David Cameron Calls On Public Sector Workers To Defy Unions And Not Strike On November 30

Cameron

Huffington Post UK   First Posted: 23/11/11 07:52 GMT Updated: 23/11/11 08:58 GMT

David Cameron has called on public sector workers scheduled to strike next week to ignore their unions and “work normally”.

Writing in the Sun, the prime minister says the strikes do not enjoy the support of the majority of union members – and he calls on union leaders to “think again.”

“My message to the union leaders today is: Think again. I urge public sector workers to put the people of Britain first and work normally."

Cameron also called on Labour leader Ed Miliband to condemn the strikes, writing “I want to hear him tell the union bosses that pay Labour's bills that these strikes are wrong."

Around three million workers are expected to go on strike next Wednesday in protest against planned changes to public sector pensions. As part of the action hospital services will be disrupted and libraries and schools shut.

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David Cameron has called on public sector workers scheduled to strike next week to ignore their unions and “work normally”. Writing in the Sun, the prime minister says the strikes do not enjoy ...
David Cameron has called on public sector workers scheduled to strike next week to ignore their unions and “work normally”. Writing in the Sun, the prime minister says the strikes do not enjoy ...
 
 
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11:54 PM on 11/23/2011
I urge public sector workers to put the people of Britain first?

Just like the conservatives do.
04:03 PM on 11/23/2011
well i guess my view of cameron was not allowed didnt realise this was a site that does not allow free speech
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Lord Justice Wolf
07:35 AM on 11/24/2011
Not since AOL decided to screen everything written, then pass it on to the huffington post so it does not get the backlash. Why did the Huffington Post take over notice boards at AOL???
03:31 PM on 11/23/2011
It's about time David Cameron practiced what he preaches and put the British public before others.
Where's the referrendum he promised on the EU, stop increasing forign aid, and get this country
back on a firm financial footing first, then maybe we can increase aid without causing problems at home
photo
TROOPER-X
Opportunity is Equal, not Wealth.
03:24 PM on 11/23/2011
Fire them all. Air traffic controllers in America once acted so arrogantly..............before they received their pink slips. If these individuals are willing to place their pockets before teaching children and tending to patients................they need to go.
04:06 PM on 11/23/2011
well they wont print what i think of your view or what i indeed think of you yourself so much for free speech but perhaps i can say u obviously enjoy being under a dictatorship keep the workers down and give them nothing look after the bankers and mps
04:35 PM on 11/23/2011
Quite right. In fact, we should stop paying teachers, nurses and doctors entirely. The privilege of teaching our children, nursing our wounds and treating our various ailments should be reward enough. These mooching free-loaders should think less about their futures, stop demanding a fair remuneration package in return for a fair days work and consider themselves lucky that we allow them to be our lowly public service slaves.

Sufficed to say, I don't agree with you 'Henry Ford meet Churchill' approach to industrial relations, we had quite enough of that in the 19th century and the American worker isn't much helped by the preponderance of anti-union sentiment/propaganda in the USA either.
02:42 PM on 11/23/2011
One more thing, its fine to tell these workers to defy their unions and colleagues after this balloted strike regardless how many bothered to vote for or against it, however, will "call me Dave" be there to champion the scabs when it comes to lay-off time, because once you scab the union won't be fighting your corner, the employer will shed you with the first lot out as they too know this, so unless you're indispensible to the running of whichever service your employed by, think twice before sauntering past your colleagues.
02:29 PM on 11/23/2011
He goes on about how the majority of union members didn't vote for the strike so it shouldn't happen and they should ignore the union.

