Having an Amazon Free Christmas

Hi John, Just a quick note before Christmas to say a HUGE thanks for donating to send the tax-dodging Amazon ad van out on the town! It made a bit of a splash - circling Amazon's HQ, and then cruising through London's busy shopping streets: exposing Amazon's dodgy tax tricks to thousands of people in the run up to this week. Hope you enjoyed staying Amazon-free this Christmas - and if you haven't got down to your wrapping yet here's some anti-amazon gift tags to print off and stick on your prezzies! See you for more anti-Amazon antics in the new year :) Lots of love, Amazon Anonymous PS. Check out below for some photos of the van in action: Copyright © 2015 Amazon Anonymous, All rights reserved. You are here because you signed up on the Amazon Anonymous website, and agreed that Amazon has some issues it needs to sort out. unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

UNISON Community Conference 2015

On the train back to London with UNISON delegates after our annual National Seminar and
Conference in Bradford.  See previous posts on the Seminar which took place immediately before here and here.

The Conference was chaired by UNISON Vice President Wendy Nichols. Community is the Service Group for UNISON members who work for Housing Associations and Voluntary organisations. We are the third biggest Service Group in the union and have over 60,000 members and I was there as one of the two National Executive Committee members for Community.

After the usual introductions, standing orders report and appointment of tellers the Annual Report was accepted and the debates on motions began.  There were 10 different motions which were debated. All were supported by the Service Group Executive (SGE) and all motions were agreed by Conference and are now our policy.  Including my branch motion on Union busting.  I spoke on the Pensions Composite (which was an agreed merger of two motions) on behalf of the Service Group Executive.

There was some incredibly powerful speeches made with delegates explaining their struggle to provide quality services while on the minimum wage or zero hour contracts. One speaker explained how she had to depend on food banks to survive. It was also pointed out that there was only 3 young members present (including Rachel from our branch) which is not good and needs to be addressed.

There was quite a controversial point put forward by one delegate during the debate on welfare reform that anyone who does not think that there is any difference between Labour and the Tories are "fools and liars".

This is now I believe our 5th Community Conference and I think we are far more confident and certain of our identity as a separate, independent and growing Service Group within UNISON.  We were pretty united as a Conference and aware of what we are up against and what we have to do to defend and represent our members. Key to this is trade union recognition, organising, recruiting more members and activists while ensuring that we have effective structures and local support.

(picture of London delegates speaking on motions and centre of June Poole moving Pensions compositive A)

Sports Direct - what a really rubbish company

Check out Tom P blog here on the antics of retail store, Sports Direct. Its billionaire boss Mike Ashley acts like he runs a private company with no other shareholders; it is certainly not a living wage employer and nearly 90% of its staff are on zero hours contracts.

Next time you want to buy anything at Sports Direct - think again. 

Queen Supports Care UK/Bridgepoint Strikers!

This lunchtime I went to support Care UK strikers from Doncaster outside their real employer's headquarters at Bridgepoint Private Equity,  95 Wigmore Street, London, W1. I had just missed seeing Rock legend, Dr Brian May from the band "Queen" at the protest (see centre picture).

Apparently Brian had been driving past and saw the protest. Check out this report on FaceBook from one of the strikers "So just in London striking and Brian May of Queen walks over to me gives me a hug and says well done for what we are doing.... Absolutely gobsmacked"

Brian May tweeted  "Guys from Doncaster protesting destruction of NHS by Cameron. They are RIGHT. BBC shamefully not reporting this. Bri".

The Doncaster Care UK/Bridgepoint Private Equity protesters have suffered massive pay cuts since they were transferred from the NHS to Care UK. One striker I spoke to is losing £400 per month in wage cuts. Other strikers are new staff who want Care UK/Bridgepoint to pay them the UK Living Wage rate. They are now on their 63rd day of strike action. This is turning into one of the longest disputes in social care ever in the UK.

I understand that Private Equity investor Bridgepoint has huge investments in Personal and Social Care in the UK. This sector is a massive risk to Bridgepoint investors. Imagine what would happen to your reputation and investments if there was yet another social care scandal at a project they had recently taken over and got rid of experienced staff and replaced them with untrained and inexperienced workers on minimum wage and zero hour contracts?

Also with them were strikers from Your Choice Barnet ("YCB" in red tee shirts) who are on their 2nd day of strike action over pay cuts.  They also look after disabled children and adults and Tory Barnet Council is planning to cut their wages by an average 10%. The Doncaster strikers had shown them solidarity at thier picket line that morning and they were showing their support in return.

