This week’s welcome confirmation of Tuesday 14 October as the next strike day in the NJC local government pay dispute (which has rumbled on since April) not only opens up the possibility of co-ordinated action with health - the NHS pay industrial action ballot opens on 28 August - but could draw in UNISON local government members in Scotland who are also set to ballot for strike action over pay.
It is essential that local union branches use the intervening 10 weeks to step up the pay campaign, in particular seeking the support of councillors for an improved pay offer - which is the only way the dispute can be won.
#IWMD14 ‘Every year workers and their trade unions remember the many thousands world wide that die in workplace accidents each year. We remember those workers that die of occupational diseases. Many of these accidents and deaths because of diseases can be prevented by appropriate laws, controls and sanctions. And while we remember the workers that have died, we also recall those who are responsible for putting pressure on workers to work unsafely, our employers, and those politicians that support the employers such as Commission President Barroso. He is complicit in many of these deaths and diseases by not actively pursuing a European health and safety strategy’ says EPSU in a hard hitting statement to mark International Workers Memorial Day pointing out the stark truth that the European Commission is pursuing a deregulation agenda along the same lines of the UK’s so called red tape challenge:
http://www.epsu.org/a/10390
#uHealth14 After some infantile posturing by the ultra left who embroiled conference in a farcical row with standing orders committee about the structure for yesterday’s crucial pay debate, delegates finally got the chance to show their anger at the Con Dem's attack on NHS workers’ pay.
Christina McAnea, UNISON’s Head of Health moved the emergency motion ‘launch a national challenge to Hunt’s divisive pay strategy’. The motion calls for an emphatic rejection of the government’s pay package for 2014-15 and to make NHS pay the major focus of the Service Group for 2014. Christina announced that there will be a day of action on 5th June.
#uHealth14 There is a beautiful blue sky and the sun is dancing on the gentle waves lapping the Brighton shore line. All appears calm. But hundreds of UNISON activists are pouring into the Brighton conference centre for the national Health Conference. The delegates are angry and rightly so. It is clear from the off that this year's conference will be dominated by pay.
Standing orders has admitted an emergency motion on pay from the SGE. Early speeches by the SGE Chair and the General Secretary set the scene and anticipation of the pay debate has hung over the proceedings as delegates appear itching to give the go ahead for a broad based campaign on pay within the service.
#uHealth14 UNISON's 2014 health care conference starts today in Brighton with members reeling from an unprecedented government onslaught. This month a two year 0% pay award was imposed with only a minority of NHS workers at the top of pay grades receiving a non consolidated 1% payment. And this year tens of thousands of health workers face transfer out of NHS employment under a much weakened TUPE regime providing limited protection to pay, pensions and contracts. Christina McAnea, UNISON head of health, writes in today's Morning Star that 'members are angry and that’s why we will be calling for a ballot for industrial action, because enough is enough. It is very rare for NHS staff to contemplate strike action because patients are their number one priority. But rarely have staff felt so strongly about they way they are being treated and rarely have they had so many reasons to feel that way.'
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-7cf8-Unison-Health-Conference-Health-workers-are-at-breaking-point#.U0tk1FpwbIU
'Without addressing the fundamental inequalities in society the enormous efforts of our NHS staff will be like trying to push a giant rock up a hill. No matter how hard they try it comes pressing back down on them' writes UNISON Scottish Convenor and health worker Lilian Macer in a Morning Star article pointing out that policy on housing, employment and education all have an impact on health in Scotland and beyond:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-f01f-The-NHS-alone-cant-solve-health-inequality
In 2010 Tory Grandee Lord Young published a report ‘Common Sense, Common Safety’ following a Con Dem initiated review of health and safety laws. The Prime Minister responded to the report by saying “a damaging compensation culture has arisen, as if people can absolve themselves from any personal responsibility for their own actions, with the spectre of lawyers only too willing to pounce with a claim for damages on the slightest pretext. We simply cannot go on like this.” In 2011/12 the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimated that over 600,000 workers suffered a workplace injury or a new work-related illness. Yet the total number of civil compensation settlements for work-related injuries or diseases in 2011/12 was only 87,655 – so fewer than 1 in 7 injured workers received compensation according to a new Hazards report:
http://www.hazards.org/votetodie/robbed.htm
