Poland: Stop sackings and union busting!

"Maciek Konopka has been sacked from his job at Deepwater Container Terminal (DCT) in Gdansk. Why? Ostensibly because he's a committed and active trade union leader. It's the latest in a line of union-busting actions by management including intimidation, threats of dismissal, and nine other workers being forced to leave.

Despite the growth of the NSZZ Solidarnosc union, management has repeatedly failed to adequately address members' concerns over important issues including pay, temporary contracts, meaningful negotiation and holiday working. It also brought in a legal firm to handle negotiations with the union over a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) which has ground progress to a halt.

Management employs workers on rolling temporary employment contracts seemingly to maximise a culture of fear and job insecurity.

Please help us to tell management, board members and investors at DCT Gdansk to reinstate Maciek Konopka and that dismissals and other anti-union activity must stop. DCT needs to come to the table and negotiate directly with the union in good faith over a collective bargaining agreement that will raise standards at the terminal"

Sign the petition here

Hat tip Labourstart and International Transport Federation.

Pay 2p extra per teeshirt to save workers lives

Check out the TUC website Going to Work and the campaign it is running with LabourStart to make Garment factories in Bangladesh safe.

They point out that the people responsible for poverty wages and very poor safety standards are not consumers in the UK looking for bargain clothes but the global brands and retailers who set prices and therefore wage rates and safety standards.

If the £27 per month wages of these workers were to be doubled this would only cost an extra 2p per tee shirt sold in the UK. They would then not be so desperate for work regardless of conditions. Effective health and safety at work would cost even less. Especially if free trade unions were allowed in Bangladesh who could drive up safety standards.

All pension fund trustees should be scrutinising their fund managers about what they are doing to make sure that any investments they hold in any part of the garment supply chain (not just factories and shops but also finance, raw materials, construction, design, transport and insurances) act responsibly and make sure all workers are properly paid and safe. This is not just a matter affecting Bangladesh.

We have factories making Apple iPADS in China who treat their workers so badly that they have to put up suicide nets around high buildings.

Trustees own these assets on behalf of their beneficiaries and must take personal responsibility for what is done in their name and on their behalf. It is also a given in my book that investments in well managed companies that to not allow their supply chain workforce to be killed, do not employ child labour, do not bribe local officials nor destroy the environment - will produce superior long term returns for the pension fund.

Unions 21 Technology Seminar 2013

This post is a little late but the seminar was excellent. Held in the headquarters of the CWU, the room was packed with national union officers and lay activists.

Simon Sapper from the CWU kicked off by posing the question what do unions want to achieve online? Is it a organising or servicing tool or is it both?

Paul Hilder (Global VP Change.org & 38 Degrees co-founder and Director) John Coventry spoke passionately about the idea that "anyone can do it" by e-petitions and online campaigning. They gave examples of the individuals who have taken on loan sharks, Amazon tax avoidance and even BBC Newsnight bullying.

I asked a question to them over something which has long been a niggle of mine. "I am a great fan of new social media, but what is the end game of on line campaigning and how will it translate into greater union membership and changing politics since at the end of the day you will have to rely on traditional Party politics to bring about change"? Paul gave a good answer that on line campaigning could justify itself by attracting people to start a journey that they otherwise would not be attracted by. I'm still not 100% sure.

Gregor Poynton (Blue State Digital) gave a slick presentation (of course) on how unions can do better with online campaigns. A ladder of engagement starting off with getting members to spend 15 minutes a day online supporting causes rather than being expected to commit to hours and hours of boring committees and meetings.

Ed Mustill (Labourstart) plugged their new guide on online campaigning (which I bought off him for £3) and compared (rightly in my view) online support for trade unions fights with being on a freezing cold picket line and a passerby comes up out of the blue with hot coffee and biscuits.

Gavin Hayes (Policy Review TV) gave a convincing pitch on why we should consider not spending say £40k on venue and transport costs for 100 people to attend a national meeting and instead £3-4k on setting up an on-line TV video facility.  This could attract a much, much wider participation for potentially peanuts. Makes perfect sense to me.

TUC (Social Media Guru) John Woods (see picture with Unions 21 Chair Sue Ferns) gave a typically lively and informative punt on Unions and Blogging. I loved his analysis that all media works best when it’s from the horse’s mouth. But you can take the horse to Word Press but you can't make the horse blog! (but they can make them appear in Tesco burgers! someone behind me said).

Simon Parry (infobo - right of picture) spoke on which unions perform best online, and the power of the search engine. He had looked at on-line joining union websites and found some sites did not offer full online joining, only accepted Internet Explorer browsers and had poor security. The UNISON website however scored highly. 65% of new members in my branch now join on-line.

Solicitor Binder Bansel (Pattinson Brewer) spoke last about Data Privacy and staying within the law online (I had to declare an interest in this matter)

So Great seminar. Thanks to Dan Whittle, Unions 21 and CWU for organising it.

