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List includes growing number of moderate unions, both inside and outside TUC, prepared to take last resort of industrial action
The rising number of unions ready to ballot over the proposed public sector pension reforms signals the biggest industrial unrest for generations, potentially involving millions of public sector workers.
The list includes a growing number of moderate unions, both inside and outside the TUC umbrella, prepared to take the last resort of industrial action to make their case.
Many are looking to stage a joint day of strike action before Christmas – November has been pencilled in – followed by targeted action into next year.
Public sector unions to have so far declared their intention to ballot include: • Unison, which represents 1.1 million public service workers.
• The GMB, which represents 300,000.
• Unite, which represents 250,000.
The Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance is also in the process of organising a ballot.
Service-specific unions
Civil service
• The Public and Commercial Services Union has 250,000 members in the public sector. The union's leader, Mark Serwotka, was the first to announce his determination to take part in a co-ordinated strike day in November followed by sustained action into next year. The union, one of four to take part in the joint strike in June, still has a valid ballot.
• Prospect, a civil servants' union, and the FDA, representing senior ranking civil servants, has confirmed that it will ballot members unless the government amends its proposal to impose a pensions levy on civil servants from April 2012.
Health
• Unison has around 460,000 members. Unite and the GMB also have many members in the sector. But a number of large healthcare unions also sit outside the TUC umbrella: the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives have a mandate to formally ballot members for the first time in their histories, and the British Medical Association said in the summer that it was considering a ballot for the first time since the 1970s.
However, none of the big three professional health unions have yet declared. In August, healthcare unions met to discuss possible industrial action, and will meet again later this month.
Education
• Seven education unions will come together for a lobby of parliament over teachers' pensions on 26 October – the ATL, NUT, UCU, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), UCAC, a Welsh teaching union, and the NASUWT.
Three – the NUT, the ATL and the UCU – still have a strike mandate following the joint strike action on 30 June. They have signalled they are prepared to use their mandates again if the government fails to change course.
The University and College Union will also be joining other unions in a day of action to defend pensions on 30 November. The UCU represents members belonging to one of two pension schemes. UCU members in further education colleges and the new post-1992, or "modern" universities, are in the teachers' pension scheme and are part of the current dispute with the government.
On the closing day of the TUC conference, the UCU also announced that members from 67 older universities had voted for a "sustained campaign of industrial action" over proposed changes to the universities superannuation scheme, the second-largest private pension scheme in the UK. Action will begin in mid-October, and is set to affect more than 1 million students.
The NASUWT, which represents almost 250,000 teachers, announced its decision to ballot members for industrial action this autumn on Friday.
The National Association of Head Teachers, a union outside the TUC umbrella, which represents school leaders, is expected to announce details of its ballot later this week. Subject to the ballot result, it is expected to co-ordinate with other unions.
Scotland's largest teaching union, the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) is also balloting.
UCAC, which represents teachers, headteachers and lecturers in Wales, is staging a one day strike on 5 October.
Prisons
The Prison Officers' Association has signalled that it is ready to defy, if necessary, the strike ban that prevents prison staff from going on strike.
- Trade unions
- TUC
- Public sector pensions
- Public services policy
- Public sector pay
- Conferences
- Occupational pensions
- Pensions
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