Labour's future is our collective responsibility

http://www.leftfutures.org/2015/08/what-will-bring-unity-to-labour-is-not-the-right-leader-but-the-strength-of-its-democracy/#more-44114

I've voted for Corbyn (and I hope you have too). 

The online fuss about a "purge" may indicate that over zealous party loyalists will shave a few hundred votes from the total cast‎ for the socialist candidate - as the media contribute "guilt by association" stories which try to tar Jeremy Corbyn with utterly implausible charges in the hope that some mud will stick.

No one knows what the result of the leadership election will be - but it is clearly more than possible that the left will win. More than that, we have already seen that the Labour Left is a sizeable and vibrant force.

Now, as Jon Lansman makes clear in the link at the head of this blog post, we need to understand that changing the Labour Party begins rather than ends with this leadership election.

Jeremy Corbyn's election as Party Leader will not, of itself, change a single policy of our Party any more than his defeat would, of itself, rule out a progressive change. Obviously the result may well make a difference to how people vote at Conference or in the National Policy Forum, but it is there that votes will have to be cast.

One of the less well-informed calls I have read this week was the call from Dave Nellist (in the context of a kind offer that TUSC might bring its legions back into the fold) for Corbyn, if elected, to decree that Labour Councils stop making cuts. This is quite beyond the power of the Party Leader (and which socialist would want to be a member of a Party of which it was not?)

A Leader prepared to support rather than denounce bold opposition to austerity can open up space in which such opposition might grow - but it is Party members and trade unionists in each locality who need to nurture such growth (and history shows that local resistance can take place in spite of denunciation from on high).

What we need to do is engage energetically with the Party's democratic structures in terms of policy-making and candidate selection. That first person plural applies to all of us who are enthusiastic supporters of Corbyn's leadership bid.‎ It is much wider than the venerable and worthy organisations extant on the Labour Left - but it does need to find some collective, democratic expression (soon).

If we want to transform the Labour Party we cannot leave this to one man.

‎

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Everything has changed

‎I've not blogged much in the last few days because I don't know where the combination of optimism and anger will take me - and in recent years I've been taken to task for calling strike breakers by their given name and for being honest in public about how I felt about the death of a former Prime Minister who hated and despised everything I hold dear.

But today.

Today the press reports that this Government wants mothers seeking tax credits for a third child to prove to officials that they were raped.

‎Today that same Government was exposed for inventing fake benefit claimants with fake quotes to justify their antediluvian benefit "reforms".

And today the two leading "mainstream" candidates to lead the Party into which I was born can do nothing other than squabble about which of them can defeat the socialist candidate for whom I am incredibly proud to have voted.

Now is a time to be angrier than I have ever been, than you - if you care for humans - have ever been. This Tory Government is intent upon undoing every little bit of good we have done in the past century (and more) whilst magnifying all the harm.

Now is also a time for greater optimism than we have ever known. Jeremy Corbyn is on the brink of achieving more than Tony Benn hoped and failed to achieve in 1981, more than the forever disempowered Labour Left has ever imagined we might achieve.

No rule of political or trade union life which any of us has learned applies any longer. ‎The certainties of those accustomed to power are as solid as mist. The firm cynicism of those who know exactly how and by whom we shall be betrayed is a soft as a marshmallow. 

All we can be sure of is which side we are on.

As workers.

As trade unionists.

As socialists.

Our enemy are the Tories.

Our leader is Jeremy Corbyn.

We are angry and optimistic in equal measure.

And everything is changed.

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Tony Who?

Tony Blair has had the unique privilege of writing his own political obituary.

Such is his desperation to prevent the inexorable progress of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign that he seeks to deploy the authority he believes he still has (even if, as he puts it, “we hate him”).

Tony!

We no longer hate you.

We don’t even pity you.

We don’t think about you any more.

When you, as Prime Minister, pressed ahead with unjustifiable tuition fees, introduced foundation hospitals to bring privatisation to our NHS and – above all – led us into an unjust war, then we noticed you and disapproved of you.

Since you ceased to be Prime Minister you have shown your true colours as a money-grubbing, attention-seeking wannabe celebrity. It is you yourself who has diminished the legacy you might have had by taking payments without any sense of propriety.

Our neoliberal Ozymandis just doesn't get it.

A complacency we’ve seen before?

https://www.unison.org.uk/news/general-secretary-blog/2015/08/docas-attack/

At the first meeting of the Development and Organisation (D&O) Committee of the UNISON National Executive Council (NEC) after the General Election the Committee considered a report on what the Tories were likely to do, based upon what was in their election manifesto.

Foreseeing that the new Government would move against the rational, economical and efficient method whereby members pay their union subscriptions from their wages or salaries (Deduction of Contributions at Source - DOCAS) the Committee unanimously agreed a plan to start moving members to paying by Direct Debit.

This was never a decision to give up on fighting against such an attack (a question which - on the UNISON NEC - is the province of a separate Policy Committee). It was about preparing prudently to protect our organisation from a well advertised attack.

That decision has not been revoked - and indeed the National Delegate Conference agreed an Emergency Composite Motion dealing with both our policy of opposition to such a change and with the need to prepare for the eventuality we hope to avoid.

However, there have been those who have done their best to spread complacency about the likelihood of this attack and the severity of its consequences. The link above shows that, even now we know that the Government aim to legislate away our freedom to agree with our employers how we collect our subscription income within a matter of weeks, the voice of complacency is not silent yet.

It's not true that we have "seen off" attacks on DOCAS in the past. They have cost us members in the 80s and the 90s - and our "success" in persuading Danny Alexander ‎not to go along with this attack under the last Government hasn't prevented our members in what's left of the Probation Service having the deduction of their union subscriptions stopped at the end of this month.

