Tower Hamlets Homes: UNISON lobby against cuts to patch sizes

Picture collage is from a lobby last night outside Tower Hamlets Town Hall.

UNISON members who work for the the ALMO Tower Hamlets Homes were protesting against plans to cut the number of estate patches from 27 to 18. This would increase the size of each area that a Housing officer would be be expected to look after by 50%.

This seems frankly daft at a time when due to welfare cuts and austerity you will need greater estate management resources in order to support and protect residents and enable the organisation to function (whose motto is after all "helping to build happy, safe and strong communities"). 

Most Housing organisations in London are prioritising estate management and many are reducing patch sizes in order to do so. The members I spoke to at the lobby were very experienced and capable staff who were genuinely worried that the service to residents would suffer and they would be unable to do their jobs properly.

I knew many of those of those present from when we all worked directly for the borough and from the days of the Tower Hamlets Housing Strike of 1999 which was also about protecting local housing services. I gave a personal message of support to the lobby as a local housing colleague and UNISON NEC member.

Everybody was really pleased that Labour Candidate for Mayor, John Biggs,  has promised in his manifesto if elected to scrap Tower Hamlets Homes and bring it back under the control of the Council.

Happy 50th Montrose Matty!

Happy Half Century to Montrose (Monty) Matty.  Former top UNISON Caretaking steward and Safety rep. 

A  staunch (but born again) Labour Party member. 

Seen here on the picket line outside 723 Commercial Road E14 during the month long Tower Hamlets Housing Strike 1999.

His wife Sue is throwing a Party for him which is taking place in a Community Centre in the Isle of Dogs.  They are promising fresh sea food from nearby Billingsgate Market.

Montrose will protest that this picture does not accurately reflect his very active support of the Strike at the time.

However, surely...the camera never lies :)

Tower Hamlets Housing Strike – UNISON the Enema

The beginning of this month was the 10th anniversary of the ending of this strike. A classic compromise was eventually hammered out.

I seem to remember a bottle of Gordon’s gin played a part in forming the union proposal which became the basis of the eventual agreement.

The strike achieved a reduction in the number of local housing offices closures from a proposed 8 to 16 and an agreement which meant effectively that there will be no compulsory redundancies (crucial).

I have posted previously on this month long all out strike here and here.

As well as picketing buildings we also had had a march with resident groups on the Town Hall (which opened my eyes to certain things) and a public rally in York Hall where the strike committee members had to rescue the (admittedly provoked) Council leader of the time after he told a tenant to go “forth and multiply”.

During the final negotiations to end the strike the Tower Hamlets Chief Executive announced that a friend had recently returned from holiday in Thailand. This friend had been aware of the “difficulties” being caused to her by the strike and had noticed that in Thailand the leading medical brand for constipation was called UNISON and had brought her back a bottle which the CEO put on the negotiating table (see centre picture) for our amusement.

Tower Hamlets Housing Strike 1999 – Bill Wakefield

This is my 2nd self indulgent post on the 10th anniversary of this strike. See previous post here.

Pictured standing in full flow addressing a strike meeting in Jack Dash House is Bill Wakefield (white shirt). Now Bill was (is) let us a say a strong minded and passionate East End Labour movement activist.

He was a former Tower Hamlets Council NUPE branch secretary; then a Labour Councillor (then after the inevitable fall out - an independent Councillor), he was defeated as an independent Councillor but still remains as an active Resident rep and Pensioner activist.

Bill is very much a “marmite” person – you either love him or loath him. Most of us love him.

It was really important that during the strike we had the support of residents and their leaders. Slashing the number of local housing offices would affect jobs but also access to services. Our success during the strike I think was down to this united front of workers and residents arguing together for the same thing. Bill as a residents rep was a very vocal and practical supporter of the strike. He could also get away with things as a retired tenant rep that employees could not.

Bill is very much a local character, he is a real proper East End “face” (in the true sense of the word), who would do what he thought was right, usually regardless of any opposition. For example he was a strong supporter of the late Queen's Mother, Queen Elizabeth and use to write to the local newspaper, the East End Advertiser every year on her birthday to thank her for her support in the East End during the Second World War. This use to upset some folk, however as far as I am aware, no one ever had the bottle to openly challenge him on this.

I still bump into Bill from time to time in the Roman Road Market. Bill will always say hello and have a friendly chat. A few years ago I remember someone describing Bill as a “genuine East End Gent”. I for one would not disagree.

UPDATE: sad news Feb 2011

Tower Hamlets Housing Strike – 10th Anniversary 1999-2009.

Today (5th August 2009) is the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Tower Hamlets Housing Strike. During which some 300 UNISON members of the borough Housing department went out on all out strike for a month in protest at proposed cuts to the number of local housing offices and the threat of 100 redundancies.

I was the chair of the strike committee.

Eventually we hammered out a compromise with management. Instead of the proposed reduction in the number of local estate based offices from 24 to 8 sites – 16 would remain open and that there would be no compulsory redundancies.

Check out this early on-line report here

All in all it was a very demanding but fascinating experience which helped shaped my politics and understanding of trade unionism - which of course I will share with you as I post various pictures from the “dispute” during the next 4 weeks.

Current picture (1) is our totally legal picket line outside the Salmon Lane office, Poplar, E14. We were really not very good at counting past 6.