UNISON Greater London Regional AGM election results 2015

The Evil Ones were crushed. The election result in today's London regional council AGM was the 10th victory in a row for the forces of light and reason against the Ultra left and their supporters.

Clear proof that the mass of ordinary unison members and branches are not interested in student union toy town politics. Instead, in these serious times, they want a grown up union leadership, one that will do what they think is best for members and not barmy extremist postulating.

It was amusing to read the on-line strop from the well known "Goblin and evil one-in-chief" middle class stranger to the truth. What else do you expect from those who despise working class people, since they think we are too thick to understand what is good for us and don't do what they tell us.

Left politics in this country has suffered so much from these 5th columnist Tory excuser's, who discredit the entire progressive agenda which their ranting, wreaking and splitting. It is the Far Right such as UKIP who are the chief beneficiaries from this nonsense but the wreckers don't care and actively want the right to win in order to bring about "the revolution". yeah. Dream on comrades.

Anyway, the motto for the sensible left in London from now on is "10 more years"!

After the week that was - UNISON Conference #uNDC14

On Friday afternoon after the close of the 2014 UNISON NDC conference at Brighton, I went to nearby Worthing for the weekend to recover.

On Saturday I went for 10.5 mile walk across ancient iron age forts in the South Downs. The weather was simply glorious, very warm with blue skies but there was a nice cooling breeze.

You could see Brighton in the far distance. I had spent the last 4 days from 9am to 6pm in what is fundamentally, a very large shed with up to 2500 other people. Walking outdoors in shorts, sandals and tee-shirt in beautiful countryside was a real treat. It was strange to start the day without a standing orders committee report mind!

It had been a very successful conference and we are now clearly taking the fight over low pay to the government. We were I think on the whole united and "in UNISON". Bizarrely one of the few disputes in the conference hall originated in the squabbling and infighting following the demise of the extremist so called "United left" group.

While I may wish the ultra left trotskyist "permanent revolutionaries" will stop fibbing their manta at the end of every speech that "their union money is going to the Labour Party" (the truth is that it is only from members who choose to pay the Labour Link levy), I enjoy their distinctive sleep inducing "house style" of speaking, which in the absence of hard liquor makes listening to them bearable.

While none of the motions that I was due to speak on behalf of the NEC came up high enough in the agenda, I did enjoy listening to the debates and the fringes. I was able to help out my branch delegation with speech writing and chaired the Capital Stewardship fringe.

A highlight of conference for me was the election by the NEC of Eric Roberts (London Ambulance Service branch secretary and Health NEC) as a new UNISON Vice President. Eric is a London comrade and top trade unionist. I look forward to him being President of the union in 2016.

I will post further reports on Conference as and when I write them up. 

Roll on UNISON Conference 2015 in Glasgow.

"Please come and have a DRINK!! with me"

I got this odd email invite the other day. Too busy doing union stuff to attend. 

: "For a new squabbling and democratic centralist disunted left? 

To: "Dave Bala<d.bala@trotsrus.co.uk>

Dear Comrade, I am writing to ask if you would be interested in an initial chat and drinkies about how UNISON activists in London can best organise between and across branches and Service Groups to provide each other with solidarity, support and fun! 

I'm sending this to a fairly random selection of fellow activists who I think might be interested, but if I've got that wrong in your case please accept my apology and feel free to denounce me in whichever way seems most appropriate! 

A few of us will be meeting in the O’Neils pub in Euston Road for several hours from 1pm on Thursday 9 January to have such a chat about fine wines, favourite Waitrose recipes and Star Wars. 
We hope that this will be the beginning of a conversation which will broaden and deepen over the coming year. 

Since the tragic popular vote to walk away from pointless strikes was taken two years ago, we have been trying to chase more strikes, with precious little support from our national and Regional Union. 

Although individual branches and activists are resisting the attacks from us strike chasers we have not had a sufficiently strong rank and file network to force them to do what we tell them other in more than an ad hoc way. In London many of those trying to strike chase are under attack and feel isolated, and the official structures of the Union perpetuate that. 

With a further round of cuts and the threat of widespread privatisation at the same time as the possibility of spreading the fight for fair pay beyond Higher Education, now may be the time to build and strengthen an activist pub network for support and solidarity. We can only work out if this is possible through drinking between activists. 

Those of us hoping to start this discussion believe that all our union work must be founded on and informed by a principled and consistent opposition to oppression. We don't believe in an approach which sidelines (for example) issues of male violence against women in the interests of unity to oppose cuts. Our vision is of a workers' movement which builds unity from all our struggles and drinks together. 