Westminster Question Time #LabLink14

Trying to catch up with posts from UNISON Labour Link National Forum 2014 earlier this month.

The first speaker on "Westminster Question Time" was  UNISON member and local MP, Dawn Primarolo. Dawn has been the MP for Bristol South since 1987. In fact in 1987 Dawn was the only Labour MP to be elected in the whole of the South West of England.

She is currently a deputy speaker at the House of Commons (official title "Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means").  Dawn said she had been asked whether use to be a teacher? She says, no, she learnt to cope as Speaker by being a parent.

At the moment Dawn is trying to stop the privatisation of a local Bristol GP Surgery.  A contract has been put out but it is totally unclear who is responsible and despite it being a 14 day process, the local NHS is refusing to speak to her, because it may "compromise" the tender.  Dawn asked the Labour Party to make it clear that we are not going to allow the privatisation of our NHS.

Dawn is also campaigning on the "Living Wage" and is asking the Mayor of Bristol why in a rich city, we are not paying everyone a living wage? Dawn is standing down as an MP in 2015 but is pleased that an excellent unison member, Karin Smyth, is replacing her as our candidate.

Next speaker on the panel was Kerry McCarthy MP for Bristol East.   Kerry supported the call for a Living Wage but also asked for the banning of "zero hour" employment contracts, which cause misery to many of her constituents. She also attacked the proposed privatisation of cancer services by this Government. Kerry pointed out that all of us here now know what will happen to the NHS if the Tories get in again in 2015.

During the Q&A the panel were asked what they thought of "Executive Mayors". Dawn responded that she was not a fan of executive mayors and thought they were undemocratic. There is now an opportunity with the Labour plan to devolve powers to look again at the system.. For one person to hold all this power without any accountability is wrong, no matter how good they are.

When asked about priorities of a new Labour Government Kerry said that there is a massive task and a lot to do since this Government had spent the last 4 years destroying all what we have done.

To a (leading) question about the Scottish referendum (by a Scottish delegate) "Is separation better or should we stand together and fight together?"Dawn replied "I'm for the union. All the gains we have ever got have been made by fighting together". 

10 steps Ed Miliband will immediately take if we win the next election.

Labour's Cost-Of-Living Contract With You

We Will:

1. Freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017 and reform the energy market


2. Get 200,000 homes built a year by 2020


3. Stop families that rent being ripped off and help them plan for the future with new long term predictable tenancies


4. Cut income tax for hardworking people through a lower 10p starting tax rate, and introduce a 50p top rate of tax as we pay off the deficit in a fair way


5. Ban exploitative zero-hour contracts


6. Make work pay by strengthening the Minimum Wage and providing tax breaks to firms that boost pay through the Living Wage


7. Back small businesses by cutting business rates and reforming the banks


8. Help working parents with 25 hours of free childcare for three- and four-year-olds


9. Tackle the abuse of migrant labour to undercut wages by banning recruitment agencies that only hire foreign workers and pressing for stronger controls in Europe


10. Back the next generation with a job guarantee for the young unemployed and more apprenticeships

This is our contract with you. Vote Labour to make Britain better off.

ED MILIBAND

This looks very good to me

Fob Off Amazon!

We’ve had an Amazon delivery!

"Hi John

After 4 months and over 59,000 signatures, Amazon has finally responded to the living wage petition that kickstarted Amazon Anonymous.

But Amazon is trying to fob us off. Click here to send an email telling them to try harder.

Amazon’s reply says that: "Permanent UK associates start at a minimum of £7.10 per hour increasing to a median of £8.00 per hour after 24 months…Additional benefits for permanent employees include private medical insurance, a company pension plan, life assurance, income protection and an employee discount."

Even ignoring the fact that £7.10 per hour is STILL under the UK living wage rate outside London, the real problem with this reply is the word “permanent”.

Amazon is trying to sidestep the small matter of tens of thousands of temporary contract workers to whom it pays poverty wages.

It’s simply not good enough.

Let’s show Amazon we’re not going to be fobbed off! Click below to tell Amazon's 'Employee Relations Department' what you think of their reply. We’ve included some template text but feel free to explain to Amazon in your own words:

Click here to tell Amazon to try harder

Thanks for all your support,

Amazon Anonymous"

(just to say that there is alternatives to Amazon - recently I bought online a DVD series box set which was cheaper than Amazon. The only way consumers can change corporate behaviour is to boycott thieves such as Amazon. You cannot engage or persuade such large private pirate companies who get off by robbing their workers).