#TUC13 “If unions were denied a political voice: We wouldn't have had the 1944 Education Act; we wouldn't have the NHS; we wouldn't have equal pay for women; we wouldn't have a minimum wage. And remember who first exposed the scandal of tax avoidance? Who first raised the alarm about falling living standards? And who first blew the whistle on zero-hours? You can see why some people want to shut us up. That is why we must now stand up for our rights. Not just union rights. Civil rights. People's rights” said Frances O’Grady in a scathing attack on the government’s Lobbying Bill during her General Secretary’s speech at TUC Congress yesterday:
http://www.tuc.org.uk/the_tuc/tuc-22581-f0.cfm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVovy0_otFk&feature=youtu.be
#TUC13 ‘A cursory glance through the 2013 TUC Agenda highlights the extent of the ever-growing employment rights problems facing workers in all sectors of our economy. Whether it's on health and safety, unfair dismissal, redundancy, maternity or equality issues, this government has ignored all the evidence and sidestepped opposition to force through changes that not only turn back the clock but are now destabilising the very bases of our industrial relations settlement,’ writes Carolyn Jones of the Institute of Employment Rights in a Congress preview:
http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/greater-union-presence-essential-heal-divided-britain#.UicHDAuDUlM.twitter
On the cusp of UNISON’s 20th anniversary, Assistant General Secretary Bob Abberley retired last week after playing a key role in the union’s national leadership since 1993. Acknowledged as the prime mover in bringing health union Cohse into the Nalgo/NUPE merger talks in the early 1990’s, Bob went on to lead UNISON’s health service group for many years. Latterly he has been responsible for industrial action in UNISON and served on the TUC’s General Council. It was Bob who moved the historic 30 November 2011 national day of strike action in defence of pensions in the TUC public services forum. A long term supporter of ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ Bob will continue to be active in anti racist work as well as community organising through the Movement for Change.
Reading this year’s Queens Speech, its most remarkable trait is actually how banal it is and how little it has to offer in the real world.
This speech has obvious gestation in recent events. After a collision with the shock troops of Little England in the local elections last week, Her Majesty's Government has clearly looked out the Dummies Guide to Reactionary policies (British edition).
It then appears to have dictated bits at random from its collective position in the downstairs lavvy - a stance necessitated by the collective overflow of effluent.
#iwmd13 Scenes last week from Bangladesh, where over 350 garment workers died in an unsafe working environment, bring into sharp relief why International Workers' Memorial Day is such an important event in our calendar. Yet the Dhaka tragedy is far from a one off. The TUC's Hugh Robertson writes that there are '2.34 million occupational fatalities every year, of which 321,000 are due to accidents. The remaining 2.02 million deaths are caused by various types of work-related diseases, which correspond to a daily average of more than 5,500 deaths.'
#uHealth2013 UNISON health activists are meeting in Glasgow today for the union's
2013 national health conference. Delegates gather at a pivotal time for the NHS as it struggles under the Con Dem government's onslaught of cuts and structural destruction. The scale of the government's attack is unprecedented and the NHS now stands on a precipice, which if unchecked will see the end of free universal health care in this country.
Mass protests took place in 16 Spanish cities yesterday as public opposition mounts to the part privatisation of health and welfare services. 'Public health is not to be sold, it’s to be defended' was the theme of the demonstrations against Government proposals to hive off services as part of the right wing Spanish Government's austerity measures:
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/17/big_protests_in_spain_against_health_care_reforms/
Tribune reports on Con Dem proposals to make massive cuts to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. Tory Justice Secretary Chris Grayling MP is driving through the changes which will abolish or severely restrict compensation payments for victims of attacks at work ('including people with sprained wrists and those scarred by knife attacks'):
http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2012/11/the-true-face-of-compassionate-conservatism/
The Con Dem Government's Open Public Services white paper asserts that going back to purchaser/provider splits will enhance public services. We know from the experience of our members In health and local government since the 1980's that falsifying public services to act as ‘clients and contractors’ is playing a game of shop and does nothing to enhance service quality or cost. Instead it introduces marketization into public services to ripen them for privatisation. This
APSE briefing explains why splitting off public services along market driven lines is simply bad practice and one that sensible public service providers reject.
PM
A TUC survey published yesterday reveals that although employers are required by law to provide employees with personal protective equipment free of charge, more than one in five workers are being forced to pay for it out of their own pocket:
http://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace/tuc-21272-f0.cfm