(you can check out on my twitter feed on the seminar https://twitter.com/grayee for 24 Jan)

Labor Day 2011

Today is Labor Day in the United States (and Canada). It is still a Federal national holiday. The trade union website Labourstart marked the occasion with a request for support by US workers who are seeking a recognition agreement from T-Mobile USA. This company is owned by Deutsche Telekom who like many European companies have good relations with unions at home but allow "threats and scare tactics to block" their US workers joining a local union. Send off a message of support here.

Also Labourstart linked to this feature on the "10 Top Labor Days Songs".  My favourite choice was number 4. Tennessee Ernie Ford, “Sixteen Tons”. Enjoy.

Bangladesh: Free Moshrefa Mishu

I've just sent an email via Labourstart to various Bangladesh government and Police bodies about the arrest of Moshrefa Mishu, President of the Garment Workers Unity Forum (GWUF).

Check out details on screen print.

Click here to send protest emails.

"It's Going To Ruin Us"

Excellent Aussie trade union video from the same mob that brought us this. Great stuff! I must admit to not knowing all that much about the local issue but every single advance for workers which we now take for granted was attacked as being "ruinous" at the time.

Reminds me a bit of this argument as well.

Hat-tip thingy to Eric Lee and Labourstart. Pass it on.

What have the Unions ever done for us?" Labourstart winner

Worthy winner of the first ever Labourstart Video competition is the Aussie "What have the unions ever done for us?".

TUC John Woods came 4th with "Just another cog in the wheel".

Also check out "What has UNISON has ever done for us?"

While original is of course best

Labourstart Photo of the Year: Manual Labour

A Bangladeshi boy works in a shipbuilding factory in down town. These factories employ young boys as apprentices without pay for the first few years. They work in extreme conditions without safety tools like gloves, goggles, and other protective gears.

In exchange, they learn the skills of the trade. But this costs them loss of health and education. In Bangladeshi child work lad is under 18th years child don't work in any work site. But no body eels to see them and no security in their life.

Check out the Labourstart winner by a clear margin KM Asad here. Does your pension or life assurance fund own shares in the companies that buy these ships or use them to carry their raw materials or finished goods to market? Ask the question!

Some kids have a bonfire night(mare) every day.

Line up 1,000 loose cannons pointing in half-way the right direction

Excellent post by trade union blogger Johninnit from the TUC congress in Brighton. He makes four predictions about how unions (or at any rate unionists) will be using Web 2.0 by 2010. He addressed a fringe on this subject with Eric Lee who helps edit Labourstart (who I have met). I have never met John even though he once made a banner for me in “Second Life”.

1st - He believes that it will empower the grass roots and points to the 13,000 users of the successful TUC network unionreps.org.uk who share advice and resources. Globalisation could also encourage unions to form connections internationally. There is a General Motors Workers’ blog where GM car plants across the world connect with each other.

2nd - More creative on-line campaigning. Unions and activists can nowadays produce near professional quality campaign material. The Postal Strike YouTube video shown (above) on this post (pardon the pun) is he believes an example of what can be achieved by activists. Quality may be mixed '…they may be loose cannons sure, but if you could line up 1,000 loose cannons pointed in half-way the right direction, I know which side I’d rather be standing.'

3rd - Is an improvement in Union democracy and consultation.

4th - Using the internet will also reach out to young workers who would otherwise never consider joining.

The trade union movement is notoriously conservative (with a small “c”) which personally I feel is a reflection on its membership. Membership has fallen since the peak of the 1970’s but in recent years has stabilised. Sometimes you come across activists who think either its all doom and gloom for the movement or equally bizarrely, we’re just on the verge of “Revolution Now” comrades. It’s refreshing to read something which is both positive and realistic about the future of trade unions for a change.

This is not an alternative “techie only” argument to the traditional values of organising, educating, training, internal discipline and building the union. It should not be either a "free-for-all" by activists regardless of rule or policy. Nor of course, is it a substitute for talking face to face to members when this is possible in the complex modern workplace. The success or otherwise of such traditional values will make or break the movement in the end. Rather, our society and economy has changed radically in recent decades (years?) and trade unions simply have to reflect this.

Lobby of Parliament over Pay

Yesterday after work I went to the House of Commons to take part in the “Speak up for Public Services” lobby of MPs organised by the TUC.

I was due to meet up with London UNISON Regional Convener, Gloria Hanson, and UNISON NEC member, Irene Stacey, to lobby Labour MP for West Ham Lyn Brown on “fair pay” for all public sector workers.