Ryanair Robbing Pensioners (and pension peril of zero hour contracts)

According to the FT controversial airline Ryanair is closing its Pension fund for staff in Ireland and transferring their accrued defined benefit pension scheme benefits to a defined contribution scheme - in which future benefits will depend on investment performance???

Not only are they doing this to active (current) members but also to former staff who have left their pension with the scheme.

Does this mean that staff who were promised a guaranteed pension will now have to face the uncertainties of the investment market? Why did the trustees agree to this?

Yet I understand that many of the new Ryanair staff can't even join the DC scheme as they are 'self employed' on zero hour type contracts!

So it seems that all staff in Ryanair former, past and future will be stuffed.

Except I believe its senior management.

No surprise there!

Hat tip Pension Biggles

West Ham Trade Unions for Labour

Picture is from last weeks relaunch of West Ham CLP Trade unions for Labour. This meeting was organised by West Ham TULO officer (and UNISON NEC member) Kim Silver.

Kim chaired the meeting and apologised for the lack of notice but emphasised that this was a planning meeting on how we can organise as trade unionists and build links between the Party and the Unions. All Party members who live or work in West Ham can participate (you do not have to belong to a union that is affiliated to the Party). We had 2 union members from East Ham present and apologies from others. Hopefully we can meet up as a Newham TULO in the future.

We discussed a number of possible trade union campaigns that we could support and work towards :-

Opposing the Royal Mail privatisation; Living wage; Employment rights; Blacklisting;  zero hour contracts; Collins Report, unpaid internship, saving the NHS, Welfare reform and housing.

I suggested that we should consider modelling ourselves on the socialist societies such as Fabians and Co-op. To not only campaign and build links with the Party but also have guest speakers, debates and even social events.

It was agreed that our first campaign should be to support the CWU and their likely strike action over the privatisation of Royal Mail. The CWU is currently balloting members which will end on 16 October 2013. If the strike goes ahead we can run stalls, hand leaflets and take petitions in Stratford High Street and  give practical help and assistance to local picket lines etc.

We also agreed to campaign for a Fair wage (Living wage, sickness benefits and pensions) for all workers in Newham - private and public sector.  To start this we will ask West Ham CLP to take forward its existing policy for Newham Council to be an accredited Living Wage employer by contacting the Labour Group and Campaign Forum about implementation.We will also ask for information regarding Zero hour contracts in Newham Council.

The meeting ended on a really positive and constructive note. While we are not in anyway part of the formal regional or national TULO structure nor a substitute for a trade council, I think that by organising in this way, we will help reconnect the unions with Labour at a local level.

The date of next meeting Tuesday 19 November.

#TUC Congress - Hovis Strike over Zero hour contracts and agency labour

First item of business at Congress today (Wednesday) was to send a message of support to members of the Bakers union (BFAWU) out on strike at Hovis (Premier Foods) Wigan.

The BFAWU call for support at their picket lines and for a boycott of Hovis Products during the dispute. See union press release. 

"The issue of zero-hour contracts is one that is taking up a considerable amount of column space in both local and national newspapers at the moment. The Bakers’, Food and Allied Workers Union highlighted this exploitation back in 2011 during a dispute with a well known supplier of cake products. Unfortunately, we remained a lone voice. With honourable exceptions, the media, local politicians and the general public alike decided to remain impassive and apathetic. Since then, the use of zero-hour contracts has reached almost epidemic proportions and it has been estimated that over a million UK workers are now employed on these contracts.

Sadly, it was only a matter of time before other organisations decided to jump on this particular bandwagon. Staff at the Hovis (Premier Foods) bakery in Wigan had already reduced their hours and subsequently, their pay in a bid to reduce the need for redundancies. However, after long and protracted discussions with the Union, the company decided to proceed with job losses. However, once the redundancies had been made, the company decided to renege on long standing recognition agreements and make up the ensuing staff shortfall with agency labour, with many being utilised on an ‘as and when’ basis, in other words; zero-hour contracts.

Since then, we have attempted to resolve this situation with the company, but to no avail. Ultimately, the Union took the painful decision to ballot its members at the Wigan site in order to seek a mandate for industrial action. The result was overwhelmingly in favour of strike action against the company on the following dates:

6.00am on August 28th 2013 until 6.00am on September 4th 2013

6.00am on September 11th 2013 until 6.00am on September 18th 2013

6.00am on September 25th 2013 until 6.00am on October 2nd 2013

Further branch meetings will be held to extend the action unless the company comes to a satisfactory agreement with the Union on the withdrawal of agency labour from the site.

