#A18DoA #NoTTIP Today is a Global Day of Action against free trade and investment treaties. Over 25 protests are planned in Britain including a major event ‘Democracy vs TTIP’ at Shepherds Bush Common, London:
https://www.globaltradeday.org/
Many trade unionists will have been disappointed to see Labour include in its General Election manifesto support for the 'principles behind the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Treaty (TTIP)’. Although it goes on to say that a Labour Government ‘will hold the European Commission to account on issues of concern, including the impact on public services and the Investor to State Dispute Settlement Mechanism. And we will ensure the NHS is protected from the TTIP treaty’, this is a massive and unacceptable capitulation to the competition and deregulation agenda of the EU and US:
http://www.waronwant.org/news/latest-news/18306-ttip-where-the-parties-stand
#NoTTIP One of the most pernicious measures in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) which empowers corporations to go to secret tribunals to attack the laws we rely on for public services, a clean environment, safe food and decent jobs etc.
A new resource has been launched for campaigning on ISDS -
www.ISDSCorporateAttacks.org – a website that outlines the basic facts/threats of ISDS; provides summaries of ISDS cases organized by issue area: health, environment, financial stability, etc.; gives stories of inspiration of governments and government officials that opposing ISDS; and includes a basic petition.
#NoTTIP The recent War on Want Manchester conference - ‘TTIP: Building the Fightback’ - included a presentation by Jeronim Capaldo of TUFTS University in the USA. Capaldo’s study, ‘The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: European Disintegration, Unemployment and Instability’, provides conclusive evidence that contrary to official assessments, TTIP's intensification of market competition and deregulation will have negative effects on European workers including falling levels of employment, lower incomes and a reduced labour share of national wealth. A summary of the study can be read here:
http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/14-03CapaldoTTIP.pdf
The outsourcing of public services provision to private providers has a detrimental impact on the workforce and a knock-on effect on the quality of care, says a new TUC report published today. The research, conducted by the New Economics Foundation on behalf of the TUC, looked at the scale and scope of outsourcing in five key sectors – social care, health care, offender management, local government and employment services. The report also examined the effects of outsourcing on staff working in a variety of public service jobs, such as care workers, nurses, prison officers and security guards.
https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/TUC%20and%20NEF%20Outsourcing%20Public%20Services.pdf
Metropolitan Police proposals to transfer 500 'business services' staff in human resources, payroll and procurement to a new company Shared Services Connected Ltd, (75% owned by French multinational Sopra Steria and 25% owned by the UK government) could lead to 'the mass privatisation of civilian staff employed by police forces across England' according to a Tribune report by David Hencke:
http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2015/01/police-staff-for-sale-after-may/
At the end of November the Government announced that nine English NHS Trusts had been selected for the Mutuals in Health: Pathfinder programme - described in a UNISON briefing as ‘part of the government’s drive to move more NHS services out of public ownership’. In a timely article on the lessons of the Hinchingbrooke hospital scandal, David Owen, believes Circle’s failure could derail the mutual bandwagon: ‘those who advocate “the market as the organising principle of the NHS”, have abused the term mutual as a less abrasive way of achieving their objectives. Fortunately, they have now been exposed, and happily so before the general election. Those who worry about the NHS can now rally, and let prospective candidates know exactly what they expect of all MPs in the next parliament. There is just enough time’
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/19/hinchingbrooke-hospital-scandal-mutual-privately-run
Today the Commons will debate Labour MP Clive Efford’s worthy bill to save the NHS from irreversible privatisation, which will aim to reverse the Health & Social Care Act 2012 and seek to exempt the NHS from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
However, John Hilary of War on Want points out that ‘such national legislation would not be enough to save the NHS from TTIP. If health services are included in the deal, any future UK government will be bound by its treaty obligations as an EU member state over and above unilateral declarations such as the one envisaged in the bill. Even if the UK were to take the extreme option of leaving the European Union altogether, TTIP would still enable US health corporations to sue future governments for reversing NHS privatisation, thanks to the ‘survival clauses’ that ensure free trade agreements remain in force for years after a state has ceased to be a party to them’.
Only outright rejection of TTIP will save the NHS.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/john-hilary/cameron-faces-ttip-showdown-over-nhs
The widely acclaimed 'Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else’ by James Meek is, according to the FT's reviewer, ‘
a book to read if you want vivid details of what went wrong’ in the aftermath of the Conservative Party’s orgy of privatisation in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The book's stand out essay, on the sale of UK electricity, charts the changes in ownership which have left foreign but state owned corporations dominant in the sector. It was first published in the LRB and can be read
here. It highlights the contrasting approaches of UNISON and the French union CGT, with the latter bemused at the lack of resistance shown by UK unions to privatisation and foreign takeovers.