All of us work or live in Newham and are Labour Party activists. There had been a packed TUC rally at lunchtime which I had missed and the main lobby was 2-4pm. On route in the Great Hall I met up with John Whitworth, who was also on his way to lobby Lyn. John is a member of the University and College union UCU and had actually been on strike that day at his college over pay! While waiting in the central lobby for Lyn I saw the trade union web and Internet adviser (also an editor of Labourstart and blogger) Eric Lee. Eric spoke to John and took details of the UCU dispute which he would try to get covered in Labourstart. Eric and John also had an interesting and constructive chat about other wider issues regarding UCU.

Gloria and Irene came in with Labour Minister Jim Fitzpatrick MP who they had met beforehand to lobby (Jim represents Canning Town in Newham and Poplar in Tower Hamlets). Years ago I can remember lobbying Jim over social housing issues with a unison convener who was also an active member of the SWP. Jim invited us to Strangers Bar and offered to buy us both a beer (no sandwiches). To my surprise my companion gratefully accepted the offer and seemed to enjoy his pint!

Lyn took the 4 of us to the Palace of Westminster terrace bar. There were a number of UNISON and other trade union members sitting with their MP’s. Including Mike Hayes, from the NEC who gave us a briefing on Equal Pay the other week. The serious business of the day was “lobbying” our MP over what we believe to be the decision to save the government money by paying public sector staff increases below the rate of inflation. The majority of our members are relatively low paid and have been hit hardest by the large increases in many food, fuel and energy prices. The fact that we believe this will also be (is) politically damaging to the Labour Party and the Government was not lost either.

We also discussed the rise of the BNP in East London and potential redundancies in Newham council resulting from a proposed centralisation of services. I had a discussion about cuts in Housing “Supporting People” services and Lyn gave me some helpful advice about how to progress this.

I don’t expect the world to change overnight and as the result of this TUC parliamentary lobby, Gordon Brown is not going to wake up tomorrow and realise that he has made a terrible mistake and will come up with a big wedge of money for us. Nor will such indirect pressures replace the need, when necessary, to confront and stand up to government and employers. We could I suppose just join the protesters outside in Parliament Square and shout at the MPs through megaphones all day. I don’t think that this actually achieves much. While it is not always sweetness and light in the relationship of the trade unions and the Labour Party such as this difference over public services pay. Nor should it. But, just compare this difference with the abyss between the trade unions and the Conservative Party.

The public pay issue is also not just “producer interests” moaning about our share of the cake, it is also pointing out what should be the bleeding obvious to the government that this will not help you win the next election. Never mind the 10p tax fiasco. Reducing in real terms the amount of money that 5 million predominantly low paid voters will receive in their pay packets over the next few years is not only plain wrong for a Labour government to do but barking mad, bad politics as well.

Picture (by ace Parliamentary aide David H) is of Lyn, John W, Me, Gloria and Irene (congratulations on her being re-elected as a London UNISON SGE member). Lyn is looking away from the camera since she is the only one to see that while we were all posing, the House of Commons pigeons were feasting on our crisps and peanuts.

Slash wages, Provoke Strikes, Sack Stewards & Sue: Fremantle – The Third Sector Nightmare?

In March this year I put up a post supporting Barnet UNISON over their campaign to stop vulnerable ex-local authority care workers, having their wages and working conditions slashed by this so called caring “not for profit” company, Fremantle. Not only are their basic wages being cut by about 30% but their sickness pay, holidays and overtime rates have been cut. See also the UNISON web site.

Since then there has been strike action by workers opposed to the cuts. That was hardly surprising. These workers were already low paid. What has been surprising is the appalling campaign of intimidation being waged against the strikers and their supporters.

Using tactics reminiscent of the most violent “union busters” in the United States, Fremantle have sacked one of the striking stewards (Andrew Rogers) and have even launched legal action and shut down the campaign page (not yet the site) of the well respected international trade union web site “Labourstart” . Labourstart have been able to relaunch this campaign on a new server. Check out “We will not be Silenced”

Fremantle’s web site claims they operate In 50 locations across Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes, Maidenhead, Barnet, Harrow and employ 1,500 staff. I’m not sure where or how Fremantle get their money from, however, it is absolutely clear that there are serious problems with the way that it treats its employees and uses what must be at source, public money, to launch what appears to be vindictive legal action against critics. I’ll have to do some digging about who provides contracts and funding.

Fremantle is in danger of discrediting the entire “not for profit” Voluntary sector. The Trustees need to take control of their senior management team and sort this out.

Morgan Tsvangirai: Solidarity with the Zimbabwe Trade Unions

I am sure that the pictures of the violent beating that trade unionist and opposition politician, Morgan Tsvangirai, has horrified everyone who has seen it.

Labourstart have started an on-line campaign to show Solidarity with Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and campaign for human rights and the rule of law in Zimbabwe.

I have taken part but I strongly suspect that in this case "on-line" petitions will not get rid of Mugabe.

What is the answer? There appears to be a lot of hand-wringing at the moment.