Well done to UNITE activist Willie Black and the rest of the protesters who gave Iain Duncan Smith a proper welcome to Scotland today:
This BBC report shows more of Willie in action.
Protests against the hated bedroom tax, which will hit disabled people particularly hard, are spreading and growing, as is reflected on the Benefit Justice Campaign's web site. It's good to see UNITE's relatively new Community organisation getting stuck in to the campaign too.
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Yesterday the government announced its plans to cut the minimum period for employers consulting their employees before making large scale redundancies from 90 days to 45 days. It's already easier to cut jobs in the UK than in many other countries, but the Tories and Lib Dems want to make it easier still.
The 90 day period only applies where an employer plans to dismiss 100 or more staff through redundancy in one establishment, so this change only affects bigger employers.
I was pleased to see that UNITE promptly put out a press release attacking the move. This is an issue we should take into the workplaces too. Many employees, whether union members or not, know from bitter experience how important the consultation period is for protecting jobs. We need to mobilise them against this threat.
The consultation period is supposed to allow employees, usually through their unions, to get information from the employer and put forward ideas for avoiding the redundancies, reducing the numbers of redundancies, and mitigating the consequences of the redundancies if they go ahead. This process often does save jobs. Cutting the time available means fewer jobs will be saved.
The consultation period is also useful for individuals. It gives them time to consider their options, to seek redeployment within the company and to look for work outside. In my own workplace we have negotiated time periods better than the existing legal minimum and this has been a major factor in securing redeployment within the company for many staff. Shorter consultation periods mean fewer redeployments, more lives wrecked and employers wasting more money making staff redundant and then hiring new ones.
There's another factor in this which unions need to take very seriously indeed. The change would, when combined with the anti-union laws, make it extremely difficult for members to take lawful industrial action in defence of jobs. The anti-union laws require the union to provide the employer with an accurate breakdown of the numbers and categories of members to be balloted 7 days before a ballot opens. Preparing this can take weeks. Ballots rarely run for less than two weeks, after which the union has to give another 7 days notice to the employer before lawful industrial action can begin. So even if the union is perfectly prepared and can issue the notice of ballot instantly, without any checking of membership records (pigs might fly) you still need a minimum of about 4 weeks before action can begin. If the government goes ahead with this I foresee more and more workers feeling that the anti-union laws give them no way of defending their jobs lawfully and deciding to take unofficial action instead.
I heard one government spokes-idiot referring to the proposed change as getting a better balance between employers and workers. The employer-employee relationship is an inherently unequal one and rarely more so than in a redundancy situation. Can workers decide to make their bosses redundant? Yet the Tories and Liberal Democrats obviously think that the feeble employment protection workers currently enjoy gives workers too much power in the relationship and it needs to be reduced! Is it too much to ask that Labour's front bench vigorously oppose this?
The proposals are fully in tune with the overall government approach, which sees working tax credits and other benefits being cut for the poorest, while corporation tax is cut for their city mates.
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The report below is incomplete - I will update it to add more, but I thought it worth posting now as I'm getting so many questions. As well as the points marked where incomplete, there are whole sections still to put in.
Since the "healthcare" branch of IT Services company Atos got involved in assessing benefits for disabled people, it has had nothing but bad publicity, with disabled people protesting about being denied benefits for being "fit to work" despite serious disability and illnes, even conditions that proved terminal shortly after the assessment.
Atos management had the "inspired" idea of sponsoring the paralympics, making life very difficult for satirists who cannot keep ahead of the absurdity of real life. Atos have made the paralympics a target for disability right campaigners such as Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) who plan a "a week of Paralympic fun and games against Atos".
Just to ensure brand destruction, Atos management have also offered staff a below inflation pay offer and refused to commit to the Living Wage, leading to a 76% vote for strike action amongst staff who are PCS members in both Atos Healthcare and Atos IT Services.
Solidarity to everyone protesting against Atos management over the next few weeks!
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Update note: The meeting on 24th July advertised below is cancelled.
