Let all who will
Eat quietly the bread of shame.
I cannot,
Without complaining loud and long.
Tasting its bitterness in my throat,
And feeling to my very soul
It's wrong.
For honest work
You proffer me poor pay,
for honest dreams
Your spit is in my face,
And so my fist is clenched
Today-
To strike your face.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/langston-hughes
Following last week’s health service group executive and subsequent liaison with other NHS unions,
UNISON has confirmed that our members working in the NHS in England will stage a further four-hour stoppage between 7am and 11am on Monday 24 November. This will be followed by a week of action short of strike action between Tuesday 25 and Sunday 30 November when members will work to rule and not do any unpaid overtime. The stakes are high and it’s vital that the next strike (now joined by radiographers) builds on the impressive action taken on 13 October. The Con Dem decision to unilaterally reject the
recommendation of the independent NHS pay review body for a ‘1 per cent increase to all Agenda for Change pay points from 1 April 2014’ was compounded by the decision to award non consolidated 1% cash payments only to staff on the top of pay bands, thus discriminating against the 60% of staff receiving contractual increments this year. Public support is overwhelmingly with NHS workers and if the joint action can be sustained into 2015 the Con Dem’s can be forced to pay a heavy political price for this unprecedented attack on health workers.
'Low Pay Britain 2014', the Resolution Foundation’s annual audit of low pay across Britain, has found that the number of people earning less than two-thirds of median hourly pay, equivalent to £7.69 an hour, rose to 5.2 million, an increase of 250,000 on the previous year and 22% of the national workforce:
http://www.channel4.com/news/low-wages-money-earnings-record-employment-pay
In their biggest protest for a decade, up to one million Italian trade unionists mobilised in Rome yesterday in opposition to attacks on employment rights by the Democratic Party led Italian Government. Susanna Camusso, head of the CGIL, the trade union centre which organised the protest, said: "We want work for everyone, and work with rights. This is a demonstration for those without work, without rights, those who suffer, who have no certainties for the future. We are here and we're not going away. We will strike and use all our strength to fight to change this Government's policies."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-29771540
You sit with the others staring at the agenda.
Everything is in order and respectable.
The chairperson is venerated, the coffee
is not instant. The doorknobs are burnished gold
in this light.
