The early arrival of the festive season has delayed my circulating a full report from Wednesday’s NEC meeting – watch this space later in the weekend for that. General Secretary Dave Prentis told the NEC that we need to take our campaign in defence of public services out on to the streets.
Barnet UNISON are showing the way. They achieved some excellent publicity for their campaign of opposition to wholesale privatisation on Wednesday evening. The Tory scheme to outsource anything that isn’t nailed down is clearly a glimpse of the future under a Cameron Government
Another such glimpse is provided by the slaughter of jobs in Tory Hammersmith and Fulham – including the relocation of caller centre jobs out of London. London local government affords us evidence which all those who know that a Tory Government would be even worse than New Labour should want to see widely publicised.
So I wait (and wait) to see support for London UNISON members’ campaigns where it ought to be being expressed. Dave Prentis congratulated the Westminster branch at the NEC for having prevented the employer introducing fingerprint recognition machines – and rightly so! We need official support and solidarity for all the UNISON members in our Region who are facing Tory attacks.
Showing posts with label Tories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tories. Show all posts
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Tories attack workers rights (no change there then)
The Tories have opened up a bit of “clear blue water” with a daft attack upon the miserably few rights individual workers have.
The odious Alan Duncan has pleased the management stooges at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) with an attack on the employment tribunal system.
Duncan thinks it is too easy for workers to get into the employment tribunals. He also seems to think that the tribunals never award costs against an unsuccesful claimant, proving I suppose that Cameron hasn’t stopped the Tories being “the stupid party.” Since 2001 tribunals have had powers to award costs if a party - or his/her representative - has acted "vexatiously, abusively, disruptively or otherwise unreasonably, or the bringing or conducting of the proceedings by a party has been misconceived”.
The CIPD jokers reckon that employers should behave well because it is good for business and not because they are required to do so by regulations. This only goes to show that pretend academic disciplines such as “Human Resource Management” aren’t good for developing intellectual rigour. There are different approaches to management out there in the world and plenty of employers are maximising profits by attacking the interests of their workforce without reference to CIPD notions of “good practice.”
There are good employers and good managers out there who want to do right by their workforce in spite of operating within a system that works in the opposite direction– but there are plenty of the other sort of employers, managers (and HR professionals!) out there. I encounter them regularly – and if you are a Union activist or officer doing your job then you do too.
The problem with employment tribunals is not that it is too easy to get access to them but that it is too difficult for workers to get access to the advice and representation that they need to enforce their rights against hostile employers.
Workplace organisation, backed up where necessary by industrial action, is a better guarantee of our rights than litigation, but workers need the capacity to enforce our legal rights. In UNISON we need to reconsider the overly cautious approach to bringing tribunal applications about which I have blogged before.
Under any Government we need unions which will use every tool to defend our members.
The odious Alan Duncan has pleased the management stooges at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) with an attack on the employment tribunal system.
Duncan thinks it is too easy for workers to get into the employment tribunals. He also seems to think that the tribunals never award costs against an unsuccesful claimant, proving I suppose that Cameron hasn’t stopped the Tories being “the stupid party.” Since 2001 tribunals have had powers to award costs if a party - or his/her representative - has acted "vexatiously, abusively, disruptively or otherwise unreasonably, or the bringing or conducting of the proceedings by a party has been misconceived”.
The CIPD jokers reckon that employers should behave well because it is good for business and not because they are required to do so by regulations. This only goes to show that pretend academic disciplines such as “Human Resource Management” aren’t good for developing intellectual rigour. There are different approaches to management out there in the world and plenty of employers are maximising profits by attacking the interests of their workforce without reference to CIPD notions of “good practice.”
There are good employers and good managers out there who want to do right by their workforce in spite of operating within a system that works in the opposite direction– but there are plenty of the other sort of employers, managers (and HR professionals!) out there. I encounter them regularly – and if you are a Union activist or officer doing your job then you do too.
The problem with employment tribunals is not that it is too easy to get access to them but that it is too difficult for workers to get access to the advice and representation that they need to enforce their rights against hostile employers.
Workplace organisation, backed up where necessary by industrial action, is a better guarantee of our rights than litigation, but workers need the capacity to enforce our legal rights. In UNISON we need to reconsider the overly cautious approach to bringing tribunal applications about which I have blogged before.
Under any Government we need unions which will use every tool to defend our members.
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