If that is how we "see off" attacks I would hate to see what it looks like when we succumb to them.

Branch activists need to crack on with identifying those members paying by DOCAS and making plans to switch them to Direct Debit. Let us try to stop this attack, including by gathering in our thousands in Manchester on 4 October - but don't let's risk our Union by listening to the voice of complacency.

‎

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Not a nice guy, never been a good MP, certainly not making the weather...

http://www.alastaircampbell.org/blog/2015/08/10/nice-guy-good-mp-making-the-weather-but-it-has-to-be-abc-anyone-but-corbyn-labour-is-finished-if-he-wins/

I'm a little surprised that Alastair Campbell (best known as the inspiration for the funniest political satire of recent years) still troubles the world with his opinions. I understand he used to work for a Mr Blair, who had a large majority fall into his lap, lacked the wit or courage to do enough with it and then dragged us into a murderous illegal war.

‎

Campbell's desperate attempt to oppose UNISON's preferred candidate for Leader of the Labour Party tells us that its author is arrogant‎ enough to think his views of significance - but it doesn't tell us much else really.

‎He goes on a bit. He speaks up for the positive achievements of New Labour (which aren't negligible, just less than John Smith would have achieved) and he reminds readers of the names of some half-forgotten bogeymen of the 1980s left.

So far so mundane.

He goes on a bit more. He says Corbyn is too left wing and that he has lots of experience and knows that Corbyn can never win a General Election.

And...

That's it.

If this is what passed for intellect when Blair was in Government the New Labour Emperors really always were stark naked.

Alastair Campbell, like Alan Johnson and all the other "Party grandees" who are frantically trying to warn people off the candidate who has momentum because he is advancing arguments and actually believes in something, is applying his knowledge and experience of the politics of the past.

He does it lazily, without really bothering to analyse or persuade - but that's not why he's missing the point (as they all are). 

Corbyn's campaign has tapped the desire for an alternative, the desire for hope, which can find no other expression in the political mainstream. ‎There is no relevant precedent for current circumstances, so all the world weary cynicism of even the most experienced hack counts for very little in understanding what's going on or what might happen next.

If the pundits who now tell us Corbyn could never win a General Election are the same people who utterly failed to foresee his current popularity (as they failed to foresee the Tory majority in 2015, or the economic crash of 2008) why should we listen to them?

The Guardian (which seems to be the centre of anti-Corbyn propaganda for now) thinks Mr Campbell's views are worth reporting, but I think Malcolm Tucker's views would be far more interesting.

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How the exit payment cap will hit career public servants a long way from senior management...

Yesterday, I congratulated a colleague for highlighting the Government’s consultation on the “exit payment cap”. This has been presented as being about limiting excessive severance payments to public sector “fat cats” – with a ceiling on payments of £95,000.

However, because the “cap” will include the “capital cost” of allowing unreduced pensions to workers made redundant above the age of 55 (which is a statutory right for those of us in the Local Government Pension Scheme(LGPS)) it will be forced upon many more workers than just the most senior managers.

The last Government promised that the 2011 settlement would last for 25 years, but now, four years later they propose to force through a significant change in the LGPS – which will hit people who are not receiving excessive payments when forced into redundancy.

To give a rough idea of how this “cap” can hit people on middle incomes if they have long service it is possible to calculate early retirement costs using a document from the Warwickshire Pension Fund available online. This includes a ready reckoner which is only intended to be used for the employers in that fund, but it serves to illustrate the point that this “cap” fits people we wouldn’t normally think of as fat cats.

Example One

Someone made redundant at 55 on 1 April 2016 with thirty years service, earning £40,000 and receiving a redundancy payment based upon the statutory calculation (but at the rate of an actual week’s pay) as well as pay in lieu of notice would cost the employer the following;

Early retirement cost = £78,800

Redundancy = £20,700

Pay in lieu = £9,200

Total cost = £108,700 exceeding the cap by £13,700

A 55 year old with thirty years service would need to be earning less than £35,000 before they escaped from the cap on this basis. Those local authorities paying more generous redundancy packages would find the cap fitting at a far lower salary.

Example Two

Someone made redundant at 56 on 1 April 2016 with forty years service, earning £35,000 and receiving a redundancy payment based upon the statutory calculation (but at the rate of an actual week’s pay) as well as pay in lieu of notice would cost the employer the following;

Early retirement cost = £74,200

Redundancy = £18,400

Pay in lieu = £8,050

Total cost = £100,650 exceeding the cap by £5,650

These examples are both relatively well paid workers compared to the national average, but they are hardly wealthy. The first example corresponds to someone who has spent a career in local government since leaving college and has worked their way up to a senior professional or middle management role. The second example corresponds to someone who has spent a career in local government since leaving school and has worked their way to a professional role.

These are the career public servants who have worked for decades knowing that they would at least get an unreduced pension if made redundant at the appropriate age.

They have seen this age go up from 50 to 55. They have seen the disappearance of the “added years" previously given to workers receiving their pension on redundancy.

Now they face the Government imposing a “cap” which – if it comes in as planned – will mean that they will not be entitled, if made redundant, to payments which are, at present, their statutory or contractual entitlements.

A further consideration is that, within the LGPS, because different employers are paying different contribution rates, the "early retirement cost" of "pension strain" for employees with the same salary, age and service will differ from one Council to another (which will mean that the "cap" will apply differently in different areas in what some local government officers are already describing as a "postcode lottery").

UNISON must alert the many members who will be threatened by this change so that they can respond to the consultation and lobby Members of Parliament. We also need to ensure that employers understand how this “cap” will impact upon them – many workers who might accept redundancy with an unreduced pension will resist redundancy when the cap is imposed.

