Notebook of an Agitator

Keren Reissmann demo

patmurphy — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:28:02 +0000

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

patmurphy — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:19:51 +0000

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’

patmurphy — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:14:32 +0000

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

patmurphy — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:39:14 +0000

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!

patmurphy — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:00:55 +0000

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.

Setback for pay battle

patmurphy — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:21:56 +0000

Unison Local Government members voted yes for strike action but only by 51% to 49% on a turnout of 25%.

As a result the NJC Committee voted against proceeding with strike action by 24 votes to 3.

This is a significant, though not entirely surprising, setback for the overall campaign to build united undustrial action on Brown’s public sector pay limit. It is the result Dave Prentis and the Unison leadership worked for. Anyone who saw the material they produced, allegedly for a yes vote, will be in no doubt of that.

With only two sides of A4 to put forward the case for action Prentis and co thought it would be a good idea to use the front to explain the employer’s case. They had ‘gone out on a limb’ by offering the lowest grades more than 2.5%. To offer any more would certainly mean cuts in services. And so on and so on. Still they could have a real go at mobilising people on the reverse side couldn’t they?

Well they could but, of course they chose not to. Side two told council workers that, even if they voted yes, ‘it wouldn’t be easy’. It would require protracted strike action, during which they would not be paid and, even then, there were no guarantees of winning. It was appalling stuff. The Unison leadership’s role in this pay campaign has been shameful from start to finish.. They wanted to accept the deal in September by putting it to ballot with no recommendation. That was overturned by the NJC who voted for a ballot with a recommendation for strike action. They then tried to stop that be calling a special service Executive. That failed too when the service group Executive supported the call for action in defiance of the leadership. This was endorsed by the industrial action committee.

Unison’s spineless bureaucrats then fell back on a more subtle tactic. As they controlled the ballot and the material that went out they loaded it heavily against a yes vote and simultaneously discouraged branches from producing their own campaigning material. This went hand in hand with disciplinary threats against local and national elected representatives who were central in working for a positive vote.

Shameful but you don’t need to look far for motives. Unison nominated Gordon Brown for Labour leader, despite their professed policy of opposition to privatisation, low pay and anti-union laws. Some at the top believe it is their job to serve the government rather than their members. And here is a firm prediction. Before the next election at least one of these hucksters will have been ‘selected’ for a safe Labour seat (my money is on local government negotiator Heather Wakefield) and beyond that at least one other will be dressed in ermine and falling asleep on the benches of the upper House It would be nice if before that they were swept out of office by their poorly paid and even more poorly represented members.

Don’t mourn, as Joe Hill once famously said, organise

Flexible workers, intransigent bosses: the reality of the postal deal.

patmurphy — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:32:45 +0000

CWU postal workers will now be balloted on the deal struck between their leaders and Royal Mail management two weeks ago. Last week the postal Executive met for two days without making a decision, and worse still without letting the troops on the ground, or even the local elected representatives know anything about the deal. Eventually the Executive decided to send the negotiators back to management to look again at some of the terms. Royal Mail management made it clear that they would move no further and what is more they announced this in public. All these things were clear indications of who was getting most from the deal and who was feeling confident and cocky. Finally the postal Executive are recommending acceptance of the deal. There will be an active campaign for a No vote, however, and the arguments below explain why. They have been put together by Workers Liberty after discussions with their postal worker members and sympathisers.

‘The CWU leaders obviously didn’t think the deal was likely to be accepted back on 12 October; but the greatest weight in favour of a yes vote in the ballot will come from the simple fact of delay. Industrial action has been demobilised, and the members have scandalously been left for two weeks with the message:
“Trust us. Complicated negotiations. About what? Oh, can’t tell you that yet. It’s only your jobs and work conditions and pay we’re talking about. Complicated things, which you’d best leave to us”.
The final sticky point was the unilateral changes introduced by Royal Mail bosses after the four days of strikes on 4 to 9 October. On that the terms are: “All managerial executive
action notified to take place on and from 24 October 2007 will be returned to stage 3 of the IR Framework and any disagreements previously at Stage 3 will be returned to Stage
2 for resolution. All parties will work together in a positive way to resolve outstanding issues within the spirit of the national agreement and to facilitate this any CWU representatives who have had their facility time suspended will have it restored. Any revisions introduced during week commencing 22 October will be reviewed in line with the IR procedures”.
What about the changes introduced on 10 October, including the new, later start times the imposition of which provoked unofficial action across the country? The main agreement says: “Royal Mail has introduced later start times for operational reasons. CWU note these
changes. Given that there has been little or no opportunity for discussion about these changes at local level, both Royal Mail and CWU are committed to resolve any outstanding
issues. Royal Mail and CWU will urgently review these arrangements at local level in line with the following:
Henceforth the normal start times will be between 0600 and
0630…”
In other words, total capitulation by the union. The terms include a wide-ranging drive for “flexibility”.