'After years of real pay cuts public service workers are fighting back' writes Seumas Milne of the
 |
| Kingston UNISON midwives on NHS strike |
Guardian in an article taking stock of the upsurge in public sector strike action since July. Milne rightly identifies the toxic mix of austerity and privatisation as the key factors in the squeeze on the pay and job security of Britain's public services workforce:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/16/public-service-strikers-standing-up-for-britain
Public Services International (PSI) and Our World is not For Sale have launched a new report, written by Ellen Gould, on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). The report outlines the way the TISA, the radical extension of GATS, will restrict democratic government’s ability to make laws that protect us. It will tie the hands of governments to deal with important issues such as health care, water, energy, education and climate change. The agreement will stop public services returning to state ownership if privatisations fail and will undermine data privacy laws. Shockingly it will restrict the rights of government to regulate the financial markets, as if nothing has been learned from the financial crisis:
http://www.world-psi.org/en/psi-special-report-really-good-friends-transnational-corporations-agreement
#psiglobaltradesummit The most significant decision of the 2014 Trades Union Congress was the
unanimous vote in opposition to the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The hard hitting composite called on the TUC to
oppose Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms and demanded the exclusion of all public services, including education and health, public procurement, public utilities and public transport (whether in public or private ownership) from the negotiations which are largely being conducted in secret between the EU and US Government.
The Independent has revealed that a company set up by Serco has overcharged NHS hospitals millions of pounds for diagnostic tests. Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee said: ’After a series of high profile failures, Government claims it has a grip on contracts with private companies to deliver our public services. Clearly it hasn’t. This is not just about ripping off the taxpayer, but about a failure to provide acceptable quality in a service that is vital for diagnosing what in many cases are serious or even life-threatening illnesses. It is also not the first time that serious concerns have been raised about Serco and its track record, including in other parts of the NHS where last year our Committee reported on substandard service and data manipulation in a contract to provide GP out-of-hours services’.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-overcharging-by-outsourcing-giant-serco-costs-nhs-millions-9695342.html
The Critical Thinking blog has published a useful update on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). EU denials that ‘standards on consumer protection, on the environment, on data protection and on food are not up for negotiation’ are blatant lies. So too are purported assurances that the NHS is excluded from the scope of the proposed Treaty:
http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1047-ttip-update-status-and-resistance
Today’s Observer editorial gives backing to striking UNISON members at Care UK: ‘The Doncaster workers merit, at the very least, a living wage, as do all care workers. Government is initially the prime mover in ensuring sufficient funds; shareholders may have to see their dividends reduced. But in a fair society, that is surely is as it should be.’ Elsewhere in the same paper economist Will Hutton identifies ‘privatisation by stealth’ as the root cause of the exploitation of former NHS care workers and endorses the long running strike which will be escalated next week: ‘Good on them, and these are words you don't read often, good on the union. They deserve all our support’
Yesterday Andy Burnham addressed a packed gathering of the Labour faithful at North West UNISON’s office.
It was a timely speech as part of Labour's summer campaign offensive. Burnham is an articulate and engaging speaker who talks in language that actually speaks to ordinary voters. A rare quality in a shadow cabinet awash with southern policy wonks whose ideas seem to stem from glugging Rioja over an Islington vintage effect kitchen table, complete with Cath Kidston crockery and twins called Cornelius and Cosmo.
The Herald reports that the Policy Exchange is proposing that job centres should be broken up and forced to compete against private firms in helping people find work. The A4E profiteering debacle clearly escaped the notice of this right wing 'think tank' as they disguise further privatisation of public services as 'personalisation'. A spin originally weaved by Blairs' policy wonks. It now seems you can have a 'choice' about which provider will subject you to benefit sanctions and workfare. How nicely personal is that!
http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/comment/columnists/is-it-right-to-allow-public-services-to-be-delivered-for-profit.24855061
Anna Rose
The current national pay campaigns in local government and health are a necessary and overdue response to Government pay policies which have resulted in public service workers being on average £2,245 worse off in real terms.
All of the unions involved, especially UNISON as the largest, have a heavy responsibility to halt this unprecedented downward spiral in earnings and to force employers (and politicians) to respect collective bargaining and pay determination processes.
The stakes are high. In addition to halting the unjustified pay detriment of our members and restoring union credibility, Professor Roger Seifert, reviewing the impact of the 10 July coordinated strike action, argues that the pay campaign poses a much wider question - ‘what do our main political leaders consider to be the future of UK public services? Pay cuts, workload increases, further supply-side fragmentation, and privatisation suggest not just a down-grading of all public services but a removal of some services from public access’
As opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) gains momentum in the UK and elsewhere, suddenly (and based on leaked correspondence) it has been claimed in some quarters that the treaty poses no threat to the NHS. John Hilary of War on Want, writing on the Open Democracy website, demonstrates convincingly that the opposite is true and emphasises the importance of continuing to build the campaign against TTIP:.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/john-hilary/on-ttip-and-nhs-they-are-trying-to-bamboozle-us
