Future Directions Striker speaks at UNISON London Regional Council

Yesterday was the UNISON London Regional Council meeting chaired by our Regional Convener, Gloria Hanson.

The first speaker was Alan Tate (left of picture) from the Communications union, CWU, who spoke about the privatisation of Royal Mail.

There was no need to do this - Royal Mail had been transformed in recent years and was making money. Why can Railtrack be publicly owned and still able to access the capital markets for investment but Royal Mail could not? The tax payers have been ripped off not only by the below value share offering but the loss of huge Royal Mail property assets across the Country.

CWU will go on strike November 4th if they cannot reach a deal on pay and to protect pay and conditions.

Next speaker was UNISON Senior National officer (not in picture) Donna Rowe-Merriman, who briefed us the Higher Education joint union strike over pay, which will take next Thursday 31 October. The pay claim is affordable and HE institutions can afford to pay more but choose not to while thousands of their directly employed staff are not even paid a living wage but exist on minimum wage rates. Further details of the strike action and regional rally's to follow. 

Final Speaker was Karen Shadwell (2nd from right), UNISON member of Rochdale branch. Karen is a disability support worker with high needs clients. She works for an organisation called "Future Directions" who are cutting her pay by nearly £100 per week.  She and her colleagues have been on strike for 29 days in recent months. Check out my past posts related to this dispute here, here and here. She was supported at this meeting by UNISON Local organiser, Karen Ellis.

Karen was an inspiration and received a standing ovation at the end of her speech. She had been up at 5am this morning in order to get here in time and was very nervous beforehand since  this was her first ever speech to such a meeting. Her speech was excellent. As her UNISON NEC member for Community, I offered her and her colleagues my support.

We have recently agreed in London for a donation  to the strike fund and sent a message of support. You can send messages of support and donations to Helen Harrison, branch secretary, Rochdale UNISON, 46 Richard Street, Rochdale, OL11 1DU. Email: unison@rochdale.gov.uk. Cheques can be made payable to Rochdale UNISON.

UNISON and her Future Directions had been to talk at ACAS on Friday and Monday. Hopefully a satisfactory result will be reached.

(2nd from left in picture is our London Equalities Convener Yvonne Green and behind her a bit obscured, Karen Ellis ). Hat tip photograph Karen Westwood.

London Labour Party Biennial Conference 2013

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Today was the London Regional Conference of the Labour Party at the Old Town Hall in Stratford, E15.

I had my ward surgery beforehand and missed the opening speeches and arrived towards the end of the plenary Housing debate.

The main hall of the Town Hall was packed with delegates. Standing room only.

Activist Jeffrey Blay, 62 years a Party member received an award from Iain McNicol, the General Secretary of the Labour Party as did the former London Regional secretary, Ken Clarke.

Iain addressed Conference next. The last time he had been in this hall he had  "piped in the haggis" for the Newham Burns Night (I saw him do this in 2012. I wonder if any other political party has a bagpipe player and black belt in Karate as its GS). He reminded everyone that the Labour Party started in this town hall with the election of Kier Hardie in 1892. Sadiq Khan MP, in his first outing as Shadow Minister for London spoke next and praised the Party links with hard working people through the trade unions and slams the London Tory record on housing. London faces a catastrophic housing crisis & social cleansing.

The morning session finished with the debate on the NHS. Picture above of Maggi Ferncombe from UNISON moving the motion on defending London's NHS.  

I didn't go to any of the lunchtime fringes due to a meeting but after the end of the NHS (no pun intended) and the London economy debate, I attended the workshop on Trade Unions and Labour Party Liaison.  Chaired by Fiona Twycross with UNISON Regional Secretary and Vice Chair Labour Board Linda Perks, Labour Party Regional Secretary Alan Olive and Alan Tate from CWU.

A delegate got herself into a little bit of a pickle when she realised that there could be a double meaning to her claim that the Labour Party is always looking at Scandinavian models! In the Q&A I mentioned the successful London training events London UNISON has run for branch Labour Link officers and that you can arrange union meetings at the House of Commons with friendly Labour MPs to attract rank and file members who would never normally attend any union or political meetings. 

My second workshop was led Margaret McDonagh and John Braggins on "Winning in low turnout areas and building our winning alliance". A key point was that we should "Stop Voter ID Now" (which will upset our organiser!).  Instead of asking people to do something for us (go out and vote Labour) we should be asking them what we can do for them. Makes sense to me.

After the motion on the London Economy there were emergency motions on the plans by Tory Mayor Boris Johnson to slash the fire service in London and the threat to our education services from the so called "Free Schools". I seconded the motion against Free Schools and will post my speech later. I then had to run off to another commitment and missed the election results, the close and the singing of the Red Flag and Jerusalem.