Black Poppy Rose

This evening after our UNISON branch Executive meeting our Chair, Joseph showed me a badge he had obtained from this site. 

"In Remembrance of the African, Black Peoples, West Indian, Caribbean, Pacific Islands & Indigenous Communities contributions to Global Wars that have paved the way for the ‘Cultures’ we know and understand today".

A terrific website  https://www.blackpoppyrose.org/. Well worth a visit. Lots of events on in coming weeks. 

Workers' Memorial Day 2015 at the historic Three Mills Green, Stratford

On Tuesday, 28 April, it was Workers' Memorial Day. An international day to remember those who have been killed at work or died from work related ill health. UNISON estimates this kills up to 50,000 workers every year in the UK. It is also a campaigning day to keep workers safe.

UNISON Greater London Region and Housing Associations branch agreed to each place a wreath of remembrance at the Workers' Memorial in Three Mills Park, Stratford, London. This site overlooks the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The 2001 clasping hands sculpture  by Alec Peever is a memorial to a fatal incident which took place nearby in 1901 when a worker collapsed and died due to "foul air" at a bottom of a distillery well. Three of his workmates died successively trying to pull him out. It also remembers other workers who were killed at this site. This area was the birth place of the industrial revolution in London and also modern day industrial trade unions.

The Labour Parliamentary Candidate for West Ham, Lyn Brown, (and long standing UNISON member) was invited to place the wreath on behalf of Greater London Region & the Housing Associations branch Chair, Tony Power, placed the other wreath. UNISON members and the Health & Safety manager from nearby East Thames Housing Association also attended.

I think that this Sculpture and memorial site is one of the most important working class historical and artistic sites in East London but hardly anyone knows about it. Next year I hope to help arrange a bigger and better organised event.

Composite A - Organising in fragmented workforces #uUNDC14

The shy and retiring, Doreen Davies, speaking yesterday on this important motion to the Community Service Group and the future of the union.

"President, Conference, Doreen Davies, Greater London Housing Association branch speaking in favour of Composite A.

Conference, my branch is a community service group specific branch which organises in over 130 different employers in the Housing and voluntary sector in London and the South East delivering public services from over a thousand different workplaces.

We also have to organise in employers who have staff who work 5 different UNISON regions and are members of a number of different branches apart from ours.

Not only are our members fragmented physically and geographically their pay and conditions are frankly a dog’s dinner. We have members who are on former local government, health, private, spot rates, Hay, profit sharing, minimum wage, living wage, permanent contracts, agency contracts, zero hour contracts, shifts work.

Imagine how difficult it is to draw up pay claims and defend members against proposed restructures when you have so many different branches to consult. Remembering that many traditional sole employer branches are fully committed to trying to protect their core membership and have little or no spare resources or facility time to respond.

Conference, we must ensure that our structures are fit for purpose. The reason for our existence as a trade union is to organise and bargain on behalf of our members who deliver public services. While I agree that we must continue to fight for us to be employed directly by democratically elected public bodies we must wake up and smell the coffee and make sure that we can deliver for our members in the here and now.

This fragmentation is not only just a problem for our union it is an organising opportunity. At a time when our membership numbers and income is under threat as never before we must look long and hard at our structures and indeed target employers which are large enough to support networks of stewards to self organise and defend members.

Conference, let us indeed have a national and regional plan. Let us have a collective solution to help tackle a private sector nightmare. Conference, please support this composite". 

Protest against Metropolitan Poverty Pay and Tax Cheat

This picture collage is from the rain soaked, somewhat soggy but very lively protest outside the HQ of Metropolitan Housing Trust (MHT) on Friday lunchtime.

Staff in MHT care and support arm are facing pay cuts of up to 40%, other cuts in terms and conditions and massive redundancies in parts of the Group such as in Derby.

These staff provide services to vulnerable clients up and down the country. Physical disability, mental health, homelessness, drug & alcohol abuse and the elderly.

Some now face earning the same headline wage that they started on - 15 years ago.

As you can imagine, like all of us, staff have mortgage and rent commitments based on their current salaries and face losing their homes if their pay is reduced in this way.

MHG want to reduce the pay of their staff to that below the living wage. They also want to employ part time staff so that these staff can top up their poverty wages with family credit and housing benefit. Which of course means that the taxpayer has to pay to top up these poverty wages, not only while these workers are at work but also when they become sick or retire.

Labour Leader, Ed Miliband has recently spoke about making all public sector employers pay a "Living Wage" to all their directly and indirectly paid staff. He has also asked the question why taxpayers spend huge amounts of public money subsidising bad employers who pay their worker poverty wages.

(The irony: The lobby took place outside Cambridge House which use to be a Victorian factory and is now the HQ of MHT. This building has the Latin motto "Labour et Probitas" picked out into the brickwork above the main entrance. This means "Work and Honour")

UNISON London Labour Link Forum 2012

Yesterday evening I Co-chaired with Gloria Hanson, the 2012 UNISON London Labour Link (APF) forum. Which acts as the Annual Regional Conference of 60,000 (ish) London UNISON members who choose to affiliate to the Labour Party. 

This took place at the UNISON HQ in Euston. Afterwards there was a launch event with Ken Livingstone which I post upon later.

After opening remarks and introductions, we discussed our financial report and the work plan for 2012. This has been dominated this year by the London GLA and Mayoral elections. Next we debated motions.

The first was a motion from my Housing Association Branch on "A New Direction for the Labour Party" which I will also post upon later. This motion was passed overwhelmingly apart from one Toy Town Revolutionary who obviously does not believe in greater equality nor that the Party should move to the left since that would prevent him from braying betrayal politics at every opportunity. While from Waltham Forest Local Government, my good comrade, Alan Griffiths spoke on "Renewable Energy". Unfortunately we were not able see his PowerPoint presentation.

