European legislation

There have been two important developments, and I also want to draw attention to a UNITE campaign that every member should be supporting.

The European Parliament has at long last passed a revision to the European Works Council (EWC) Directive. UNITE's comments suggest this is generally positive.

MEPs also voted through amendments to the Working Time Directive. This was a very significant vote, with many Labour MEPs rebelling against the UK Government's long obstruction to this vital health & safety legislation, but unfortunately doesn't mean that we will necessarily see the end of the "opt-out".

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings in the Viking, Laval and Ruffert cases are a very serious threat to union rights. Basically, the court believes that the right of companies to trade freely has precedence over the right of workers to take industrial action. This means that even if workers comply with the UK's ridiculous red-tape around industrial action ballots, any action could still be ruled illegal. UNITE has set up a web site to campaign on the issue at http://www.amicustheunion.org/lavalvikingruffert/. There's a petition on there which we should get everyone to sign. If we can collect a million signatures, we force the issue to the European Commission.

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Rebuttal

There is a document circulating unofficially in the union which is a transcript of Derek Simpson's speech at a recent UNITE F&GP meeting. In it, Derek falsely attributes the second comment on one of the articles on my web site to me. As you can clearly see, the comment is not anonymous, and is from another user (also called Ian). I want to make clear that the comment does not reflect my own views.

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UNITE Executive Council reports

The Joint General Secretaries (JGSs) have now produced their briefing on the 24-26 November Executive Council meeting, which I am happy to email to members on request.

The first day of the meeting was taken up with heated disagreements between the JGSs, primarily over the integration of the union. A lot of the issues which had previously been the subject of rumour and maneuvering finally came out in the open.

The EC set the JGSs a deadline to resolve the issues. A special EC was agreed for 18th December and the JGSs were told that if they hadn't agreed an integration plan by then, the EC would do so itself.

At the EC meeting on 18th December a plan was unanimously agreed, and I have the details of this for any members who want them.

The major outstanding issue is in many ways the key one for lay members. Not "who gets which jobs" at the top, but the structures for lay members to meet and deal with the real business of the union. Proposals for this should be coming to the January EC meeting. There's still a lot to do though - for example the issues about the composition of the "IT & Communications" sector remain unresolved. Lay members from the north-west (from Amicus and TGWU) looked at the question of the structures many months ago, and managed to reach consensus on a sensible approach to setting them up. I hope that the proposals from the JGSs are as good.

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Sovereign Bus Strike

The use of the anti-union laws to attack UNITE's pay campaign on the London buses was nothing short of a disgrace, especially given the overwhelming votes for action from the members.

Following this set-back, which led to UNITE calling off the strikes, there have been further ballots, and members at the first company (Sovereign) are due out on strike on 5th January.

A key issue in the dispute is the fact that there are big variations in pay for workers doing the same job in different companies - despite them all being regulated by Transport For London. Sovereign is one of the companies with the lowest pay.

UNITE has issued a collection sheet in support of the dispute, which I have made available online.

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UNITE-Amicus MPs voting on the amendments to the Employment Act

In response to my report on the discussion at the Manchester Area Activists meeting about the very poor response from Labour MPs to the amendments to the Employment Act which aimed to improve workers’ rights, a branch secretary has kindly sent me a link to a site giving all the voting details. The amendments corresponded with parts of the Trade Union Freedom Bill.

I got the list of the UNITE-Amicus parliamentary group (couldn’t find the TGWU one) from here and matched the two against each other.

I’ve done some work to match the two together, and come up with this report, which I hope assists members in holding their MPs to account. I’ve coded the “payroll vote” (ministers etc) grey, those who didn’t vote as amber, those who voted for the amendment green, and the shameful votes of backbenchers who opposed the amendment red.

I do find some of the results surprising. I didn’t expect to find Paul Farrelly and Tony Lloyd on the list of shame, for example.

