Has the public sector pay cap kept up with rising prices?

The answer is No. A really informative chart that shows why so many public sector workers and their families are living in poverty and need a real pay rise.

Sign this Parliamentary petition! 

Protect your LGPS pension – sign the petition

UNISON pensions team July 2016 Protect your pension – sign the petition! Dear John    Nearly 85,000 people like you have already signed the LGPS parliamentary petition. Please take 30 seconds to add your signature to theirs.    What’s the problem?    The government has announced plans to force individual Local Government Pension Scheme funds to invest in UK infrastructure projects. This is instead of direct government funding of important projects – even if it doesn’t give the best return for LGPS members’ pensions.      UNISON is not against LGPS funds investing in infrastructure, but we believe that investment decisions should be made by the fund managers and their members, not government ministers.    Such a significant change to your pension funds should be debated in parliament. Our records show you are a member of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), so you might be interested to know that if we get 100,000 signatures by September we will have the opportunity for a debate in the House of Commons.       Five million people like you rely on the Local Government Pension Scheme to pay their pension.    This is why UNISON has launched the petition calling for a parliamentary debate and is asking you, as a scheme member, to add your name today.      Best wishes    Jon Richards UNISON national secretary (pensions) Sign the petition P.S. Find out more about UNISON and pensions and about your LGPS pension.

(See my previous post on this important matter)

Petition to set a maximum temperature at the workplace

Last night I posted on the TUC model Policy on “Bad Weather”. So it is only fitting that I now post on the not so topical but very important campaign by the TUC and UNISON for the introduction of a maximum legal temperature for workers.

There was apparently some discussion about this issue at the “Warwick” discussions last year. Many unions are supporting this No. 10 petition on this same issue (see below).

Around 8 years ago I called in and managed to persuade a HSE officer to serve an improvement notice on my employer over excessive temperatures and ventilation in a new office building. The conditions were really horrible. The building had originally been designed to be cooled with A/C. But they ran out of money and built it without the A/C (with none opening windows etc). After the notice they did retrofit A/C at a huge cost. A number of members did sue afterwards for “sick building syndrome”. There was a settlement before it came to court.

If we had a “maximum temperature” they would have had to build the place with A/C and saved themselves money and our members becoming sick. Health & Safety is all about being proactive rather than reactive. Let’s also have a bit of "joined up thinking"?

This is from the “further details” section of the petition which was set up by Robert Edmunds of the Welsh Assembly government (branch?) Robert Edmunds. To sign please click here.

The Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations 1992 requires the temperature in workroom to be at least 16 degrees Celsius unless much of the work involves severe physical effort in which case the temperature should be at least 13 degrees Celsius.

This is all well and good when it is cold during the winter months, however it is now June and I am currently working in an office which reaches 94 degrees Fahrenheit on a daily basis and nothing is being done to ease the suffering incurred by myself and my colleagues.

We have written countless letters to the Welsh Assembly Government over the last six years, informing them of our discomfort, but just been given one excuse after another.

Warm temperatures in offices make people very ill, especially if they suffer from claustrophobia or asthma. I wonder how the Welsh Assembly Government would feel if one or more of its employees fainted from heat exhaustion and injured themselves. It would cost more to pay a compensation claim than to purchase a simple air conditioning unit.

Please support this worthy cause. Again, click here and sign – it takes less than 5 minutes. Just remember how really horrible your workplace can be in very hot weather.

Petition: Don’t hold an Election Until 2010

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Not Hold a General election before 2010".

"In order to have the time to fully implement its manifesto commitments and fulfil its electoral mandate the Prime Minister should consider waiting until 2010 before holding a general election".

In response to Tory spam on this blog (and others) to sign the Petition at the 10 Downing Street site calling for a “general election in 2007”, I have created the above petition. It was rejected once for being “political” and having “duplicates” so I have had to change it. It was approved this afternoon and so far it has one signature on it – Me!

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/GenElection2010/

and the answer to the question is no, I haven’t got anything better to do…..

Number 10 Petition on making WMD "National Day of Remembrance"

Click on Number 10 to sign the e-petition and ask the Prime Minister to declare 28 April an official day of mourning. You just have to enter your name (which is published), email & home address (which is kept confidential). Number 10 send you a confirmation email back, which you just click on a link and your name is registered. Should take less than 5 minutes.

The petition was started by Dorothy Wright who is a founder member of FACK (Families Against Corporate Killers). The petition is being supported by Amicus and I am sure by all other unions.

Amicus Research Officer, Chris O’Leary, "every year more people are killed at work than die in wars, and that 28 April is the international commemoration day devoted to their memory. It was originally established as an international day in 1996, and has since been commemorated in thousands of activities around the world, as well as being officially recognised by a growing number of national governments. “Most workers don't die of mystery ailments, or in tragic "accidents,’ says O’Leary. “They die because an employer decided their safety just wasn't that important a priority. 1600 people die each year in UK while doing their job and 20000 die from work related diseases. The country should remember them on this day, as they do in other countries and by doing so reduce this slaughter.”

See also "Hazards" WMD news and the TUC Risks (free e-newsletter for safety reps)