Whilst your humble blogger should declare an interest (in the sense that I am a career public servant in my fifties) I can reassure regular readers of this blog at the UNISON Centre (Sid and Doris Euston-Towers) that I don't intend to retire any time soon...

UNISON General Secretary Election - A New Hope

http://www.unisonmanchester.org/national-news/unison-general-secretary-election-tuc-demonstration-in-manchester

I am pleased once more to find myself in agreement with the officers of UNISON's Manchester Branch - this time about who to recommend to members that we nominate in the election for UNISON General Secretary.

John Burgess, Barnet Branch Secretary, leader of strike action, successful litigation and some of the most sustained and imaginative campaigning against privatisation I have ever seen, has shown characteristic courage and determination by putting himself forward.

John's campaign will be positive, progressive and good for UNISON. We cannot know the outcome of the election - but we do know that the Corbyn campaign has rewritten the rules for labour movement elections and so John will, I am sure, fight to win - and to lead the whole Union. ‎

When I blogged at the weekend about the UNISON General Secretary election I mentioned four declared candidates. ‎ Of those four, one -Karen Reissmann - has withdrawn in order to support John. I believe this decision was wise and demonstrated a willingness to put unity first in the search for necessary change in our Union.

A fifth candidate, Southampton Branch Secretary, Hayley Garner, has also thrown her hat into the ring, alongside incumbent Dave Prentis, national officer Heather Wakefield and perennial challenger Roger Bannister.‎ Other candidates could emerge - since nominations will not open until September (with the result of the election being declared a week before Christmas).

Since my colleagues on the National Executive Council (NEC) did not agree (as is permitted by law and UNISON Rules) to use the Single Transferable Vote (STV) so that we could have a system of preferential voting (as in the Labour leadership election) - this election will be fought by "first past the post." Without doubt this is of benefit to the incumbent if three or more candidates appear on the eventual ballot paper.

For now, the race is on to secure nominations from branches in particular (since the 25 branch hurdle is the one most likely to be reached by challengers). All candidates - and their supporters - can help to make this election the positive, challenging experience that UNISON requires by focusing on the policies and organising activity which we need to face the unprecedented attacks of the Tory Government.

The breadth of support for John Burgess already shows that there is an appetite for change in UNISON. I believe that John is the hope we have been waiting for.

‎

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Burgess blows the whistle on Tory sneak attack upon our pension rights

UNISON General Secretary candidate, John Burgess (Secretary of the Barnet branch) is highlighting the Government’s attack on the pension rights of redundant fiftysomething public sector workers, which they are smuggling through in a rushed consultation on limiting pay offs (or “exit payments”).

This is a very serious attack upon older workers with long service in pension funds – as John puts it “if we don’t stop this then longer serving local government workers in their mid to late 50s will not be able to get an unreduced pension if they are made redundant in spite of the LGPS Regulations.”

This is a serious issue for all public service workers – including the costs of permitting unreduced pensions within an overall cap on compensation amounts to an unanticipated and unannounced attack upon rights which thousands of workers believed that they had been building up for years.

Of course we would sooner that there were no redundancies and therefore no need for redundancy compensation – but under cover of a hue and cry about “excessive pay offs” the Tories are, as John says, sneaking through a serious assault upon UNISON members’ rights – and UNISON must now lead the opposition to this attack.

Regular readers of this blog (Sid and Doris Blogger) will realise that I have abandoned my previous position of “armed neutrality” in respect of the forthcoming election for UNISON General Secretary (about which more later no doubt).

I don't want to say I told you so...

The Guardian is reporting the Government's announcement that public sector workers are to lose our right to have union fees deducted from our wages‎ (a change to be made, it would appear, by way of an amendment to the already published Trade Union Bill);

http://gu.com/p/4ba6z

I truly wish I wasn't, so soon, in a position to say "I told you so" to the complacent consensus which crushed Lambeth's Emergency Motion One at June's Local Government Conference. My self-regard, and that of the Lambeth branch, is sufficiently robust that we could happily have withstood another year or two of isolation and ridicule if it meant that the Government didn't move to eliminate DOCAS (Deduction of Contributions at Source).

However, we won't have the opportunity to have that enjoyment. The Government is moving swiftly, as foreseen by the UNISON NEC Development and Organisation Committee in May (and subsequently downplayed or denied by officers and activists throughout the Union).

We must and will oppose this legislation. We need a massive presence on the streets (not only at the Tory Conference in October). We need online campaigning. We need vigorous Parliamentary opposition.‎ We need lobbying from employers who never asked for this ideologically motivated assault upon sane employee relations.

Jeremy Corbyn's campaign teaches, more than anything, that nothing is impossible‎ - and so we must fight to defeat the Trade Union Bill.

However, it would be irresponsible beyond belief not now to make the immediate preparations to sustain our organisation for which Lambeth called unsuccessfully at Local Government Conference - stepping up the pace of action to implement the action points of the Emergency Composite which was passed at National Delegate Conference.

If we leave these preparations until after we have finished campaigning to stop the Bill we will compound the damage the Bill will do us if it passes (whereas should we succeed we will be in a fine position to reassess).

From this point forward all new recruitment should be based upon members paying subscriptions by direct debit. This creates massive financial and administrative (and - most importantly - organisational) challenges for branches, Regions and the UNISON Centre. We simply have no choice but to meet these challenges.

‎I won't say more at this stage.

Just one last thing.

I - and others - told you so.

‎

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The implications of UNISON's support for Jeremy Corbyn for the General Secretary election

Socialist comrades have expressed as much shock as pleasure at the news that UNISON gave our supporting nomination in the Labour leadership contest to Jeremy Corbyn. (Even though some reported this without comment...)