► Bosses can vary your daily hours within a weekly total, so individuals could be scheduled to work 7 hours on a Tuesday and 9 hours on a Friday”.
► “Individuals may be asked… to vary their duty times by up to 30 minutes on a swings and roundabouts basis”.
► You may have to work in another office nearby instead of our normal workplace, or “to undertake other work outside your] normal duties”.
► Following on, there will be “new arrangements to cover for one another and develop sensible options to absorb absences, and increased workload… annualised hours or
banked hours, flexible working”.

The problem is here is not only increased management control, and decreased control by workers over their own work conditions, working hours, and daily lives. It is also that in Royal Mail, with low basic wages, many workers depend heavily on overtime to make ends meet. The terms are designed to cut overtime, and thus effectively cut pay, without reducing toil.
Two other measures will also cut back workers’ access to payments above the basic: “the majority of night shifts will cease by March 2008… Royal Mail will cease Sunday collections from 21 October”. The “flexibility” is to be negotiated locally, but with the proviso that offices will get the next pay rise – 1.5% from 7 April 2008 – only after they have implemented the “flexibility”.
The headline pay deal is 5.4% from 1 October 2007. But that covers the whole period from April 2007 to April 2009, supplemented only by a lump sum of £175 per full-time worker to cover April-September 2007 (but that comes from the now-scrapped Employee Share of Savings Scheme, i.e. it is double-counting money already supposed to be available)
and the conditional 1.5% in April 2008. With the losses of overtime and bonuses, it looks like many postal workers will suffer a cut in real pay.
The pensions issue has been separated from the pay agreement. A 90-days “pensions consultation process” will follow. But, if the pay-and-conditions deal is accepted, that
“consultation process” will take place with Royal Mail bosses knowing that it is very unlikely indeed that the CWU will try new industrial action however bad the pension terms. Or, to put it another way, the deal means the union terminating its most powerful industrial action for over a decade without securing something solid on pensions.
The agreed terms for the “consultation” include “the final salary scheme to be replaced for the future by a similar defined benefits scheme” and “a new scheme for new entrants”. In other words: the final salary scheme will go for all workers; and whatever protections existing workers gain, new entrants will be on something worse. The terms include
“the right to retire at 60 for existing scheme members”, but don’t say what level of pension those existing workers will be able to get without working to 65.
Vote no, and organise to defeat the deal!’

Well, you don’t say!

patmurphy — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:00:10 +0000

‘National tests for seven and 11-year-olds are putting children under stress and feeding into a “pervasive anxiety” about their lives and the world they are growing up in, according to an intimate portrait of primary school life published today.’ That’s one of the conclusions reached by an academic team charged with reviewing primary education in England. Read more here: http://education.guardian.co.uk/primaryeducation/story/0,,2189589,00.html

I don’t why it takes the commissioning of a team of education academics to demonstrate this or, worse still, whether the New Labour government will change it’s obsession with tests and league tables as a result of the findings but teachers, parents and very many children have known the truth of the statement above for over a decade now.

Time to dust off the boycott of SATs maybe?

SWP finally find some self-Respect?

patmurphy — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:39:18 +0000

According to the Socialist Unity blog, the crisis in Respect has taken a
dramatic new turn with the SWP expelling three leading members for
softness towards George Galloway.

“News has just broken that long term SWP members Kevin Ovenden and Rob
Hoveman have been expelled from the party, along with Nick Wrack. Nick
joined the SWP three years ago and was a former editor of the Militant
newspaper…

The expulsions followed an ultimatum to Nick that he should turn down the
position of Respect national organiser or resign from the SWP. A similar
ultimatum was given to Rob and Kev that they should stop working in George
Galloway’s office, or leave the SWP.

