpayer – cannot decide to stop paying if they get service they do not like. If all the firemen go on strike, you cannot stop paying the part of your taxes that pay for the fire department just because you are no longer receiving their service.

It is unfair and unethical for the public sector to hold the country to ransom

There are benefits to working in the public sector in the UK. Your employer is very unlikely to go bankrupt and stop paying you. Many believe that public sector workers will, on balance, receive a better pay and pension package than they would get in a similar private sector job. For example, Tube drivers will soon earn over £50,000 per year. Performing work that does a social good is another reason many people desire public sector jobs – they feel like they are making a difference. But is it reasonable to expect a secure, well-paid and fulfilling job while still retaining all of the benefits workers in the private sector receive?

Because the customer cannot stop paying, and instead use a competitor like they can in the private sector, the public sector workers are capable of holding the general public to ransom. If they strike, there is nothing that the public can do about it. Large public sector unions mean that the public sector workers wield an immense amount of power. They can bring down the government; the government that everyone else has freely and fairly elected.

More worryingly, the leverage that the public sector holds is that the people who are hurt when they withdraw from their duties are not the rich and powerful, but children, hospital patients, and the poorest in society. When they strike, they are telling the government, and by extension the entire electorate, that unless they get what they want, they will let the most vulnerable people in society get hurt. It is unacceptable for the people who are entrusted with, and rewarded for, protecting those in need to neglect their duties and just walk away.

It also hurts the workers themselves: the public grow resentful of them, and lose their faith in the idea that the public sector exists to help them. Increasingly, people support cracking down on the unions and in the long run this can hurt everyone involved. Without the trust of the population the public sector cannot function. Policemen who are respected and trusted are far more effective than policemen who are seen as interested purely in their own pay.

You might say that the right to strike is an important way of keeping the government in check, of protecting workers’ rights or of maintaining high standards – but this is wrong. The public sector already has a mechanism to do all of these things: they are decided by the electorate. It is the voters who ought to decide how much teachers get paid, what police pensions should be, or how long nurses should work. The voters are the ones who pay for it and the entire legitimacy of the public sector stems from the fact that they are working for a democratically elected government; the public sector workers do not have the right to overrule the rest of the people in the country.

When they strike they hurt the public sector as a whole. They hurt the taxpayer. They hurt the people in society who most need their help. It is unfair and unethical for the public sector to hold the country to ransom; if you want to work for the state then you must accept that the voters are in charge and to try and go against their wishes is just unacceptable.

No - Ed Middleton

It is important to make the distinction between whether public sector workers are making the right decision to strike at a certain time and whether they should be able to strike. Clearly no right-minded individual would advocate unnecessary or unreasonable striking, but I will aim to show you why it is important that striking is an option for those in the public sector.

Public sector workers are in the unique position of having the same body paying their wages as ensuring they are paid fairly. The government, employing public sector workers, has an incentive to keep costs down: if costs were driven too high, anger from the general public (comprising predominantly private sector workers) would be expressed at the ballot box and lead to the election of parties with more thrifty attitudes towards pay. Unfortunately, due to the nature of public sector work, the options left for workers to express their discontentment are very limited.

The public sector tends to consist of large, national organisations with extensive power structures. Because of this, individuals working on the lower rungs of the employment ladder become one of many voiceless worker bees with little or no access to the Queen Bee. It is very difficult for the majority of public sector workers to engage in a meaningful discussion with those responsible for determining their salaries and working environment. In the private sector, though workers may be in a large industry, there is a much higher exposure to the managers that determine their pay. Private sector industries are also held accountable to government bodies that are entirely independent, and can act as third party arbiters in any employment negotiations. For this reason, it is much more important for public sector workers to have clear and visible forms of mass protest against unacceptable working conditions.

True, public sector striking is inconvenient to many; but it is not unmanageable

Another feature of public sector work that makes striking so important is its vocational nature. A lot of the workers have picked careers that involve varying degrees of specialist training, and have dedicated their lives to using these skills to earn a living. However, unlike private sector workers in similar lines of work, there are no alternative providers. This means that skilled workers with specialised talents are forced to work for a single provider; one that is not accountable to an independent body and is incentivised towards lower pay. Also, because of this, public sector workers tend to work long careers with the same employer. As such, any changes to their contract will have lasting effects for the worker’s entire career.

Finally, the concern that the vital nature of public sector work would give them unjustified power in striking is an assertion that does not hold up to scrutiny. Public sector jobs are important, but society can survive without them. Most public sector jobs exist in industries where national co-ordination makes for a better service: a nationalised health service, for instance, is many times more efficient than a private one; or in sectors where it is advantageous to have organizations working for quality not profit. They do not solely consist of “vital” industries. True, public sector striking is inconvenient to many; but it is not unmanageable, and this is not a reason to disallow workers from striking. Furthermore, as discussed above, many public sector employees have chosen their job as a vocation; it is something they care about. This non-financial incentive for work means that many public sector workers already accept longer working hours and less pay for the work they do, and would be inclined to strike only when their situation became very severe.

As stated above, while there may be situations where it is inappropriate for public sector workers to strike, it is essential that they have the option to do so. It should be used as a last resort, but one that can be deployed to ensure the fair treatment and employment status of everyone in Britain.