I really should have believed the well placed source who assured me of the likelihood of this outcome and – with the benefit of hindsight – it can be seen that the rushed last minute consultation with members who contribute to the Affiliated Political Fund (APF) was a device to justify the unavoidable decision both externally and internally (for whilst our General Secretary has always demonstrated a commendably deft dexterity in arriving at a pragmatic position some of his supporters will have had to practice unprecedented gymnastics to arrive at a position where they are comfortable supporting an unashamed candidate of the left).

How did this position become unavoidable? The whole of the answer is the growing groundswell of rank and file support for Corbyn’s campaign. In part this was channelled by activists within UNISON (and this was not unimportant), but such is the political earthquake unleashed by Jeremy Corbyn that our General Secretary, and those around him, concluded a little while ago that his personal support for Corbyn, as expressed on Channel 4 News, was a prerequisite for his re-election.

The most credible rank and file candidates likely to oppose Dave Prentis (in the sense that he is the candidate with by far the best electoral record) is UNISON National Executive Council (NEC) (and Socialist Party) member Roger Bannister. Roger has come second to Dave Prentis in three previous General Secretary elections, on each occasion pushing another “left” candidate into third place (your humble blogger having been one such bronze medallist). Roger presumably believes that the anti-Labour position which clarified his differences with the UNISON machine in the New Labour epoch will provide a similar electoral advantage in 2015, but (after the Corbyn phenomenon) this seems very unlikely.

As thousands of workers flock to join Labour in order to vote for a socialist candidate to lead the Party, the Socialist Party view that the Labour Party is simply another “bourgeois party” (like the Tories) looks increasingly absurd – and it will hardly help Roger as a candidate for UNISON General Secretary that he will be able to boast of his abstention from the Corbyn campaign.

Something similar could be said (albeit with less force) for the other potential rank and file challenger, UNISON NEC (and Socialist Workers Party) member Karen Reissmann. Karen is less hostile to the Labour Party than Roger, but her organisation exists in order to try (and fail) to replace the Labour Party – and she is denial about the damage that will be done to her candidacy by her personal role in the grotesque mismanagement of rape allegations by her political organisation, the fall out from which has left “UNISON United Left” boasting a website which, in August 2015 has not been updated since last November.

It is likely that our General Secretary, and his supporters, were in a position to foresee the fourth declared candidacy (so far) in the coming election – that of Heather Wakefield, UNISON national officer. Whilst Heather will doubtless stand “to the left” of the incumbent General Secretary her appeal on the rank and file left is seriously mitigated (to put it gently) by her central role in delivering an unsatisfactory compromise over the Local Government Pension Scheme in 2012 and in failing to deliver a worthwhile local government pay campaign in 2014.

Had Heather been able to differentiate herself from Dave Prentis by her support for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership campaign this might have been a significant vote winner for her. She cannot. She will still win support from those who want to see a woman General Secretary, and has a base of support in the official UNISON structures, but will struggle to present herself as a “left” alternative to the status quo. She may have missed her moment.

Without doubt, UNISON’s support – and that of our General Secretary – for Jeremy Corbyn are factors which make the re-election of the incumbent in our own election more likely (an outcome which will postpone the necessary debate about UNISON's future).

This blog retains a position of “armed neutrality” on the General Secretary election, since what our Union needs is plainly both change from the inadequate approach of the past five years (as personified by both Prentis and Wakefield) and a candidate who can capture and express the energy and enthusiasm of the Corbyn campaign (as neither Bannister nor Reissmann can). For now, I respect and admire (in different ways) all four declared candidates – and will endeavour to offend all of them without fear or favour.

I shall hope for a fifth candidate.

UNISON nominates Corbyn

http://www.unison.org.uk/media-centre/unison-supports-jeremy-corbyn-in-the-labour-leadership

I should leave the country more often!

For the first time in 12 years I miss a meeting of the UNISON National Executive Council (NEC) and what happens?

Our General Secretary pledges vigorous opposition to the Trade Union Bill, the NEC offer solidarity to Max Watson (facing the threat of dismissal) and John Burgess (facing threats from the far right) - and the NEC elects the majority of members of a National Labour Link Committee who go on (on the same day) to offer a supporting nomination for Labour Leader to Jeremy Corbyn‎.

In completely unrelated news, the NEC had on its agenda proposals for an election for General Secretary. 

About which I'll blog when I'm back in the country.

‎

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Why it's right to strike (2) - support London Met this Friday

http://www.londonmetunison.org.uk/2015/07/solidarity-24-07/

‎

UNISON members at London Metropolitan University are striking this Friday in opposition to three threatened compulsory redundancies (including that of UNISON Branch Secretary, my comrade Max Watson).

The deliberate making of compulsory redundancies even when financial savings could be made without them reflects the worst sort of managerial vindictiveness - particularly ‎ when one of those selected happens to be a union activist who has been victimised before.

Whereas all public spending cuts, and all associated job losses, should be opposed there are at least some managers and organisations who will abide by the spirit as well as the letter of section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act and do all they can to avoid compulsory redundancies.

There are others - some of whom seem to be calling the shots‎ at London Metropolitan University - who seize the opportunity of financial crisis to try to show their power to impose unjust dismissals in order to weaken both the organisation and the spirit of a workforce they wish to cow into submission.

Follow the link above for suggestions from the branch as to how you can help them in their fight for justice.

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Why it's right to strike (1)

http://www.glasgowcityunison.co.uk/index.php/news/118-homeless-caseworkers-dispute-unison-glasgow-branch-statement

In many ways the highlight of this year's UNISON National Delegate Conference, which took place last week in Glasgow, was that it took place in a City where UNISON members were striking for justice.