MP	Constituency	Region	Party (role)	Vote
Alan Meale	Mansfield	East Midlands	Lab	no
John Mann	Bassetlaw	East Midlands	Lab (PPS)	no
Mark Todd	Derbyshire South	East Midlands		ABSENT
Natascha Engel	North East Derbyshire	East Midlands	Lab	no
Nick Palmer	Broxtowe	East Midlands	Lab	aye
Patricia Hewitt	Leicester West	East Midlands	Lab	no
Phil Hope	Corby	East Midlands	Lab (minister)	no
Vernon Coaker	Gedling	East Midlands	Lab (minister)	no
Andrew MacKinlay	Thurrock	London & Eastern	Lab	aye
Andy Love	Edmonton	London & Eastern	Lab	no
Angela E Smith	Basildon	London & Eastern	Lab	no
Barbara Follett	Stevenage	London & Eastern	Lab (minister)	no
Barry Gardiner	Brent North	London & Eastern	Lab	no
Bill Rammell	Harlow	London & Eastern	Lab (minister)	no
Clive Efford	Eltham	London & Eastern	Lab	no
David Lammy	Tottenham	London & Eastern	Lab (minister)	no
Dr Ian Gibson	Norwich North	London & Eastern	Lab	aye
Gareth Thomas	Harrow West	London & Eastern		ABSENT
Jim Dowd	Lewisham West	London & Eastern	Lab	no
Jim Fitzpatrick	Poplar & Canning Town	London & Eastern	Lab (minister)	no
Joan Ryan	Enfield North	London & Eastern	Lab	no
John Austin	Erith & Thamesmead	London & Eastern		ABSENT
Rudi Vis	Finchley and Golders Green	London & Eastern		ABSENT
Stephen Timms	East Ham	London & Eastern		ABSENT
Tessa Jowell	Dulwich and West Norwood	London & Eastern		ABSENT
Tony McNulty	Harrow East	London & Eastern	Lab (minister)	no
Tony Wright	Great Yarmouth	London & Eastern	Lab	aye
Andrew Gwynne	Denton & Reddish	North West	Lab (PPS)	no
Andrew Miller	Ellesmere Port & Neston	North West	Lab	aye
Ben Chapman	Wirral South	North West	Lab	no
David Crausby	Bolton North East	North West	Lab	no
David Watts	St Helens North	North West	Lab (minister)	no
George Howarth	Knowsley North & Sefton East	North West	Lab	no
Graham Stringer	Manchester, Blackley	North West	Lab	no
Greg Pope	Hyndburn	North West	Lab	no
Helen Southworth	Warrington South	North West	Lab	no
Ivan Lewis	Bury South	North West	Lab (minister)	no
James Purnell	Stalybridge & Hyde	North West	Lab (minister)	no
Jim Dobbin	Heywood & Middleton	North West	Lab	no
Kitty Ussher	Burnley	North West	Lab (minister)	no
Lindsay Hoyle	Chorley	North West	Lab	no
Maria Eagle	Liverpool, Garston	North West	Lab (minister)	no
Neil Turner	Wigan	North West	Lab (PPS)	no
Peter Kilfoyle	Liverpool, Walton	North West		ABSENT
Robert Wareing	Liverpool, West Derby	North West	whilst Ind	aye
Ruth Kelly	Bolton West	North West	Lab	no
Shaun Woodward	St Helens South	North West	Lab (minister)	no
Tony Cunningham	Workington	North West	Lab (minister)	no
Tony Lloyd	Manchester Central	North West	Lab	no
Douglas Alexander	Paisley & Renfrewshire South	Scotland	Lab (minister)	no
Ian Davidson	Glasgow South West	Scotland		ABSENT
Jimmy Hood	Lanark & Hamilton East	Scotland		ABSENT
John Robertson	Glasgow North West	Scotland	Lab	no
Michael Martin	Glasgow North East	Scotland		SPEAKER
Rosemary McKenna	Cumbernauld, Kilsyth & Kirkintilloch East	Scotland	Lab	no
Tommy McAvoy	Rutherglen & Hamilton West	Scotland	Lab (minister)	no
Desmond Turner	Brighton Kemptown	South East		ABSENT
Dr Phyllis Starkey	Milton Keynes South West	South East	Lab	no
Gwyn Prosser	Dover	South East	Lab	aye
Howard Stoate	Dartford	South East	Lab	no
John Denham	Southampton, Itchen	South East	Lab (minister)	no
Jonathan Shaw	Chatham & Aylesford	South East	Lab (minister)	no
Paul Clark	Gillingham	South East	Lab (PPS)	no
