Defend the right to strike – under threat at home and abroad

Today a global day of action in defence of the right to strike is being called to highlight the serious attacks on fundamental union rights. The Institute of Employment Rights reports that the employers’ group at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is challenging the very existence of the right to strike, established under ILO Convention 87. Meanwhile a serious assault on the right to strike will be in the Tory general election manifesto with proposed minimum requirements in strike ballots of 50% turnout and 40% of all workers balloted to vote in favour – impossible hurdles to mount in large scale national ballots. Tory relic, Lord Tebbit, himself an architect of anti union laws in the early 1980’s, smugly pointed out in the Daily Telegraph this week the failure of the labour movement to deliver on pledges to reverse those attacks. The balance of power shifted against unions and quickly became a matter of political consensus. We must not let history repeat itself.

Election 2015 - What's at stake?

CLASS, the labour movement think tank, has published the first in a series of general election guides. Election 2015: What’s at stake for work, pay and unions?
    This timely publication provides excellent ammunition for organisers and stewards to explain the unfair realities of work in Britain today and why enhanced collective bargaining is the key to reversing years of rising inequality. As TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady says in her foreword: '2015 must be the year when we ensure the recovery, share its proceeds fairly and start to undo the damage done to our public services and welfare state by the crash and its aftermath. Strong unions, fair pay settlements and decent jobs with full employment rights are at the heart of how we achieve this'
http://classonline.org.uk/docs/election15_-_work,_pay,_unions_single.pdf

Night Workers by Helen Dunmore

All you who are awake in the dark of the night,
all you companions of the one lit window
in the knuckled-down row of sleeping houses,

all you who think nothing of the midnight hour
but by three or four have done your work
and are on the way home, stopping

at traffic lights, even though there is no one
but you in either direction. How different the dark is
when day is coming; you know all this.

All you who have kept awake through the dark of the night
and now go homeward; you, charged with the hospital's
vending-machine coffee; you working all night at Tesco,

Union women can defeat the Con Dems

#unwc15 UNISON NEC member Jane Carolan writes in the Morning Star on the potential influence of the union's women members on the outcome of the upcoming General Election: 'The country can afford the services that UNISON members provide - services that save, protect and enrich lives - if we stop wasting money on costly privatisations and pointless reorganisations and make the banks, big corporations and the super-rich pay a fairer share in tax.

Cuts to funding are becoming critical, to the point that local authorities could be on the verge of collapse - yet if the Tories continue in power there’s more to come. Our alternative, the UNISON manifesto Securing the Future of Public Services, is available on our website.

We each have a contribution to make. Do not assume that neighbours and workmates vote. Do not assume that they are aware of the alternatives. We need a million female members speaking up for public services because they care about the services they deliver and the services that they use.

One million women demanding an alternative can make a difference. One million women demanding change equals hope'
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-978c-One-million-women-make-a-difference#.VN2atVZFDIU

Adding insult to injury - public service workers exempt from Tory call for pay rises

'It’s time Britain had a pay rise' the Tory Prime Minister told the British Chambers of Commerce on Tuesday. But Tory Ministers were quick to point out that Cameron's Damascene conversion to fairness at work does not apply to public sector workers. Within hours of his Leader's speech, Business Minister Matthew Hancock told Radio 4's the World at One that 'we've got to make sure we keep a tight constraint on public sector pay' and then later on the same day popped on Newsnight to shamelessly make the point that 'public sector productivity has gone up pretty sharply in the past 5 years'.
     It's about time UNISON made mincemeat of these contradictory and divisive attacks on our members now that wages are centre stage in the political debate. As Simon Jenkins stated in the Guardian: 'If he had the courage of his economic conviction, Cameron would do the same for the public sector. He can hand out bonuses to welfare recipients and state workers without bruising his deficit reduction strategy. He can print them. He found £375bn overnight to give the banks with no risk of inflation. He can do it again'
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/10/david-cameron-britain-pay-rise-cough-up-public-sector-welfare

Does it matter which union is the 'largest'?

Inter union rivalry has been a negative characteristic of British trade unionism for more than a century. The highly unionised teaching profession is strongly contested by 3 TUC affiliated unions and claims of the 'best', 'biggest' and 'largest' trade union feature on union websites and other communications. The NUT recently lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about an NASUWT job advertisement which included a claim to be 'the largest teachers' union in the UK'. The complaint was upheld and the NASUWT must not repeat the advert in its current form. The ASA has told the NASUWT to ensure it holds evidence to support such claims in future.
    A parallel situation arguably exists between Unite and UNISON with the former claiming to be 'Britain's biggest trade union' despite having 150,000 fewer paying members. But does size matter? The Con Dem Government seems to think so with Part 3 of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 bringing in a new statutory requirement for unions to submit a membership audit certificate (verified by an independent assurer) to the Certification Office each year. The pretext for this legislation was that unions 'should reflect the will of their members' but in reality it is about marginalising unions from public life. And faced with such hostile state interference maybe it's time for unions to end one-upmanship and place greater emphasis on trade union unity rather than making competitive claims more befitting of mobile phone firms and supermarket chains?
http://asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2015/1/NASUWT/SHP_ADJ_261873.aspx#.VNUtNlZFDIX

A Prayer for the Loners by Keith Armstrong

The dejected men,
the lone voices,
slip away
in this seaside rain.
Their words shudder to a standstill
in dismal corners.
Frightened to shout,

Stop TTIP - the Trojan Treaty

#noTTIP Many hundreds of campaigners, including a contingent of UNISON activists, protested in Brussels over the past two days. The demonstration coincided with the latest round of talks on the proposed EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). A giant wooden horse drew attention to the 'Trojan treaty' which threatens democracy and puts corporate profits above people.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/04/brussels-rally-denounces-massive-trade-deal-would-be-hijack-democracy

Vultures circling over Police Staff

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/

Labour's public transport policy heading in wrong direction

When will the Labour Party learn a bit of municipal history? Announcements trumpeted as some kind of radical overhaul of bus regulations by the party appear to be yet another neo-liberal experiment of continued privatisation of what ought to be public services.

Prior to Thatcher’s deregulation of municipal buses councils ran good, reliable services, which served urban and rural communities alike because profit was not a motive. Fast forward to the Thatcher vision of a share-owning democracy and despite the language of ‘employee owned non-profit businesses’ the deregulation of the buses was de facto management buy-outs. The employee owners soon sold their former municipal shares to the highest bidder and flirted off to Spain to buy a villa on the proceeds - never to drive a bus again. The reality was an audacious asset stripping of local transport and replacement by big business to run are now not-so-local bus companies that have abandoned rural communities and less profitable routes and hiked up fairs.

So why would the Labour Party want to espouse as radical a rehash of a Thatcherite policy of non-profit bus companies and community transport. Transport is a complex and costly and risky services and needs to have at its heart the core capacity to deliver which the public sector has. This timid approach from Labour, which smacks of the big society ‘blue labour’ nonsense that has confused voters and stands for nothing but an incoherent plan on public transport policy, is a shameful indictment of the lack of vision in Labour policy making. I just wish these people would grow a pair and say what we really need is a return to municipal bus companies.
http://www.localgov.co.uk/Labour-vows-local-bus-service-shake-up-through-not-for-profit-operators/38043

Anna Rose