Now it's good to learn that the homelessness workers have - after seventeen weeks on strike - accepted a settlement recommended to them by their branch and shop stewards.

In today's local government it is sadly all to common to see groups and individuals swallowing reductions in pay or conditions in the (invariably mistaken) belief that this can secure their jobs.

It was therefore heartening to see a group of workers prepared to fight for the fair, higher rate of pay which they deserved - and it is all the more encouraging to learn that they have obtained a settlement which they can accept.

It is precisely the ability to take such action which the Tory Trade Union Bill seeks to eliminate.

‎

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The first shot in the war on trade unionism

I go on leave for a week to enjoy the sunshine in Sussex and the Government introduces draconian restrictions on the rights of workers to organise and take action as trade unionists (in the Trade Union Bill).

This isn’t quite the existential threat to trade unionism itself which many of us continue to anticipate. The easy-to-legislate-for threat to the finances of the major trade unions, successfully piloted twenty two years ago, has not (yet) been resurrected.

The Tory Government aren’t (yet) quite returning to the Combination Acts, but they want only timid and tame trade unionism on their own terms. They don’t want industrial action, and they want depoliticised trade unions (with the beneficial side effect of undermining the income of the main opposition Party). Furthermore they want to uproot workplace trade union activism with an attack upon trade union “facility time”.

Apolitical, collaborationist organisations run by paid officials rather than lay activists are the only sort of trade unions which this Government would want to tolerate (for a time). This is a more intelligent - and therefore more dangerous - attack than one which sought to wipe us out completely, since it does not immediately threaten the livelihoods of the officials of the movement.

However, toothless trade unions would be worthless for workers and the future of our movement if we acquiesced in these attacks would be one of continuing decline into irrelevance. If this Bill passes another, within a couple of years, will come along to finish the job.

Official opposition  to the new Bill has been expressed by our General Secretary and by the TUC and the Trade Union Group of MPs. I am pleased that my own UNISON Branch Committee agreed to help initiate a new rank and file campaign to mobilise branch level opposition to this legislative attack across the trade unions.

Without doubt, the first step in our response to this assault upon workers’ rights must be to resist – but we must also prepare our organisations to continue to be battle ready whatever happens in Parliament. We need to build trade unions which are more democratic, more political and more willing to take action.

Harriet Harman - A Modest Proposal

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

Harriet Harman has reportedly claimed (without mandate or authority) that the Labour Party will not oppose the restriction of child tax credits so that they shall bring no additional benefit to households where the parents have more than two children.

This craven acceptance of the politics of George Osborne (whose budgets are always all about politics and have never yet been about economics) is perhaps intended to show Labour's "economic credibility" and to appease the presumed envy felt by some poor people against other poor people.

‎

Taking this (unauthorised) policy pronouncement alongside the related claim that Labour will not oppose the lowering of the benefit cap‎ it is clear that those currently leading the Labour Party see the need for Labour to stand firm against the sourge of large families. (As I have never myself appreciated that this scourge even existed I can only applaud the perspicacity of these wise leaders).

In decreeing that Labour will not oppose "for the sake of opposing" Harriet Harman has taken a bold stand against the excessive breeding of the poor. Her words, which will give confidence to all those who support Liz Kendall - and consolation to all those "socialists" who know that we must never espouse socialism for fear of losing elections, do not, though, go far enough.

Jonathan Swift, writing more than two hundred years ago in the link above, had the courage and confidence to follow the politics expressed by Harriet Harman to their necessary conclusion. Whilst Labour Party members wait for Liz Kendall to show that same courage, we can (of course) draw the conclusion for ourselves.

If you are the third (or fourth, or fifth) child of parents who depend for a decent life upon tax credits (or if you are the sibling of such a person) Labour's current leaders believe that you deserve to have less than the children of smaller families. You are a lesser person. Harriet Harman has had the strength to join George Osborne in speaking this truth to you, even if we must wait awhile before Liz Kendall can draw Jonathan Swift's conclusion.

Obviously it is slightly difficult for those of us who joined the Labour Party out of a belief in social justice ‎to have to come to terms with this new wisdom (but we have former SDP member Polly Toynbee to help us to do so).

At the risk of seeming like someone who isn't prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to win an election all I will say is, if you're offered an opportunity to attend a fundraising dinner hosted by Progress for Kendall please take the vegetarian option.

Please.

(Oh, and if you have the affliction of principle or the problem of decency and therefore cannot follow the necessary trajectory of New Labour to the Modest Proposal of Jonathan Swift then I suppose you'll just have to support Jeremy Corbyn).

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No hopers offer no hope...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33490959

Labour's right-wing are taking fright at the prospect of significant support for socialist candidate, Jeremy Corbyn.

The link above reports the desperate attempt to unify supporters of the three pro-austerity candidates in order to quash Jeremy's growing challenge.

Interestingly, the co-thinkers in the trade unions of those for whom a serious socialist challenge for the Labour Party leadership is horrifying are also doing all they can to minimise support for the policies of their own organisations.

Someone must have briefed that UNISON's National Labour Link Committee (half of whom have yet even to be elected) will, on 29 July, back "Cooper or no one." Quite how that benefits any UNISON member not hoping for a Lordship is perplexing to say the least.

It's because the resistance to Corbyn from within the labour movement machine is increasingly as obvious as it is absurd that UNISON GPF payers wishing to be sure that their vote for Corbyn is eventually counted will be wise, first of all, to transfer to the APF.

We would be unwise to fail to foresee almost any disreputable move being made to weaken the socialist challenge for the Labour Party leadership.

The tragedy of Labourism includes the tragedy of a Labour Left so habituated to our subordination that there are many good people who, whilst agreeing with the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, will consider casting a vote elsewhere in pursuit of "electability".