Update 2: Greater Manchester Association of TUCs have organised a replacement meeting which is 6pm on Tuesday 31st July at Methodist Central Hall, Oldham Street, Manchester M1 1JQ. Facebook event here.
The TUC demonstration on 20th October is crucial for all of us. After the magnificent build-up of opposition last year, from the half-million strong demo on 26th March to the strike on 30th June and the huge strikes and protests on 30th November, the opposition to the government's disastrous austerity policies really seemed to be building up. But the leaders of the trade union movement wasted that momentum with delays, dithering, and shoddy deals.
The "A Future That Works" demo on 20th October is part of a push to get the momentum back. Some unions are already planning strikes around that date, and students are planning their own demonstration in the autumn too.
To: all trade unionists and community campaigners across Greater ManchesterThe TUC has called a national demonstration in London on 20th October to send the message thatAUSTERITY ISN'T WORKING· spending cuts threaten a lost decade· invest for jobs and growth· defend quality public servicesThe aim is to make this demonstration even bigger than the one on 26th March 2011, and to achieve this we need to organise - now.Unite's Manchester Area Activists Committee, which covers the whole of Greater Manchester, decided to initiate an open organising meeting to build the maximum turnout for 20 October from Greater Manchester and to approach other unions, trades councils and campaign groups to take part.This open organising meeting will take place:6:30pm, Tuesday 24th JulyUnite the Union, Merchants Quay, Salford Quays, Salford, M50 3SGFree car parking is available and the Unite office is a few minutes' walk from Salford Quays Metrolink stopWe hope you will be able to attend the meeting and to publicise it through your own networks.TUC materials to help build for the demonstration are available from www.afuturethatworks.org.If you have any questions about the meeting please contact me, Jimmy Carter --- or Ian Allinson ---.We look forward to seeing you there and working with you to make 20 October a resounding success.In solidarityJimmy CarterSecretary, Unite Manchester Area Activists Committee
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These were the decisions:
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In the debates about pensions, much has been made of rising life-expectancy, with scary graphs which show the rapid rise in the percentage of the population over 65. A lot less attention has been paid to far less scary graphs which show the percentage of the population aged 15-65. What this shows is that the proportion of the population who are not of "working age" has not changed anywhere near as fast (even if you allow for the fact that people are older when they start working later now than 100 years ago).
Because the debate on pensions has been dominated by "pensions experts" who look at the issue in isolation, they miss the fact that today's working population is supporting a broadly similar proportion of the population who are not of working age as in the past. More pensioners is offset by fewer children.
Production per worker has risen massively with developments in technology. If society could afford a decent welfare state and pensions in the aftermath of World War 2, we can afford it today - if we're willing to stop the trend of more and more wealth being concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority.
The domination of the pensions debate by institutions that gamble on the markets has been poisonous, obscuring the fact that decisions about what proportion of society's wealth go to look after children, older people and those unable to work are political decisions.
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This week's UNITE Executive Council discussed arrangements for members who are not in paid employment, which includes students, people out of work, people unfit to work, carers and pensioners.
This post deals specifically with "community" members. I've posted already about retired members - who should read both posts.
To push through its austerity measures, the government is seeking to divide those in work from the rest of the population. UNITE's new community membership initiative is intended to build unity, give a voice to those not working, strengthen community support for members in work and strengthen the union's campaigning role in our communities. At the same time, the union's primary focus remains the workplace, so the structures have been set up so that community members can be properly represented within the union's structures, but not dominate them.
Anyone over 16 years of age, not in paid employment and not already in a union should join UNITE as a community member and get involved. This includes students, the unemployed, full-time parents and carers, people too ill to work and pensioners.
Community membership costs 50p a week, preferably paid by quarterly direct debit (£6.50 every 3 months).
New Community Branches are being set up, initially based on the same areas as UNITE's existing "Area Activist Committees" within each region and serviced by the same officers. So for example in the north-west, my region, the areas are Manchester, Cheshire, Merseyside, Lancashire, Cumbria and the Isle of Man. The first branch meetings will normally be called to elect officers once 50 members have signed up in a particular area. They will also elect two members onto each Area Activist Committee.
