Hamburg brings utilities back into public ownership - let's have some of that here

Following a public referendum, Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city has voted to take all available steps to re-municipalise the electricity, gas, and district heating networks. The Guardian reports that Hamburg has 'joined a growing number of cities worldwide deciding to end their experiments with privatisation. Since 2007, 170 municipalities in Germany alone have brought energy services back into public hands. Globally, at least 100 cities have done the same with privatised water services over the past 15 years, including dozens of municipalities in France – once seen as a growing focus for water privatisation'
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/nov/12/hamburg-global-reverse-privatisation-city-services

The votes of blue collar workers cannot be taken for granted

3.5m (1 in 4) children in the UK live in poverty yet remarkably Labour has committed to a two year freeze in child benefit if it forms a Government next May. Do such reactionary policies have electoral consequences? An article in the Fabian Review suggests that 'between 2005 and 2014 Labour has seen dwindling support from a wide range of blue-collar working demographic groups'. The recent Heywood by-election highlighted the threat posed by UKIP in Labour's electoral heartlands. Labour's best antidote to UKIP's politics of despair and xenophobia is to give working people hope that their lives will improve for the better with a change of government - by pledging to end the public sector pay freeze, improve front line services such as home care and to halt the rolling back of the welfare state (including a rethink of the disgusting proposal to freeze child benefit).
http://www.fabians.org.uk/labours-weakening-hold-on-blue-collar-workers/

Pickled Eric knows the cost of everything & the value of nothing

Tory union basher Eric Pickles MP has stepped up his war against local government unions. In March 2013, dancing to the tune of the Taxpayers Alliance, Pickles issued advice to local authorities on reducing trade union facility time. Now he has ratcheted up the attack with new requirements on councils to publish the cost of trade union facility time and numbers of union representatives involved. His so called transparency code will not require the benefits and purpose of trade union facility time to be published. The rabid right winger has previous form for union bashing. Back in September 2013 he failed in his attempt to end union subscription check off in his own DCLG department - when PCS won a legal challenge – Pickles’ obsessive anti trade unionism costing the public purse £90000.

Brussels sprouts resistance to austerity

Over 100,000 workers protested against austerity in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday in a growing campaign that will include national strike action on 15 December by public and private sector workers. Union leader Marie-Helene Ska said: 'The government tells us and all of the parties tell us that there's no alternative. We don't contest that they have to find 11bn euros we've been saying for a long time that it's possible to find this money elsewhere, rather than in the pockets of the workers'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29944648

Camilo in the clinic hallway by Omar Pérez López

Camilo takes possession of the clinic hallway
in the photo that is too old for me
and too new for him who can still take more
even in this type of place.
Camilo is laughing alone in the clinic hallway
and he who laughs alone
remembers a clearer and simpler time
he who laughs alone
deposits an intelligible heart
in a washbasin as credit.
Camilo laughs alone
it is clear that for me there is just one way out,
I imitate him
and as if I were a slightly pampered saint
and as if I were a slightly awkward saint
I start to chew the smouldering ashes from a more difficult time,
and
he imitates me.

http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/456/18361/omar-perez-lopez

Unions can be driving force for improved public services

How can an incoming Labour Government lift Britain out of the swamp of austerity, privatisation and run down public services, especially given the conventional wisdom that further spending cuts and job losses are required beyond May 2015? David Coats and John Tizard, in a timely New Statesman article, see a key role for public service unions as 'agents of change, fostering workplace cultures where employees understand their role in the process of continuous improvement' and advocate 'collective agreements (to) set the employment conditions for all workers involved in public service delivery – including those employed by the business, social and voluntary sectors and subcontractors.'
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/11/labour-and-unions-must-develop-alternative-public-sector-pay-freeze

Upping the ante on the Living Wage

In recent local government pay negotiations UNISON Scotland secured a commitment from the employers COSLA that the living wage will be the starting point for payment of the local government workers. Much work needs to be done to secure a similar breakthrough in the rest of the UK but a new report from the Greater Manchester Living Wage Campaign outlines the great potential of local authorities in challenging low pay beyond their directly employed workforce using procurement to the benefit of local economies: http://tinyurl.com/nrxxnrm

Private firms cash in on Probation outsourcing

Despite the exclusion of discredited big beasts G4S and Serco from recent competitive tendering for £450m of probation services contracts in England and Wales, the private sector has swept the board with two outsourcing companies - Sodexo and Purple Futures - leading 'consortiums' that were last week awarded a majority of the 21 regional, ten year long, contracts:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/29/justice-probation-contracts-private-companies

Militant by Langston Hughes

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

NHS Unions can make Con Dem's pay for reneging on PRB pay rise

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.