It sometimes feels as if many socialists in the Labour Party feel that our socialism is something private, if not shameful, and that we must always choose leaders well to our right because what we believe is somehow inappropriate.

Nonsense.

None of the other three candidates for Labour Leader is any more electable than Corbyn.

The agonising death of social democracy across the European continent is dragging the sorry remnants of Blair's "third way" (and Brown's accommodation to it) down into the same abyss. Twentieth century Labourism is over.

No one knows whether democratic socialism can offer parties of the Left, and our movement, a path out of this destruction, but we may as well grab hold of that hope‎ - which Corbyn offers us.

Trade unionists need a voice in the legislature. Burnham, Cooper and Kendall do not offer that voice - and their supporters in the trade unions are not supporters of trade unionism.

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UNISON must support Jeremy Corbyn, the UNISON candidate for Labour Leader

Below is a message which I have sent to relevant members of my UNISON branch, in line with the agreed policy of the branch. I would urge every UNISON activist to encourage their branch to send a similar message (if your branch has taken a similar decision). As UNITE’s decision to nominate Jeremy Corbyn clearly shows, this is a time at which we must make use of the relationship between the trade unions and the Labour Party if it is to have any meaning.

Jeremy Corbyn stands, in the most obvious way, for everything which UNISON stands for. Whether UNISON nationally supports Jeremy (who has supported UNISON throughout our existence) will be decided by the National Labour Link Committee on 29 July. Were the Committee to decide to nominate any other candidate that would be tantamount to declaring in favour of disaffiliation. Were the Committee to decide not to make a nomination that would be tantamount to declaring their own complete irrelevance.

Maximising the vote for Jeremy Corbyn maximises the influence of UNISON policy. Every UNISON member should do all we can to maximise this vote. Here, then is the message to APF members which I have sent (having sent a similar message to GPF members encouraging them to switch);

As a UNISON member you can have a say in the election for the leadership of the Labour Party.

Your trade union branch, Lambeth UNISON, supports the candidacy of UNISON member, and London MP, Jeremy Corbyn. Jeremy stands for opposition to austerity and supports the policies which UNISON supports – in favour of a fairer society with well funded decent public services provided by workers who are well paid and treated fairly. You can read more about Jeremy’s campaign at http://www.jeremyforlabour.com/.

It is important for us as public service workers that Jeremy’s clear cut opposition to the economic policies which threaten our job security and have undermined our living standards receives as much support as possible. It is in your interests as a UNISON member to support Jeremy Corbyn in this election. (There are three other candidates and you can read about them at http://www.labour.org.uk/leadership).

You can watch the UNISON hustings at which all the four Labour leadership contenders spoke online at http://www.unison.org.uk/news/labour-contenders-make-their-pitch-to-unison-members.

As a contributor to UNISON’s Affiliated Political Fund you can then obtain your right to vote in the Labour leadership election by registering online (free of charge) at http://support.labour.org.uk/ (check the box for “yes” that you are a member of an affiliated organisation and then tick the box for UNISON). The last date to register to vote is noon on Wednesday 12 August. Ballot papers will be despatched from Friday 14 August and the ballot will close at noon on Thursday 10 September.

I hope that you will consider registering to vote in the Labour leadership election in order to support Jeremy Corbyn.

Barnet UNISON Secretary Victim of Hate Crime

‎I pass on the following news without comment except to express full solidarity and support to John Burgess and Barnet UNISON.

As trade unions resist the attacks we face and show solidarity against oppression we can anticipate such reactionary hostility and must stand solid together to defend brothers and sisters at the sharp end.

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Barnet UNISON Press Release: 10 July 2015: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Local Trade Unionist Victim of Hate Crime 

http://www.barnetunison.me.uk/?q=node/1610

"It is with deepest anger I have to report that our Barnet UNISON branch secretary, John Burgess, had his car vandalised as it was parked up outside his own home. After the day's activities on 8^th July, which involved a strike and protests, John returned home to find a large note stuck on his car windshield: "Fucking Union Faggotts Get Back Home From Here!"  and a nail stuck into a front wheel of his car. This came within 2 weeks of the Barnet UNISON banner, and a branch presence which of course included John, proudly appearing on the Pride Demo. It is our view this particular use of offensive language is far too coincidental for us not to understand this as an attack on John as a trade unionist and also for being seen on the Pride demo.

We also think there is a strong coincidence that our branch was a very early signatory to the Unite Against Fascism statement about the proposed Fascist gathering in Golders Green and encouraged our members to attend the protest last weekend (4^th July). We are proud that we were part of a larger community mobilisation which meant Fascists could not raise their heads in our community. Fascists are organisations which peddle hatred and what happened to John is in every sense a Hate crime which has been reported to the police.

John has a job to do and that is to represent the members of his union branch. We choose him year after year as we believe he is the best placed person to do this. He enjoys the confidence of the branch membership. This means whoever did this is trying to intimidate and silence all of our membership. We will not be silenced!

We believe it is the demonisation of trade unions by the current Government which also encourages this type of personal attack on individual trade unionists. We condemn such attacks and call on our supporters to rally round and show solidarity and support to one who has done nothing other than defend us and offer solidarity to all those fighting the effects of Austerity and oppression." Helen Davies, Branch Chair Barnet UNISON.

George Binette, branch secretary, Camden UNISON had this to say: "On behalf of Camden UNISON I express our shock and horror at the vicious homophobic vandalism carried out against John Burgess, Barnet UNISON branch secretary. This attack is a perverse tribute to the effectiveness of John's tireless commitment to both his members and the defence of public services. Unfortunately, all too many politicians and sections of the media seem set to whip up a Jeremy Clarkson-style climate where it is literally open season on active trade unionists. Solidarity with John and the Barnet branch."