These three comrades have been internally critical of the SWP Central
Committee’s handling of Respect, but have been very disciplined by not
airing that criticism outside the ranks of the SWP. There still remain
critics of the CC’s position within the SWP, including some very well
known comrades, but the expulsions are obviously a shot over their bows as
well”.

Meanwhile, the East London Advertiser claims that the Respect council
group in Tower Hamlets, the jewel in its hijab, may split into two groups,
one led by Galloway ally Abjol Miah and the other by SWP-close Oliur
Rahman.

Reproduced here is a commentary on this course of events from Martin Thomas of Workers Liberty:

‘Whatever you think of the SWP CC, Hoveman, Ovenden, and Wrack are
despicable wretches if they break the discipline of what they presumably
consider to be a revolutionary party (albeit a mistaken one) just in order
to get or keep jobs in the entourage of George Galloway. That the SWP’s
escapade with Respect has bred such attitudes even in its leading circles
shows the extent of the degradation it has brought.

But, on the face of it, the expulsions look like insane “control-freakery”
by the SWP Central Committee. After all, if SWP have to accept a National
Organiser counterweighing Respect National Secretary (and SWP member) John
Rees, what better for them than to have an SWPer in the post? Even a
dissident SWPer can’t be a bad option for them, surely?

These expulsions must pretty much terminate the possibilities of the
Respect crisis ending in anything other than a split. Organisationally and
electorally, the split will damage SWP more than Galloway, and indeed
organisationally and electorally it may positively benefit Galloway. So
why expel?

The SWP Central Committee’s brains must be somewhat fried after thirty
years of operating a regime of “expel first, ask questions afterwards,
respond to all critics by denouncing them as vermin”.

But insane? I doubt it. The likeliest explanation is that the SWP CC is
convinced that a split with Galloway is inevitable anyway (the Tower
Hamlets report would fit in with that), reckons that it cannot avoid
losing some people to Galloway, and wants to cauterise in order to
minimise the losses.

The fundamental factor here, I suggest, is that the SWP Central Committee
knows perfectly well what Galloway is – has known all along – and has no
higher opinion of him than we do at Solidarity and Workers’ Liberty.

Nevertheless, they thought they could play clever. I remember a
conversation I had with David Glanz, leader of the ISO, Australian
offshoot of the SWP, around the time Respect was being formed. Everything
on the left being rather smaller-scale in Australia, you can actually have
a human (if maybe rather tense) conversation with leading ISOers there;
it’s not like in Britain, where SWPers whom I’ve known for years look
straight through me, as if I’m not there, when we meet by chance.

I put our assessment of Galloway to Glanz, no holds barred. Well, he said,
everything you say may be true, and I’m sure any hook-up with Galloway
can’t last long, but at the end of it the SWP can come away with more
members. And that is what matters.

The SWP Central Committee followed Glanz’s reasoning. That meant that they
had to say things about Galloway – great anti-imperialist, good socialist,
blah blah – which they knew to be untrue. Unfortunately, some SWP members,
even leading and experienced SWP members, took the blather for good coin.

What can the SWP CC do now? Tell those SWP members that the SWP CC was
lying, and knew all along that Galloway was the sort of person any
socialist should shun? Or just try to get through the split with as few
losses as possible by playing the SWP loyalty card?’

Divisional Secretaries Briefing

patmurphy — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:23:55 +0000

I will be away from base taking part in the union’s annual briefing event for divisional secretaries from Wednesday to Friday so there may not be any new postings here until the weekend. Internet access is unreliable in deepest Grantham but the course itself is probably the best training event the union runs and most of us find it invaluable. If there is anything worth reporting a way will be found to post it but comments and responses requires me to get into my home email so that will have to wait

This year it should see the official launch of a 10-week campaign to get a good turnout and a clear ‘yes’ vote for action on pay. Time will be found for politicking and networking. In particular we might gather our thoughts on the prospects of getting a respectable vote to reject the 2.5% sixth form pay offer.

Thanks to Andy Dixon, Martin Ohr, Jean Lane and Andy Parsons for being the first to enter comments on various subjects covered on this blog and to various others for sending me individual reactions by email