Sarah McCarthy-Fry	Portsmouth North	South East	Lab (minister)	no
Alison Seabeck	Plymouth, Devonport	South West	Lab	no
Ann Snelgrove	South Swindon	South West	Lab	no
Dan Norris	Wansdyke	South West	Lab (PPS)	no
Jim Knight	South Dorset	South West	Lab (minister)	no
Roger Berry	Kingswood	South West	Lab	no
Chris Bryant	Rhondda	Wales	Lab (PPS)	no
Dai Havard	Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney	Wales	Lab	aye
Ian Lucas	Wrexham	Wales	Lab (minister)	no
John Smith	Vale of Glamorgan	Wales		ABSENT
Mark Tami	Alyn & Deeside	Wales	Lab (minister)	tellno
Sian James	Swansea East	Wales	Lab	no
Wayne David	Caerphilly	Wales	Lab (minister)	no
Bill Olner	Nuneaton	West Midlands	Lab	no
Bob Ainsworth	Coventry North East	West Midlands	Lab (minister)	no
David Kidney	Stafford	West Midlands	Lab (PPS)	no
Gisela Stuart	Birmingham, Edgbaston	West Midlands	Lab	no
Ian Austin	Dudley North	West Midlands	Lab (minister)	no
James Cunningham	Coventry South	West Midlands	Lab (PPS)	no
James Plaskitt	Warwick & Leamington	West Midlands	Lab	no
John Spellar	Warley	West Midlands	Lab (minister)	no
Khalid Mahmood	Birmingham, Perry Barr	West Midlands	Lab	no
Liam Byrne	Birmingham, Hodge Hill	West Midlands	Lab (minister)	no
Lynne Jones	Birmingham, Selly Oak	West Midlands	Lab	aye
Paul Farrelly	Newcastle-Under-Lyme	West Midlands	Lab	no
Sion Simon	Birmingham, Erdington	West Midlands	Lab (minister)	no
Stephen McCabe	Birmingham, Hall Green	West Midlands	Lab (minister)	tellno
Tom Watson	West Bromwich East	West Midlands	Lab (minister)	no
Alan Milburn	Darlington	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East		ABSENT
Barry Sheerman	Huddersfield	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	no
Christine McCafferty	Calder Valley	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	aye
Colin Challen	Morley & Rotherwell	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East		ABSENT
David Clelland	Tyne Bridge	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East		ABSENT
Dr Ashok Kumar	Middlesbrough South & East Cleveland	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab (PPS)	no
Eric Illsley	Barnsley Central	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	aye
Fabian Hamilton	Leeds North East	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	no
Fraser Kemp	Houghton & Washington East	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	no
George Mudie	Leeds East	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	no
Gerry Sutcliffe	Bradford South	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab (minister)	no
Hilary Armstrong	North West Durham	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	no
Hilary Benn	Leeds Central	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab (minister)	no
Jim Cousins	Newcastle Upon Tyne Central	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	aye
John Battle	Leeds West	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	no
John Prescott	Kingston upon Hull East	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	no
Kevin Barron	Rother Valley	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	no
Linda Riordon	Halifax	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	aye
Richard Caborn	Sheffield Central	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East	Lab	no
Terry Rooney	Bradford North	Yorkshire, Humberside & North-East		ABSENT

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