Keren Reissmann demo

Over a 1,000 people braved the cold and the rain to come out in support of Karen Reissman in Manchester today. The majority were the fellow workers supporting Karen striking and the patients and their families who are also in support of this important dispute. The rest were trade unionists from around the country, some from as far away as London, up for the day with their banners to demonstrate their solidarity. It would be fair to say that most of the left activists inside the health service made an appearance but that wasn’t the limit of the support for Karen. Alongside the UNISON Health Branches, there were many more from local government and a wide range of other unions and community campaigns. The NUT, CWU, FBU and others were all represented as if unchallenged Karen’s sacking would open the floodgates to a series of victimisations of public sector trade unionists who dare to speak out. As repeated in many of the speeches Karen’s ‘crime’ was speaking to the press about cuts in services and jobs. Basically she was sacked for being a trade unionist as there is nothing more basic than to defend members and the services provide by letting the public know what’s going on.

From the platform there was again a wide range of speakers from trade unions, funny and eloquent from service users testifying to Karen’s dedication to providing a decent service and a local Labour MP amongst others. UNISON was represented by Bob Abberley, Deputy General Secretary and made clear the union’s support which is now to be escalated to calling a national day of action on December 5th.

Compared to the national demonstration on November the 3rd this was a passionate affair that would make anyone attending feel proud to be there. The NHS was spoken about as something vital to the everyday lives of working people not some nice idea in the abstract as in London. With threats now being made to the strikers about reporting them for unprofessional behaviour the struggle is heating up and unlike the usual tale in the NHS there seems to be unlimited budgets available to help bust the strike.

We’ll try to give more detail about the day of action as local events are set up. In the meantime donations and letters of support are vital to maintain the strike at its current level.

Donations and messages of support can be sent to Manchester Community and Mental Health Unison branch, 70 Manchester Road, Manchester, M21 9UN. Phone 07972 120 451 or email unison@zen.co.uk. Cheques should be made out to “Unison Manchester Community and Mental Health”.
For more information, visit www.reinstate-karen.org

Sixth Form pay deal accepted

NUT members in sixth form colleges have accepted the 2.5% pay deal offered by the employers. On a 25% turnout members voted by 72.5% to 27.5% to accept. There is no real surprise here as the Union was in effect recommending the deal and offering no alternative. An earlier post on this blog explained that initially NUT leaders recommended acceptance without going through the Executive. That was withdrawn on the orders of the acceptence but the ballot was run without any recommendation.

Congratulations are due to Phillippe Harari and a few others who organised a campaign and produced material for a No vote and, I think, got a respectable level of support for that in very difficult circumstances.

NUT pay action to be ‘discontinuous’

The NUT Executive decided yesterday that the ballot for action on pay this term would call for ‘discontinuous’ strike action. There was a proposal from the officers that it would call for one day and that any further action would require a fresh ballot.

There was universal acceptance that it was likely to require more than one day of action to shift the government and that our members would see that immediately. In the end an amendment proposing that the ballot give the Union flexibility to call additional action was carried.

As ever the urgent business now is to build support for the action and ensure a good turnout and an overwhelming Yes vote.

Defend Karen Reissmann

Karen Reissmann

In an outrageous attack on trade union freedom Karen Reissmann was sacked
on Monday November 5th for speaking out about cuts in services and privatisation in Manchester Community Mental Health Trust. Health workers in the North Manchester NHS trust have already taken 14 days of action (unpaid) in her defence. I understand they are planning indefinite action starting next week to fight for the reinstatement of Karen Reissmann with Unison authorising strike pay (which is not full pay). This is incredible determination and solidarity from these workers who are losing significant amounts of money in the run-up to Xmas. Karen was sacked for no more than doing her job properly as a trade unionist defending the NHS as a public service and representing her members properly. For the employers to succeed in getting away with this would be a majpr blow for union organisation in the health service and would almost certainly be the signal for a wider attack on union representatives in other trusts. Please find attached a leaflet and petition to circulate.
These workers, and Karen, will need the maximum solidarity in the days ahead.

karen0511.pdf

karenpetition0511.pdf

If you want to make a donation please send to “Manchester Community and
Mental Health branch UNISON” c/o union office, Chorlton House, 70
Manchester Rd, Manchester M21 9UN.
Or if you want a speaker at your next union meeting please contact unison@zen.co.uk or 07972 120 451.

Labour’s top 3 priorities: the real version!

According to Will Hutton in yesterday’s Observer the amount of money spent by the government to rescue Northern Rock currently stands at £40bn and is expected to reach £50bn. This comes to 5% of UK GDP. The word Hutton uses to describe this economic fact is ’stunning’. He’s right but there are other words like ‘outrageous’ and ’scandalous’.

I checked out some Treasury figures today and found that total government spending on education for 2006-7 is 5.5% of GDP. The Treasury figures define this as ’spending on educational institutions’ and that means all the funding of Surestart nurseries, primary and secondary schools and further and higher education. So a government which is supposed to represent the labour movement in some way has spent only 0.5% less of this society’s wealth on rescuing a failed financial institution as it is prepared to spend on educating its citizens from the cradle to the grave.

It does bear out what many of us would have suspected when Blair piously announced that his three main priorities in government would be ‘education, education and education’. It wouldn’t have gone down so well, of course, if he had revealed his real priorities- ‘finance capitalism, finance capitalism and finance capitalism’ . Doesn’t have quite the same pious ring.