Next was our first guest speaker Keith Birch who gave a report on National Labour Link. Followed by Helen Symons, the Campaigns and Communications Officer for TULO (Trade Union Liaison Organisation" (see picture above). Finally Julian Cooke (who use to be a member of Forest Gate North Labour Party), who is a Labour Link Organising Officer, he spoke about the "Political Education Project" which is is trying to get ordinary members to recognise how important "politics" is and to encourage them to get involved. 

UNISON Housing Association Conference Blog

This link is rather late - but better late than never!  One of my branch delegates, Mary Powell  has been posting on the UNISON NDC here.

She has kept postings up-to-date (much better than I have) and I will no doubt pinch some of her stuff for this blog later.

UNISON “Labour Link” meeting: Housing minister John Healey MP

On Tuesday evening I Chaired (for the 2nd consecutive day) a special meeting of UNISON members at the House of Commons! This time on behalf of my branch UNISON Housing Association “Labour Link” (APF) members. Our guest speaker was, John Healey MP, the Minister of State for Housing and Planning.

John started off by thanking UNISON members for the work they do providing essential housing services in often difficult and demanding circumstances. He then gave a very powerful and convincing presentation on the many good things that Labour had done for public housing while also accepting that more needed to be done. He is obviously very proud to have helped enable Councils to start building homes again. He does not think that there should not be any fundamental conflicts between Councils and housing associations over this since there is such a huge task to undertake that there is plenty of opportunity for both Councils and other public landlords.

John praised UNISON literature which points out to tenants that the Tories are openly planning to get rid of security of tenure and increase rents for Council and Housing association tenants to “market rates”. John has written to David Cameron the Conservative leader a number of times to ask him to refute that they have such plans but with no response.

At the meeting we also had Notting Hill Housing Trust staff who are due out on strike action this Monday 15th March to speak to the minister about the dispute and how they are being personally affected.  Why such traditionally moderate staff feel so angry that their CEO is proposing to get rid of family friendly policies and attack their basic terms and conditions. Notting Hill is refusing to even try and conciliate via ACAS and are refusing to allow UNISON to even speak to its Board members or Chair. We believe that there are also possible regulatory issues at stake. John was very concerned about the whole matter and there was a supportive and wide ranging discussion. He undertook to look into the TSA issues we had brought up. In the Q&A we discussed other topics as well such as executive pay levels, governance of boards, supporting people funding and training for young people.

My contribution with regard to Notting Hill was my usual one. Housing organisations that treat their staff as rubbish will also treat their residents in a similar fashion.

UNISON national officer Mike Short also gave a comprehensive report on the current (difficult) national housing issues. But I enjoyed most his recounting of Tony Benn’s simply definition of socialism. “If we have unemployed building workers and homeless people why don’t we get the unemployed to build homes for the homeless”.

Clive Efford MP also addressed the meeting and had some interesting (and unrepeatable) comments about “Tories” and top hats.  While our branch regional organiser Colin Inniss also spoke and brought up a number of topical branch local issues. Afterwards we retired to nearby Whitehall licensed premises for some light refreshments and carry on the debate.

All in all it went really well. I think that I had the most positive feedback about any Labour Link meeting I have ever been involved in.

John on Gordon’s Speech – a public housing perspective

Inside Housing has uploaded a vox pop video interview here of me yesterday on my reaction as a delegate with a housing background to Gordon’s speech.

This was just after the end of the speech and while I was waiting for the Communities Policy Seminar to begin.

I’ll try and get a copy and post on YouTube.

“Housing - the hottest issue” - Nicky Gavron AM

UNISON Housing Association Branch Briefing.

Nicky spoke at our AGM last week and this is a copy of our press release.

“Housing - the hottest issue” - Nicky Gavron AM

Nicky wants Boris to come clean over London Housing targets.

At last week’s AGM of UNISON Housing Association in the NUT HQ, Hamilton House, Guest speaker London Assembly member and Labour Housing spokesperson, Nicky Gavron, called on Mayor Boris Johnson to come clean about his 50,000 target for new affordable homes .

“If Boris is determined to keep the 50,000 target he will only get anywhere near it by double-counting, smoke and mirrors and other creative means - not by significant numbers of new build or supply”.

Also at the meeting was UNISON National Housing officer Pete Challis who spoke on the “Housing Crisis” and warned that some financial institutions were classifying shared ownership loans as “Sub-Prime”.

The meeting was the last of 4 AGMs which had taken place across London to encourage participation of UNISON members (others took place at Family Mosaic, Notting Hill and East Thames Headquarters). Common key concerns expressed by members at these meetings were over health & safety of staff, funding for "Supporting People", job insecurity and below inflation pay rises.

Any further information please contact.

John Gray
UNISON HAB Communications Officer

Housing Association Branch AGM(s)

I’ve made it so far – only half way through my branch AGM(s) season.

We organise across Greater London so we have four separate meetings across London to enable participation.

The first meeting was on Tuesday at the Family Mosaic HQ near London Bridge (see picture) and the second was held at the Notting Hill HQ in Hammersmith.

Only two more to go – one at East Thames at Stratford and the other will be held in Central London at Hamilton House, WC1.

Check out the HAB website for further details.

I’ve really enjoyed going to these meetings. The meetings themselves (so far!) are very constructive and deal with real trade union issues. Unlike the stuff and nonsense I have come across in the past.

As well as the usual AGM business we discussed concerns about health & safety; pay claims; pensions; changes to "Supporting People" funding and personal data protection (amongst other things) and it makes me realise how much housing association bodies have in common. We all have very similar problems.

The long term solution to many of our problems is increasing membership density and building an effective internal steward and safety rep structure.

So - Yes , we can. Please join UNISON now! (well, everyone else is using this)