“David Cameron has never had a proper job in his life, and it shows. The son of a City stockbroker, he glided effortlessly through Eton, Oxford and Conservative Central Office to become a spin doctor for a TV company”.... I reckon Cameron has in his sights Unison, the big public service union that doesn’t have many strikes but knows how to win them – like the binmen’s dispute in Leeds – and gives strong support to Labour...
Hat-tip thingy to UNISONactive for this story and for their coverage of another UNISON smart victory over the international services company Sodexo who tried to cheat hospital workers in Devon out of back pay and other contractual benefits.
I like also the post here on Socialist DisUnity (whose RSS feed is my very guilty secret – please don’t tell anyone) by Labour Party MP, Colin Burgon, who I met this year at the UNISON international conference. I have copied the information on “Cuts are not the Answer” for future use and would suggest that grown up progressives of all shapes and sizes do so as well.
Labour affiliates “Unions Together” sent me yesterday an email pointing out that “There's nothing that would make David Cameron happier than destroying your rights at work.
Just a few days ago, Cameron praised Margaret Thatcher's anti-union laws and said he would be "very happy" to go even further to stop unions protecting their members' rights. For once, I believe he's telling the truth.
If the Tories want to get elected so they can roll back our hard-won rights, we need to let our friends and colleagues know just what the Tories stand for. Co-sign our letter to David Cameron, demanding he tell us why he thinks we don't deserve the same rights at work as everyone else in Europe.
http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/lettertoCameron
While Col Roi helpfully reports that the Torygraph had an interesting article today on “If Cameron was a supermarket he would be a Somerfield”. The author thinks Cameron should be more like “Waitrose” - that well known workers co-operative? Hmmm... can't wait for this stuff to be in Tory manifesto.
11 comments:
Hi John,
The workers at Barnstaple had a stunning victory with complete capitulation by the employer (by the way it's "Sodexo" not "Sedexo".) This is a massive tribute to the workers themselves, but is also a tribute to UNISON's 3 companies organising project. They took the approach of building the membership up through talking to the workers and then making a claim. When the talks failed, they were forced to resort to strike action. This shows the way to win - not ludicrous one-day strike adventures on the basis of 20% density. It should also be seen as a tribute to the close working of the workers, the branch, the region, and national levels of UNISON.
Nick Holden
John McDermott
Jon Rogers
Marsha Jane Thompson
Chris Leary
Dan Jeffrey, James Caspell and the ‘Lambeth Activists’
The Socialist Party
The Socialist Workers Party
Alliance for Workers Liberty
Respect
Socialist Unity
Spot the connection? All of them hard-left bloggers or have webpages/online reporting etc.
Not one of them has yet bothered to mention the brilliant victory of the 200+ low-paid Sodexo workers at Barnstaple hospital.
Maybe it’s because they only like UNISON strikes that lose?
Or the low-paid are low priority?
Hi Anon
Whoops – now corrected.
You are also 100% right.
Having no non union central committee telling activists what to do probably helped as well.
Hi Observer
I couldn’t possibly comment.
Hey Observer! You are right AND SPOT ON. The Lambeth militants (not activists)and the extreme left are only interested in talk. They are all mad. Not sure you are right about who is in what but looking at the militant lambeth blog it would appear that the list of those they say are part of this huge movement (about 4 people) are an amalgamation of odds and sods. The 'membership' of militant includes managers who discipline members at the workplace? And people who probably vote for the tories. It could only happen in Lambeth!
Guy Bugerstaff
correct
they only want to say unions sell out
never constructive
never supportive
just in case someone out lefts them
they are a joke
that now meets in telephone boxes they are so irrelevant
Well done "Observer" forcing John McDermott online with a report of the Sodexo UNISON members victory.
Such a shame he couldn't actually bring himself to mention UNISON in his post (although begrudgingly linking to the story on the UNISON site).
Talk about sour grapes!
Unlike Cameron - Gordon Brown had a useful and distingusished job before he entered politics as a politics lecturer at glasgow technical college - this is what distinguishes him as a person of calibre above Cameron. Just imagine the peope he met at Glasgow technical college who will have done loads more than some Toffs at Eton.
well done
good victory for unison at all levels
what no revolution
sell outs
how can we sell papers if you win
And finally Jon Rogers manages to weigh in with an opinion on the Sodexo strikers, but only to harness it to the disccision of a General Secertary election.
The members will be delighted.
Still, they probably wouldn't have even registered with him without the encouragement from your commenters here!
It's a shame that some contributions to this thread show not even a modicum of research - see the following articles from the SWP and SP on the North Devon Hospital strike -
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=19986
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=19902
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/607/8687
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/606/8658
Your hatred of the left won't let the facts get in the way of a made up story. The victory came on Thursday and was announced in the press on Friday - I'm sure it'll be in the online SW tomorrow.
Your reports seem to have missed out the tremendous support there was in the local community, the rock solid attitude of the strikers and some excellent work by local stewards in the branch, which is not known as a bastion of the right in Unison.
"It's a shame that some contributions to this thread show not even a modicum of research"
I think you'll find that the comment you are referring to said the victory was not reported. Not that there had been absolutely no mention of the strike. Try reading the comments before leaping into print.
And as for the SWP and SP, they always seem to find time to put other stuff up on a Friday.
Clearly not wanting to get the message out about the victory that quickly though, as they were not running the strikes according to the tried-and-failed tenets of a bunch of extremists who only seem to inspire division between each other rather than unity in the working class.
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