Does that mean that seeing how the majority of the country didn't vote for this government that we can ignore it too?
01:29 PM on 11/23/2011
This is the same man that asked us to "Hug a hoodie", no one paid attention to that one either.
01:10 PM on 11/23/2011
David Cameron really doesn't seem to understand the inner workings and overall purpose of 'bully-boy' unions. To clarify Dave, 'bully-boy' unions are very similar to 'bully-boy' political parties and their 'bully-boy' whips. Except of course that unions benefit from and act according to a broad consensus within their voting membership, whereas political parties formulate policy based on the ideological aspirations of a select core of party elites and thrust said policies down the throats of party members and/or the wider electorate with little or no regard to whether or not they have a mandate to do so. This minority government in coalition clothing certainly doesn't have a mandate for many of the policies they are enacting. Unlike the unions who have a clear mandate to negotiate on behalf of their members and a moral and legal obligation to act (in good faith) on the outcome of a legal strike ballot. This weak Prime Minister of ours cannot oversee a flawed negotiation strategy of no-compromise with the unions for well over a year, issue a single rather pathetic compromise (after many of the major strike ballots were already under-way) and then cry foul.
12:47 PM on 11/23/2011
You may well sit there with your face in your hands ,between Theresa may and Vince cable and the likes you and yours will be out of a job
12:52 PM on 11/23/2011
Is that gloating or sympathy?
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
SATCHMAN99
12:06 PM on 11/23/2011
Why is it everytime the Tory's are in power there are mass strikes and the unemployment goes up? Strange eh?
11:40 AM on 11/23/2011
What a two faced prat he is since when has he or his puppet clegg put the people first
11:39 AM on 11/23/2011
What a hypocrit since when has he or his puppet clegg put the people first
11:23 AM on 11/23/2011
I dont believe strikes achieve very much. I would like to suggest the whole number of people who intend to strike put their grievance on paper and send it to Mr Cameron at 10 Downing Street, Westminister, London, SWIA2AA . Not a petition but individual letters.Then he will know the views you all have and if he does not respond then have the strike and make that clear in your letters.A strike is a costly process and will lead to good people getting arrested, the police will see to that .I dont think this has been done before, but you have answerd his call, now within a month will he answer yours.
10:34 AM on 11/23/2011
"The PM says the strikes do not enjoy the support of the majority of union members"

Much like Dave's whole Prime Ministership then. I'd be very careful if I were Cameron, much of what he and his colleagues are doing is utterly without mandate and many of his colleagues were elected without a majority of those who voted, much less of those registered to vote.

"My message to the union leaders today is: Think again. I urge public sector workers to put the people of Britain first and work normally."

If unions allowed such emotive rhetoric to wag their tails they'd be betraying their members and would leave the public sector utterly defenceless in the warpath of an ideologically motivated MINORITY government.

"I want to hear him tell the union bosses that pay Labour's bills that these strikes are wrong."

No Dave, what you actually want is to shift the centre-ground ever more rightwards and for Ed Milliband to tell union MEMBERS that the political party founded to give the working classes a voice is unwilling to support them.

What I want Dave is to hear YOU, tell the financiers and wealthy 'industrialists' who fund your party that their demands to role Britain back to the Victorian era are unworkable, immoral, and without mandate. But of course, being a vacuous PR-man born into abject privilege, you have neither the spine nor the inclination to go against your paymasters and serve the people who didn't elect you.
01:14 PM on 11/23/2011
The crux of the issue here is a government of talentless wasters who got into government, not because they were worthy or the people trusted them to deliver or favoured their policies, but because Labour was imploding and had abandoned its core. These wasters are now propped up in a cosy little coalition government, pursuing policies than neither party put to the electorate (many of which are grossly unpopular) without a thought in the world for the fact that nobody won the election (they have no mandate). They don't know how to negotiate precisely because we have a legislature filled with talentless 'also rans' who are only interested in pursuing their own pet ideologies (think Tea Party) under the delusion that they are our rulers, rather than our servants, and they have to invent consensus where there is none (the NHS bill is a key example of this invented consensus). Until we, the electorate, have the right to directly recall MPs and even Prime Ministers, Cabinet Ministers and/or Governments on the basis of broken promises (or what I like to call electoral misrepresentation) this will forever be the case. The rank of Prime Minister is little different from the privilege of Dictator for 5 years.
02:27 PM on 11/23/2011
f & f, my thoughts precisely
09:40 AM on 11/23/2011
I hardly think a few hours of striking by a dedicated workforce is as effective a cosh to the Library Service as what Mr Cameron's culture ministers are doing, daily, to enable it to be dismantled for ever !