Community branches are funded on the same basis as all other UNITE branches, though Regional Committees may decide to financially support particular campaigns or initiatives.
A "Community Support Unit" is being set up at UNITE head office for an initial six month-period, after which it will be reviewed.
While I would hope most people would take up UNITE community membership to get involved and active, the initial publicity for Community membership focuses heavily on the "benefits" package, which includes:
UNITE has produced a slideshow of photos from the magnificent strike on 30 November.
If you're talking to members about the dispute, it's worth pointing them at the "Fair Pensions For All" pamphlet jointly produced by UNITE and other unions, which shows the links between public sector, private sector and state pensions.
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Just to maintain the same share of the value we produce at work, workers need a pay rise equal to inflation (to take account of the falling value of money) and their increase in productivity (to take account of the increasing value they produce).
A lot of attention is (rightly) focussing on how governments are pushing the costs of the economic crisis onto working people by nationalising bank debts and then repaying them by cutting our services and increasing our taxes. These actions reduce what is known as the "social wage".
Less attention is being given to how employers in public and private sector are using the recession to try to permanently shift wealth from workers to employers. I've produced the graph below from the latest inflation and wage figures:
It shows that since the start of 2009, when inflation took off, the value of average regular wages has already fallen by about 7%. The Average Weekly Earnings figures from the Office of National Statistics on which this is based, exclude "irregular" earnings such as overtime and bonuses which fluctuate significantly.
Many workers have seen their work intensified over the same period, and productivity driven up, so the share of what we produce that workers receive as wages will have fallen even faster than our real incomes.
We need stronger unions if we're going to beat off the attacks on our wages and our social wage. That means building them everywhere. It also makes the coordinated strikes planned for 30th November vitally important. The fight by millions of public sector workers to defend their pensions can show millions of unorganised workers the potential power of union organisation. UNITE has produced a great little leaflet to explain the issues to members in the private sector - please get it out and about.
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Last week UNITE's Executive Council agreed a statement on the cuts, which I reproduce below. This marks a significant hardening of the union's position, distancing itself from New Labour's "too far, too fast" line, and offering support to councillors who support UNITE's policy. The EC also agreed a motion from the North West region backing "co-ordinated and generalised strike action within the law" as part of the campaign against the cuts.
Executive Policy
CUTS ARE NOT THE ANSWER ORGANISING AND FIGHTING FOR THE ALTERNATIVE
Unite‟s Executive Council unanimously confirms its opposition to all Government spending cuts. We commit ourselves to fight this ideologically driven assault on our much valued public services and welfare state.
This assault on our class is designed to shift the blame for the economic crisis to the public sector and make working people pay for a crisis not of our making but caused by the negligent and irresponsible behaviour of financial institutions, gambling for profits in an unregulated market for financial products.
The consequences of these actions, coupled with the failure of both national and international regulators to prevent even the worst excesses of the free market and their promotion of self regulation, are now being felt by workers across the globe. Further, the economic crisis has given government the opportunity to promote and further its ideological attack on collective trade unionism, social and employment protection and the wider social fabric of our society.
Of course there is an alternative:
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There's a national "Keep Our Post Public" rally today against the government's plans to privatise Royal Mail, with Len McCluskey as one of the speakers.
Privatisation is a key plank of the government's strategy to increase profits at our expense, by opening up our public services as new markets for comercial activity.
Plank 2 is cutting real wages (in the public and private sector) by using mass unemployment to depress wages while letting inflation drift up. The latest inflation figures this week show CPI inflation up to 3.3%, while RPI inflation, which is a more realistic estimate of the rate of increase in the cost of living, is up to 4.7%. No wonder some members are being driven to take strike action to defend their standard of living - UNITE members at Heinz in Wigan start their strike over pay tonight.
Plank 3 is the assault on public services and the welfare state, by a combination of pushing costs onto individuals (as with education) and direct cuts in provision.
If we want to successfully defend our own jobs, standard of living and services, we need to support all those resisting any element of this strategy to make us pay for an economic crisis we did not create. Amongst other things, that means backing campaigns against privatisation such as at Royal Mail, campaigns to defend pay and pensions such as those at Heinz or the BBC, and campaigns against cuts in public service and the welfare state, such as the magnificent and inspiring campaign being waged by school, FE and University students.
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Much of the public debate about the Tories' proposals to force jobless people to work for nothing has missed the point. It has concentrated on whether or not this will "help" people who are out of work get the hang of how to work. But of course the Tories and their Lib Dem stooges couldn't care two hoots for the unemployed - that's not what it's about.
The reason why there are more people out of work now than a couple of years ago is not down to a sudden loss of the "work ethic" by poor people, a pandemic of laziness, or an increase in the appeal of trying to scrape by on a pittance. It is because employers decided to cut millions of jobs and we largely failed to stop them.
While we havejobless people who are desperate for a job and unable to get one, why should any of us complain if there's a small minority who aren't? They're giving those that are keen to work a better chance.
And of course that's a clue as to why the Tories are really proposing all these attacks on people relying on state benefits. This cabinet of millionaires wants to increase profits for themselves and their mates by driving down wages for people in work. And the more people who are desperately competing for every job, the easier that will be.
That's why it's vital that none of us fall for the divide-and-rule arguments pumped out by the Tories and their friends in the media, trying to encourage those of us lucky enough to be in employment to blame those who aren't. Instead we need to recognise that every campaign to defend state benefits is a campaign to protect our job security and our pay and conditions. We need unity against the cuts, not scapegoating of the poorest in society.
I'm delighted that the Right To Work campaign has produced a petition against this work-for-nothing scheme. It should be used in workplaces, not just amongst the unemployed.
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The proposed cuts to public services threaten the welfare state at a fundamental level. If they go through, life for many working class people will be more like that in the 1930s, before it was established. The attacks on the welfare state cover every area, including health, education, welfare benefits, pensions, care for disabled and old people, and much more.
To try to force through the cuts, the Con-Dem government and its allies in the media and business have to sell a series of lies to enough of the population to prevent us uniting to mount sufficiently effective resistance to the cuts. Every union activist has a responsibility to challenge these lies to promote effective resistance. Let's look at a few:
LIE 1: We're All In This Together
The Con-Dems would have us believe that we all face a financial crisis and all have to tighten our belts. What a sick joke coming from a cabinet a majority of whom are millionaires. They aren't reliant on public services like the rest of us. Their vast wealth provides security for them should they fall ill, lose their jobs (let's hope!) or grow old. They can afford to buy the best care and support for their families too. Why should we start tightening our belts until theirs' reach the same circumference as ours?LIE 2: The Cuts Won't Really Affect Us in the Private Sector
In reality, there isn't much belt-tightening going on at the top at all. Friday's Guardian reported that the Chief Executive Officers of FTSE100 companies had seen their earnings rise by 55% in a year. Total pay for all the board members fo the top 350 listed companies went up 45%.
When they pretend not to be enjoying slashing public services, I can't help picturing Cameron & Clegg as prefects at some public school, beating some kid's backside and saying with a perverted grin "this is hurting me more than it's hurting you".
There's a clever bit of language being used to peddle this lie - referring to the cuts as in the "public sector" instead of "public services". The reality is that unless you are a millionaire, you rely on public services at key points in your life or that of your family. It is these services that are under threat.LIE 3: The Cuts Won't Really Affect Us, Only Work-Shy Scroungers
But there are other ways we in the private sector will be affected too.
Many of us work for companies who, directly or indirectly, sell products and services to the public sector. These contracts are already being slashed, impacting on our own employment prospects.
Many of us have family or friends working in the public sector, many of whose lives are about to be torn apart.
When the recession started, may profitable private companies used it as an excuse to attack jobs, pay and pensions and to push through changes they had always wanted. If the putlic sector gets away with slashing jobs, pay and pensions, and tearing up employment contracts, this will encourage private sector employers to come back for more.
Throwing hundreds of thousands of workers on the dole will dramatically reduce their spending power, reducing the market for the products and services that workers in the private sector produce, further depressing the economy.
The government has targetted the very poorest in society, those dependent on state benefits, for the biggest cuts. This will have a devastating impact on many of those who are out of work, old or seriously ill.LIE 4: The Debt Is So Big There Is No Alternative
Many people have heard a few stories about people on the fiddle, and the media ensures that everyone hears such stories (true or invented) second hand. Of course if the National Minimum Wage wasn't so pitifully low, decent childcare was readily available, and employers weren't so ready to sack people who are ill, fewer people would be tempted to fiddle.
But really the issue of "scroungers" is just a distraction, intended to get working class people squabbling over a few quid amongst ourselves. The real robbers are in the city. It was irresponsible gambling in the city that triggered this recession. Vodafone have just been let off paying about £6bn of unpaid tax.
The rise in unemployment was caused by employers throwing millions of people out of jobs, not by a pandemic of the laziness virus. The problem doesn't lie amongst the unemployed, but in the market economy that dictates that it is now more profitable to prevent people working and have fewer jobs.
The key argument though is about why the Con-Dems are so keen to target those not working. Cutting benefits to those out of work won't increase the number of jobs. What it will do is make people increasingly desperate to compete for the small number of jobs available, allowing employers to drive down wages for those of us in work, increasing the profits enjoyed in the boardrooms at our expense. That's the fundamental reason why people in work and out of work must unite against the cuts.
The debt is indeed big, thanks to the collossal bailout of the financial markets. After years of privatising profits, governments around the world nationalised the debts. We had a few months where there was serious discussion about how unfetterred markets had caused disaster, then the neo-liberals went back on the offensive and now they want more privatisation and deregulation as the "cure" for the debt.LIE 5: The Public Sector Had Grown Too Big and Greedy
But it's worth getting the debt in perspective. As these graphs show, UK national debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has gone up in 2009 and 2010 (when it exceeded 50%). But this is still low by historical standards, FAR lower than after World War II, the period when there was consensus between the main political parties that we had to invest in setting up the welfare state - health, education, benefits, housing etc - and grow the economy in order to pay off the debt.
It isn't the size of the debt that is driving the Con-Dems (and some other countries) to adopt harsh "austerity" policies. It is a continuation of the neoliberal economic madness that triggered the crash in the first place, combined with a knee-jerk desire to get out of the crisis by making working class people pay.
"There Is No Alternative" (TINA) is a line used by Thatcher to justify Tory assaults on working people in the 1980s, and by Blair to justify his wars in the 2000s. Even if they couldn't think of something positive to do instead, NOT wreaking dustruction on millions of people would have been a better alternative to what they did.
It wasn't teachers, nurses, refuse collectors and all the other public sector workers who caused the crisis. Financial institutions had succeeded in persuading governments that they didn't need to hold much capital, so when the US economy took a small dip and some people couldn't repay high-interest mortgages, they ran out of cash. As financial institutions had bundled up these debts with lots of others and sold them to each other all round the world, they all panicked about what bad debts they might hold, and stopped lending to each other - the Credit Crunch. This triggered a collapse in large sections of the "real" economy.LIE 6: The Cuts Are Essential To Protect the Economy
Throwing half a million public sector workers out of their jobs, along with half a million private sector workers who provide goods and services to the public sector, while cutting the incomes of many in the poorest areas, are measures likely to deflate the economy and increase the chances of a prolonged slump or double-dip recession. How on earth can the private sector "take up the slack" when the people who might buy their products and services are skint?LIE 7: There's Nothing You Can Do
There are many detailed alternative arguments, including UNITE's "Alternative Economic Programme", the TUC's "All Pain, No Gain: The Case Against the Cuts", "The Case Against The Cuts" from PCS, and "One Million Climate Jobs" from the Campaign Against Climate Change and various unions.
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