BFAWU members at Hovis, Wigan have not taken this decision lightly. They have no desire to lose pay. However, they see the current situation as unacceptable and are determined not to allow the company to set precedents, undermine current terms and conditions, create a two tier workforce and leave a poor legacy for subsequent generations of people who may be employed at Hovis in the future.

We urge the company to re-enter negotiations with the Union and find a way to resolve this dispute fairly, amicably and in a way that reflects the strength of feeling among the workforce".

UPDATE: I tweeted this post and got this response

 Hovis Bakery ‏@hovisbakery 4h

1. @grayee The last employees at Wigan Bakery on zero-hours have been offered full-time jobs. We can reassure you we don't employ zero-hours.

   Expand
2. John Gray ‏@grayee 3h

   @hovisbakery very pleased to hear this. Is this the same for long term agency working?

A Minimum Wage, A Living Wage or Fair Pay for All?

The introduction of the National Minimum Wage was one of the great successes of the last Labour Government and trade unions such as UNISON who had pushed long and hard for it.

So successful that we now take it a little for granted and forget the huge opposition from the Tories who claimed that it would lead to business failures and mass unemployment.

While a national minimum wage of £6.19 per hour is far, far better than no minimum, it is simply not enough to live on. It is poverty pay. The vast majority of workers on minimum wage will also need to have their wages topped up by the State in housing benefit or family tax credit.  

The idea of a "Living wage" is the amount needed to "let workers lead a decent life". It is currently £7.45ph (and £8.55 ph in London).  Accountancy firm KPMG recently estimated that 20% of workers (5 million) are paid less than a Living wage.

Labour Leader Ed Miliband is in favour of making the Living wage compulsory in the public sector and in their procurement practices. He also believes in naming and shaming other companies that don't pay a living wage.

If this happened it would be a fantastic news for the low paid and also the British tax payers since we will not have to subsidise many poverty pay employers. It would also result in a welcome boast in demand for the British economy.

Yet, at the risk of being churlish, is even a "Living Wage" - not enough?

If you are on a Living wage but become sick and have no income protection you will immediately fall back into poverty. If you retire and have no company pension you will also fall back into poverty in old age. If you are on a Living wage but are on a Zero hour (or Bank) contract and have no employment protection, how can you live a "decent life" with no security? Ed Miliband is also  in favour of restricting Zero Hour Contracts. It has been estimated that there could be as many as one million workers on such contracts. 

What about those traditional low pay sectors which can actually afford to pay more than just a living wage and also pay decent sick pay and a pension?

So what about the concept of "Fair Pay". This is a recognised goal of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Your pay should not be just about your wage but also about sick pay, holidays, overtime, pensions and employment protection.   There are some private companies competing for public sector contracts who would quite happily pay £7.45 per hour if they did not have to pay for decent sickness protection and pensions.

On the other hand today I met up with my lovely niece, her partner and their young family.  She works as a care assistant in a privately run mental health project. She loves her job but is on the minimum wage and on a zero hour contract. She does not receive holiday pay (which I need to check) and also cannot get family tax credit because she is on a zero hours contract.  She only gets statutory sickness benefits and no pension. Due to her income she is likely not to be eligible to be auto-enrolled into a pension. 

If she was to get a Living wage and an extra £1.26 per hour it would transform her family finances but since she does not know from day to day what hours she will work and has no security of employment, it would still be practically impossible for her to make plans for her future. 

The answer to such poverty pay and conditions is that the next Labour Government must be as brave and as radical on this and other issues as its predecessor in 1945.  While in the long run the best protector of decent pay and conditions are the trade unions. Post 2015 Labour should impose Fair Pay for All.  A living wage, living sickness benefits, living pension and employment security for all. While at the same time introduce binding sectoral bargaining agreements between unions and employers for those sectors which can afford to pay more than a Living wage.

While this will save the Government money by reducing the state subsidy on poverty employers and increasing demand in the economy, it will lets not fool ourselves, cost more, especially in the public sector. This is a price worth paying and will need to be paid for by increases in progressive tax rates on those who can afford to pay more. 

I think to win the next General Election and get rid of the Tories we need to be honest with the public and also offer a genuine alternative. I asked my niece today if she voted in the last General Election. She admitted she didn't. I also asked if she thought the next Labour Government would ensure she would get a Living wage and security in employment would she vote for them? She said Yes. Her current MP is a Tory with a majority of just over 3000.

Hat tip picture to Pay Up Sainsburys.