Construction rally - for direct labour and negotiated agreements

I posted earlier about the abuse of agency labour - if you can get to Manchester on Wednesday 2nd January, please join the rally by Amicus construction workers which is partly on this subject.

More details of the rally are available on the union web site.

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Electrolux - the official line

The official UNITE-Amicus press release about the closure of the Electrolux Spennymoor plant makes truly depressing reading.

Is negotiating better redundancy terms while our manufacturing industry is decimated really the best the trade union movement can do?

This plant is in Blair's old constituency. It's current losses are less than other plants in other countries - is this plant being shut because it's cheap, easy and quick to fire UK workers?

The government has no meaningful strategy to protect and develop industry and jobs because it is tied to "neo-liberal" free-market dogma which means the strategy is to have no strategy. Billions of our money are being thrown at Northern Rock - not to protect jobs and housing of working people, but to prop up shaky financial markets which gambled and lost. Even the word "nationalisation" is back in the news - but to prop up profit, not to put people before profit.

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Highs & Lows - Pensions & Agency Working

It's fantastic news that the government has finally agreed to compensate the 120,000+ workers who lost out in their pensions when their firms went bust. There is absolutely no doubt that this wouldn't have happened without persistent campaigning.

It's always infuriating to hear people say "there's no point of being in a union". I've lost count of the number of individual cases I've dealt with where members have gained more from their membership over one issue than a lifetime of subs. It's always good to be able to point to collective issues in the workplace where the union delivers gains on a similar scale. This is such a big union win that it even made the national headlines. We can never be good enough at trumpeting our successes.

Meanwhile, when it comes to agency and temporary workers, the UK government is still putting its commitment to free market dogma and sucking up to big business ahead of justice and the needs of working people. The UK government continues to block the proposed EU Agency Workers Directive which would give agency workers rights as employees. I find it particularly sick that agency workers are left open to exploitation with fewer legal rights and often lower pay, while the government still refuses to repeal the Tory anti-union laws that outlaw solidarity action between direct employees and their agency colleagues.

Andrew Miller MP has put forward a private member's bill on the subject, which should at least make sure it gets debated in parliament.

We must keep the pressure up!

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