All systems go for July 10 national pay strike!

#J10strike Enormous momentum is building for next Thursday's NJC pay strike in England, Northern Ireland and Wales with UNISON being joined by GMB and Unite in a united front that has often proven elusive in recent years. Many UNISON branches are reporting high levels of recruitment since last Monday's call to action. Membership confidence has been lifted by decisions this week by the FBU, PCS and NUT to strike and make 10 July a very welcome day of co ordinated action. Each of those long running disputes are broader than the NJC pay strike involving pensions and workload issues but the root cause is of course the same - austerity and the offensive launched against public sector workers launched by the Con Dem government since its first spending review in October 2010:
https://www.unison.org.uk/at-work/local-government/key-issues/local-government-pay/home/

Bread and Roses by James Oppenheim

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Roses

Avoiding a stooshie becoming a stramash

From a Scottish Correspondent: There's a referendum going on in these parts and it's caused in UNISON what we call a stooshie.

A leading UNISON figure has come out for independence (big surprise) in 'a personal capacity' and 40 Scotland national conference goers (out of 281 - big news) have signed one of those petition things for independence - also in collective personal capacities (if that is not a contradiction).

All this has precipitated a message on the UNISON Scotland website reminding activists that:

David MacLennan – Plays, Politics and Popularity

I was in Italy when the news came through via a friend on Twitter. David MacLennan, the theatre writer, director and producer, had lost his short battle with Motor Neurone Disease. The co-founder of 7:84 Theatre Company and Wildcat Productions, the man who had been part of the foundation of MayFest, and who created the Play, Pie and a Pint format, who was in a new ascendancy with the National Theatre of Scotland (NToS) commissioning him and David Greig to co-curate The Yes, No, Don't Know, Show, had left us and in particular, left a huge hole at the centre of Scottish Theatre, Political Theatre and Popular Theatre.

Another anti austerity demonstration, another media blackout

Over 50,000 attended yesterday’s London demonstration organised by the People’s Assembly against austerity and speakers included media celebrity Russell Brand. Once again a protest against government cuts received minimal coverage from national broadcasters. Last September’s Manchester demonstration in defence of the NHS received the same censorship treatment even though news organisations were in town in force to cover the Tory Party conference.

There is a long history of structural bias in the UK media against trade unions and the left. It will not change unless unions work together to confront it argued Tom O’Malley at the recent UCU Congress: ‘all unions, in all sectors, have to work together to formulate communications policies that are coherent and workable and which can gain widespread popular support as well influence in mainstream politics.

 

'I also think that all unions should, even in these economically exacting times, support campaigning organisations such as the CPBF. History therefore tells us that we should work together to challenge the structural biases in the media, and seek a much more inclusive, open and accountable. In so doing, we will be building on the thoughts and struggles of women and men in the movement, who for the last 100 years have been forced by necessity to confront and challenge the media, and work for something better.’

The Song of the Wage-slave by Robert W. Service

When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,
I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say.
And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met —
All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.

NHS can be Labour’s general election game changer

The NHS is an issue which can win Labour the general election writes Kevin Maguire in today’s Mirror: ‘Miliband is handicapped by his failure to communicate the truth the banking crisis created the deficit. Labour’s hobbled by the public believing, wrongly, that the deficit somehow triggered the crash. He’s also proved inept at defending the best of the last Labour Government’s record. That failure is curious when he sat in the Cabinet for part of it. But the NHS is his home turf. Ideologically, the Cons have always been uncomfortable with publicly delivered universal health care’
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/fight-nhs-can-revive-fortunes-3701655

UNISON up for the fight in Local Government

#uNDC14 At UNISON's local government service group conference, Glen Williams, SGE Chair, gave a wide ranging review of the union's work over the past 12 months: 'If you have had chance to read the Annual Report then you will see how much work goes on in the background by Officers and the Members that you elect. I cannot possibly do justice to the daily resistance that goes on in Local Government and have tried only to give you a flavour of the challenge but a sense we are also up for the fight and there is so much great work going on in Regions and Branches, far too much to mention in this report'.
   Full speech below.

Democracy is the lifeblood of trade unionism

#uNDC14 'As well as the formal policy debates over four days there will be the opportunity to attend fringe meetings for high quality debates and briefings on key campaigns as well as time for hardworking union activists to network and socialise with UNISON sisters and brothers from across the UK' writes Angela Rayner North West Regional Convenor in a preview of conference on the regional website:
http://www.unisonnw.org/national-delegate-conference-our-democracy-in-action/

Shirt by Robert Pinsky

The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,
The nearly invisible stitches along the collar
Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians