Why "Right to Buy" will be another nail in the coffin of the Housing Association movement

The 1966 BBC television play "Cathy Come Home" about homelessness and its back drop is credited with kick starting many modern day Housing associations.

Sadly, some (not by all means all) have forgotten their social mission and instead become money making machines for their chief executives and senior management team and don't give a damn about the homeless, their existing tenants or their staff.

Another nail in the coffin of the Housing Association movement is the Tory plans to extend the "right to buy" at a massive discount to their tenants. Everyone who believes in the basic human right for secure, safe, affordable and decent housing for all - need to get together and campaign to defeat this proposal.

The emergency motion below has been submitted by my UNISON branch to our National Conference next week. I hope (as always) the standing orders committee will be gentle with us and the motion is debated.

Government plan to extend “Right to Buy to Housing Associations

This conference notes:-

• The announcement in the Queens speech on May 27 2015 that the Government intends to extend the Right to Buy to Housing Associations. It is believed that the Government will push ahead with this legislation as a priority. 
• The Housing crisis in this country with regards to the chronic shortage of decent affordable homes in all tenures.   
• That there is an intention to “bribe” tenants to buy their homes with massive discounts. This will costs billions of pounds.
• If there is billions of pounds available to bribe tenants then this money is better spent on building new homes at social rents 
• To pay for these discounts local authorities would be expected to sell off up to 5% of their stock. 
• It is unclear how local authorities who have transferred all their stock to housing associations will be able to sell “5%” of homes they no longer own? 
• Housing Associations are charities and the Charity commission has strict rules on the buying and selling of land and assets. 
• In some local authority areas up to 70 % of properties bought under the Council Right to Buy have ended up in the hand of private landlords.
• In recent years only 1 in every 19 homes sold under Council Right to Buy have been replaced. 
• If this plan was to go ahead it would make the housing crisis worse by reducing the existing stock of supply of social housing for vulnerable and low paid families. 
• Housing associations already forced to borrow against their existing stock to fund building new homes will find with their assets sold at a discount the cost of borrowing will increase and they can in fact build less. 
• Many Housing association sector believe that this proposal will threaten their ability to raise new loans to build homes and even continued existence. This will impact not only on residents (many of whom are UNISON members) and workers. 
• That Conservative plans in the 1980s to force RTB on Housing Associations were defeated following a successful campaign in the sector supported by trade unions. Eventually a bill was defeated in the House of Lords. 

This Conference calls upon the NEC to :- 

• Oppose this plan to extend right to buy to Housing Associations.
• Support and help organise a campaign against the extension and work with other trade unions, tenant and resident groups, employers and recognised NGOs to oppose these plans. 
• Call on Labour Link to work within the Labour Party to oppose this measure". 

Greater London UNISON Housing Association Branch

UNISON NDC 09 - waiting to speak at conference

(Live post) I'm sitting on one of the “FOR” chairs opposite the podium waiting to speak at conference on Composite “D” Defending Member Pension schemes. I pretty sure that I will not be able to speak since there are 7 other speakers all in favour and no AGAINST speakers. So a point of order will be raised to move to a vote. Expecting to be “bumped off” makes the wait less stressful. I'll post the speech I am hoping to make another time. Which is pretty much what I was going to give on a very similar motion during Local Government conference. I hope Richard Stott from Cornwell LGPS gets to speak. He is a really good LGPS activist and keen to address conference.

UPDATE: We were all bumped off!

UNISON NDC: An Open Letter From Untied Left

This was kindly sent on by Comrade Mercader. Double click, print off and copy for your delegation.

UNISON NDC Rule amendment 13 & 14

Conference , vice President, John Gray, London Region, Housing Association Branch, speaking in favour of Rule changes 13 and 14

Conference thank you for supporting rule change 9 and giving us in the Community and Voluntary Sector an opportunity to better participate in the union and to help us grow the union. But this by its self is not enough. We need wider change, we need to have structures and sectors in place that reflect the diverse and complex organising challenges that we face.

Take my own situation which is not I think untypical and I hope illustrates why we need sectors and occupational groups. I mentioned before that my branch has members in 140 employers all over London and the South East. But my own employer which is a very large housing association with 1600 staff has UNISON members in at least 7 different local government branches in 4 different UNISON regions. Many members are shift workers, many are part time, many work from home, many work regularly from at least two different office locations often over a hundred miles apart, nearly all “hot desk”. We have 6 different pay arrangements, 5 different staff handbooks, 5 different pension schemes and one central bargaining committee. We have members on performance pay working alongside those on TUPE protection who are not.

Housing associations also have specific employment related housing legislation and regulations from Assemblies, Parliaments, local authorities and Regulators.

Conference this is the world I live in and as mentioned before many CVS activists not just in housing would recognise this world. This is why we need as a sector to identify and develop better ways and systems of supporting activists, representing members and involving them in decisions. In such an environment we need to utilise technology better, we need to learn and communicate better. We need to plan and campaign better. To do this we need to have autonomy, we need co-ordination, we need flexibility, we need occupational groups.

Finally conference I have heard some delegates honestly expressing concerns about consultation and perhaps some things may have astray but to my mind I can honestly say that I think we have had consultation overload on this issue and we need to make up our minds and move on.

My very independent minded branch secretary states that she feels she “has been consulted to death”. Remember nothing is set in stone for ever and there is really nothing to fear and everything for the union to gain. Lets just get on with it.

Please support the rule changes.

UNISON NDC – Wreckers at Work

United Left did what they do best and the card vote on the implementation of the structural amendments already agreed was lost. This was by about 550,000 votes to 500,000.

I appreciate that some delegates did have genuine doubts and concerns about the proposed changes and wanted (yet) more time to consider. But others still seem to think that THE REVOLUTION will only happen if there is an united front of all local government and health workers being led by some chosen vanguard.

Dream on comrades.

The leaflets put out by UL on this vote were completely misleading and scaremongering (IMO),

This decision will mean that some CVS activists will accuse branches of only wanting CVS subscriptions without willing to offer them effective representation. Which I think on the whole is not fair to most branches but such perverse decisions do mean that accusations will be made by CVS activists who are desperate to organise their sectors properly.

Well, two steps forward and one step backwards I suppose. Onwards and forwards to next year.

I was “bumped off” from speaking by a point of order so I will post next the speech I would have made.

(BTW to make sense of this - see previous 2 posts)

UNISON NDC - Rule Amendment 9

Conference , Vice President, John Gray, London Region, Housing Association Branch, speaking in favour of Rule Amendment 9.

This proposed rule change is not just about fair representation and the need to give all members an equal voice. It is also about growing the union and its about organising in our sector.

My branch has over 3000 members spread amongst 140 different employers all over London and the South East of England. The branch and the vast majority of CVS activists from whatever background firmly support this rule change. There are to my mind 2 simple reasons why which I will now try to explain.

Firstly its about fair representation and having a relevant voice

Conference while I freely admit to being a bit of an anorak who actually enjoys going to the regional Local government committee. The other members of my branch who loyally respond to desperate pleas to attend from our office - are after the meetings bewildered by the business of the LG committee. Since that committee is quite rightly dominated by local government issues. So what happens? These delegates don't see it as relevant and fail to go again.

This year for Local government conference I had 3 first time delegates colleagues with me. At the end of the conference one of them said to me that while she had enjoyed coming to Brighton, meeting people,UNIZONE and the fringes - much of the business of conference were on issues that did not directly concern her or her workplace. She had never worked for local government in her life, her employer had never been part of a local authority and had offices in several different borough councils. Conference, again we run the risk that this delegate will not be coming back again to participate in her union.

Secondly it is about organising and building the union. Trade unions are needed everywhere but believe me they are absolutely imperative in the voluntary and community sector. Employment practices in many of these organisations are simply a national disgrace. Not surprisingly union density in the Voluntary sector is very, very low. So there are potential enormous recruitment opportunities but to recruit we need to make the union relevant to the sector. If we don't then Unite and GMB will fill this void.

Conference , this is a fantastic opportunity for not only current members but also those out there who desperately need UNISON in their workplace. Please support all the rule changes needed to bring this about. Thank you.

UNISON has a new "Community" Service Group!

Post from UNISON NDC conference floor. UNISON now has new service groups for “Community”; “Further and Higher Education” and “Police and Justice”. Hooray!

I spoke in favour of the Community Service Group. I'll post my speech next. Interestingly United Left tried to derail the whole process opposing an earlier motion about the structural changes. They were defeated but did not put up any speakers against the first rule changes.

They did come out against related amendments on the “Group Debate” (don't ask) and we are awaiting the result of a Card vote on these changes which are about trying to put the new structures into operation. I tried to speak on this as well but was “bumped off” by a point of order to close debate and go to vote. I thought the arguments against these changes were rather odd. But there are interested parties about. I'll post the result as soon as I can.

UNISON Greater London Region Social Tonight!

UNISON to suspend funding for Labour Party

On the conference floor this afternoon (Tuesday), our General Secretary, Dave Prentis called for UNISON Labour Link to suspend “Constituency Development plans”. This is money given for organising and campaigning in local Labour Parties (not to MP's).

I believe that this will happen and it will be a blow to the Labour Party.

But I also believe UNISON is still totally committed to supporting the Labour Party.

What I felt that Dave was actually doing was sending the Labour Government an unmistakable message that in order to save itself, it has to change and change radically if we want to win the next election. While a tiny majority may object to UNISON allowing members to affiliate to the Party every one of us should be concerned that despite this affiliation the Party is staring at failure which would let the Tories in. They are and always have been the real enemy.

There is a repositioning going on in the Party at the moment and UNISON wants to wade in with its big guns and capture the moment. Suspending Constituency Development Plans is the opening salvos. With the discrediting of the Blairites there is now an opportunity to force changes through which UNISON believes will save the Party even at this late stage.

The battle over further privatisation and market testing is key. Dave I think wants Labour “to come home” he wants clear “red water” over keys policies so we can go out next year in the General Election, win it and save us from the Tories.

West Ham CLP has a UNISON development plan and I am also the Agent. I'll be having some interesting conversations in the very near future with the CLP Chair and Treasurer I think.

(this is my own personal view and reaction. Not that of Labour Link).
Picture Phil Lewis.