End.

Notes to Editors.

Contact details: Helen Davies Barnet UNISON on 07432733168 or 0208 359 2088 or email: Helen.Davies@barnetunison.org.uk

Keep up to date go to the new Barnet UNISON website at http://www.barnetunison.me.uk The information in this e-mail is confidential and may also be subject to legal privilege. It is intended solely for the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient please reply to the sender. You are hereby placed on notice that any copying, publication or any other form of dissemination of this e-mail or its contents is prohibited. Whilst every endeavour is taken to ensure that e-mails are free from viruses, no liability can be accepted and the recipient is requested to use their own virus checking software. Please consider the environment - do you really need to print this email?

Pensions Board (not bored)

http://moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=733&MId=9423

With apologies for parochialism, I didn't want to let pass blogging my attendance (though not as a member) at the inaugural meeting of the local Pensions Board last night (topping off a day which had already included a picket line in Bromley, a lunchtime protest in Brixton and the unanimous rejection of the Further Education employers' "zero per cent offer" by UNISON members at Lambeth College).

The Pensions Board is one of many coming into existence this year (following the 1 April deadline by which local Councils needed formally to have established them). The meeting was (as expected) dominated by the business of agreeing what the Board would b‎e doing with its time in future.

Although it's early days, it was encouraging to see Scheme Member representatives, as equals with employer representatives, holding Council officers to account and asserting their rights (as full voting members of the Board) to speak and ask questions on behalf of the workers who pay into the fund and pensioners who depend upon it.

Whilst pension fund governance is often seen as being about the investments of the fund (which are substantial), in a statutory defined benefit scheme (like the Local Government Pension Scheme - LGPS) where our pensions are fixed regardless of the performance of particular funds, the role of Pensions Boards can be far more about the administration of the scheme - a subject far less dry than it sounds when you consider that‎ our LGPS pension rights are amongst the most valuable things we local government workers own.

The most immediate implication of the performance of the fund, for local government workers, is the impact which it has, after each triennial actuarial valuation, for the employer's pension contributions which Councils are required to make from their ever diminishing revenue budgets. In Lambeth we have retained (non-voting) scheme member co-optees on the Pensions Committee to keep an eye on this, albeit we expect the Pensions Board to have oversight.

In the longer term, I hope Pensions Boards serve to maintain and develop interest in, and understanding of, our pension scheme by the local government workforce so that when this Government (or more probably the next) breaks the promise that the last changes to the scheme would be secure for twenty years, our members can more readily be mobilised for the fight to defend once more the principle that public servants are entitled to dignity and respect in old age.

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Solidarity with Barnet - and Bromley!

http://www.unison.org.uk/news/barnet-members-prepare-for-budget-day-strike

Solidarity and good luck to comrades in Barnet UNISON striking tomorrow against privatisation. The latest step in Barnet's long struggle against rampant outsourcing is well timed to coincide with Chancellor Osborne's latest austerity budget.

The coordination of Barnet's action with that being taken - in a similar cause - by UNISON and UNITE members in Bromley is a welcome development, demonstrating the wisdom of lay, rank and file trade union activists who know that the causes of our problems are political - and that they therefore require a political response, maximising political pressure through the coordination of action.

Workers in Bromley (where the employer took advantage of Regionally self-inflicted injuries of ‎the UNISON branch to break away from national conditions of service) also face an attack on trade union time off which poses a near existential threat to branch organisation.

UNISON's Greater London Region needs to develop an imaginative, inclusive strategy to fight these threats on both our northern and southern flanks - and I look forward to blogging about that strategy.

In the mean time solidarity to both Barnet and Bromley!

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A whole Conference just for Rules?

http://www.iansunitesite.org.uk/2015/07/unite-rules-conference-day-one.html?m=1

Diligent readers of this blog (Sid and Doris Blogger) will know that its author has an almost unhealthy interest in the UNISON Rule Book.

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I have therefore read with interest the post at the link above, from the blog of a UNITE activist, concerning the first day of their Rules Conference.

It appears that lay activists have resisted some fairly dodgy manoeuvres, but have lost the argument for election of officials. 

At the same time, UNITE's support for Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist candidate‎ for Labour Leader has coincided with a successful defence of UNITE's Labour Party affiliation.

As much as a special Rules Conference sounds like a personal paradise, I think I prefer the annual opportunity to amend our Rule Book which we have in UNISON.

Indeed, I prefer an Annual Conference all round - and I continue to wonder why the lay leadership of PCS would sooner be subsumed in a trade union where branches can change Union policy only every two years and rules only every four years.

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ACAS Early Conciliation and Trade Union Organising

http://m.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2056

Above is a link to the page on the website of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) where research papers are published. The most recent reviews the first year of (compulsory) "early conciliation" (the new arrangement whereby you can't lodge a tribunal complaint without first initiating a formal ACAS conciliation process.

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This review is based upon large scale telephone interviewing of workers and employers using the early conciliation process. I am most interested in what their data can tell us about how trade unions are making use of early conciliation for our members - since, although the process was obviously introduced to put another obstacle in the way of tribunal claimants (and recent case law has shown that the slightest technical error can rule out a subsequent claim), the ability to "go to ACAS" about an issue is obviously something that a decent negotiator could use to some good effect.

‎In all, only 24% of claimants using early conciliation had a representative. This is worrying if it means that three quarters of workers were representing themselves (since someone who represents themselves is represented by a fool) - but that proportion is not so far away from aggregate trade union density in the economy as a whole as to be surprising. (Only 36% of the employers interviewed for this survey reported trade unions as present in their workplace).

Just under half of worker representatives were lawyers, and about a quarter were union officials. However, since (in UNISON at least) we would use a lawyer to deal with such matters, it is likely that a significant proportion of the legal representatives were there as a result of trade union presence.

Around 30% of claimants settled their claim through early conciliation, nine times out of ten for cash (with a median sum of just £1,300). ‎ Fewer than half of claimants (but almost two thirds of employers) were satisfied with the outcome of early conciliation.

A little over half of the claimants who had not arrived at a settlement had submitted, or were planning to submit, a tribunal claim. The largest single reason for not doing so in these circumstances (cited by over a quarter) was the discouraging effect of tribunal fees. Interestingly, three in five of those who were not planning a tribunal claim having failed to achieve a settlement said that ACAS was itself some part of their reason for not doing so.

It is impossible to know whether these 60% were benefiting from honest, unbiased ‎comments on a hopeless case, had gained greater understanding through the process of early conciliation or were consciously being put off - certainly, since one of the key concerns of the ACAS research is (understandably) whether early conciliation is reducing tribunal claims, and since the whole point of the process was to keep workers away from tribunals, it is not surprising to hear that the process is obviously achieving this objective.

What should trade unionists take from this data?

Well, first that we ourselves should be researching the work which we are obviously doing in early conciliation in order to assess its utility for our members and our organising effort.

Individual representation at a tribunal, which is the very essence of a "servicing" approach to trade unionism can show us, as a movement, at our most reactive.

We have reacted to the actions of the legislature over the years, whether that was creating the tribunals, extending their jurisdiction, introducing fees or introducing early conciliation. We have also reacted to soaring professional indemnity premiums by preventing lay (and full-time) officials undertaking tribunal representation, and only taking cases which are likely to win.

It may be time to step back and take a look at what is left of the system for enabling workers to enforce our employment rights, and to consider how to use this to advance union organising. This would require a radical reappraisal of how we currently operate and is therefore unlikely pending a change in leadership. It is, however, necessary.

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Unite backs Corbyn - what about UNISON?

http://www.unitetheunion.org/news/unite-announces-corbyn-one-burnham-two-in-labour-leader-vote/

The Executive Council of our sister Union, UNITE, has shown the elementary consistency of backing, in the election for Labour Leader, the candidate who most supports the policies of that trade union - Jeremy Corbyn. (How this impacts upon debates at UNITE's Rules Conference about backing non-Labour candidates in elections I will be interested to learn.)

The challenge before UNISON's National Labour Link Committee on 29 July (the half of whom nominated by the National Executive‎ will not be in place until a decision of the NEC on that same day) is whether they can show the same loyalty to the values and policies of UNISON.

These trade union nominations (like the "supporting nominations" from Constituency Labour Parties) carry no weight as votes, all of which are cast individually between members (including affiliated members opting in), "supporters" and the Party. This individuation of the relationship between affiliated members and the Party is part of the toxic "Collins" legacy of Ed Miliband, bequeathed to us by those who negotiated on behalf of the unions.

Nevertheless, UNITE's formal backing for Jeremy Corbyn's campaign, following on from those of ASLEF, BFAWU and other unions, signifies both the seriousness of the campaign and the recognition (long overdue in some quarters)‎ that our trade unions need to put such political clout as we have behind the policies we agree.

UNISON members can lobby their Regionally elected members of the National Labour Link Committee and - since the NEC has yet to elect it's representatives - should also lobby any and all NEC members to support Jeremy Corbyn. Every vote cast for Jeremy Corbyn, and ever effort to maximise his vote, helps to bring hope back to our movement (when we had almost forgotten it).

Congratulations to the UNITE EC for their backing of Jeremy Corbyn!

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Confusion over pay...

http://www.unison.org.uk/news/higher-education-members-vote-to-accept-pay-offer

This story - from our national website - reports the decision of the Higher Education Service Group Executive (SGE) to accept the employers' pay offer, following a consultation exercise in which 72% of members participating supported this course of action.

That the web story (at least as at 9am Saturday morning) didn't report what the pay offer was (‎1%) may just be a slip up - but it is perhaps indicative of the confusion and uncertainty around pay which dominates the UNISON Centre.

The 1% pay offer won't be implemented until the conclusion of a disputes procedure likely to be initiated by UCU and UNITE (the unions rejecting 1%), at which UNISON and GMB (having accepted 1%) will be present as observers.

Whilst our members in Higher Education are deciding to accept 1%, we are consulting our members in Further Education on the (non) offer (of 0%) - and activists in branches need to take the lead in recommending rejection if we are to move our Union in the direction of defending our living standards.

At the same time, our members in Probation - having suspended strike action for further talks are being called upon to take two hours of token strike action on ‎14 July (to protect the lawfulness of their ballot mandate) as UNISON continues to oppose what is - in essence - a 0% "offer" with small one off cash payments for those who won't benefit from incremental progression.

The obvious timidity of the national Union in relation to pay reflects the genuine uncertainty of the membership and the uneven pattern of our consciousness and combativity. This mixed picture is hardly exclusive to UNISON - UCU's rejection of 1% in Higher Education is based upon a 53% vote in a ‎consultative ballot with a 32% turnout (and in which 53% indicated that they were unwilling to take strike action).

It would be absurd to complain that a reluctant leadership are restraining the natural militancy of an angry membership - that isn't what's going on.

The failure of leadership in UNISON (and much of the wider movement) is deeper and more serious than that.

Confronted by an uncertain and timid membership, we appear content to reflect this spirit in the leadership we offer at a national level.

What is needed is a determined approach to outlining a plausible strategy to raise our pay - and a genuine campaign to win the support of our members for this strategy.

The likelihood that UNISON will do this now is, I fear, fairly slender - activists need to do all we can to keep pushing in this direction however we can.

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