Which is why we don’t want any of those splitters and wreckers from the SWP or SPEW, also why we have picked a pub to meet up with since we don’t want any boring teetotalers or Muslims turning up either. But while it's nice to have visions, what we need right now is far more practical. Such as a few drinkies! 

At this stage, we think activists need to consider and debate how we provide each other with mutual liquid aid in the circumstances of 2014 in UNISON in London. 

On Thursday lunchtime I hope to be part of the beginning of a long drinking discussion about how we might do that. If you're interested I hope you might be too? 

Obviously only a few of us will be able to participate in a lunchtime weekday chat. Many activists will be tied up in their branches doing real union work and don’t have full facility time like what we have. So they will not be able to use their facility agreements and travel during their union time to the pub, have drinkies, then travel back in union facility time. 

This is the beginning of a discussion of which no one knows the outcome. You know what it is like when you have had a few jars. 

Please pass this on to any UNISON member you think might be interested. Best wishes for the New Year! 

Solidarity, 
Dave Bala Lambeth Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Trotskyism Thought. (but completely unofficially of course!)

Song for Sectarians

Tonight's Friday Sectarian comes from my best ever mate (and fellow Labour Party member) Dave Osler Facebook page. Anyone know the tune?

Sing-a-Long Friday Sectarian: 57 Varieties (The Chicken Song)

We’re a small Trot sect
With a small red student base
But we dream one day
That we’ll rule the human race
People laugh at us
But we’ll show the world they’re wrong
Overthrow the State
While we sing this left wing song

Build a Workers’ Front
Sell a paper to your gran
Have a fuse then split
Be as wacky as you can
Caucus in a letter box
Change your name another time
Turn to industry
And then alter all your lines

There’s fifteen of us
We’re the vanguard of our class
Proletarian
With a dialectic task
Met this bloke in Greece
Now an international’s formed
Like the Bolsheviks
When the Czar’s Palace they stormed

Have a faction fight
Write polemics by the score
Purge your tendency
And reduce your ranks to four
Call for unity
Say the enemy is Benn
Liquidate in Workers Power
And then do it all again

Become entryists
Utilise the bourgeois courts
Launch an armed struggle
Try and build a base in Shorts
Call a general strike
Like Possadas look to the stars
For you never know
Perhaps there’s a loony Trot in Mars

Hat tip Michael Ezra - purists may claim this is the wrong Chicken Song video but comrades surely the ends justify the means :) Update - the Central Committee insist on the other version.

Hello Goodbye by trots complaining about "democratic centralism"

 I just love this Beatles Youtube clip. But seriously...

Trots have to do what their central committees tell them to do regardless of what they think is the right thing to do for their trade union members. It's laughingly called "democratic centralism" and amazingly it has taken some UNISON members 10 years to leave UNISON United left since they only now understand such a power imbalance is amongst other things - a rapist and domestic violence charter.

Rudderless trots?

(Guest post by Denver Walker) "As the Government of millionaires attacks on one front after another, the political ultra left is bereft of direction.

The catalogue of brutality unleashed by the side currently winning the class war would have been unimaginable even three years ago.

Yet never forget that the ultra left did their best to let the Tories win. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have gone over the same period as real wages have continued to fall in an unprecedented way. The tide of privatisation rising across the public sector has begun irreversibly to engulf the health service and now laps at the feet of postal workers.

The demonisation of claimants is gradually capturing the popular imagination as benefit cuts force us back to the nineteenth century. Legal aid cuts and employment tribunal fees (coupled with changes to rules on remission), together with other changes to employment law further hobble workers individually and collectively. Even the seemingly solid social gains of a generation of progress towards equality are fragile in this most reactionary century.

The defence of the public sector equality duty will be of totemic importance. So where is the opposition? The (capital "O") Opposition is Labour who can still mobilise meaningful opposition to "Tory cuts" (as in the London Fire Service) but is hamstrung by the ultra left's meaningless sloganising and selfish distructive gesture politics. In large part the absence of our Labour Party where we so badly need it is a function of a generation of ultra left grandstanding and stupidity on the part of extremists in the trade union leadership.

The strategic error of supporting Trotsky entryists and not the centre left in Labour in the 1990s has had cumulative, calamitous political consequences for the trade union movement which are still playing themselves out. Since the General Election the unions have mobilised around real and winnable issues such as pensions and have achieved incrediblely successful results.

The largest strike since the General Strike secured real meaningful concessions on public service pensions. Laughable attempts by extremists who want members to die in poverty to satisfy their perverse views undermine the morale and motivation of our activists. Pragmatic General Secretaries are staring into the horror and know what they can do as opposed to meaningless and futile oppositionalism.

Out on the further reaches of the left there is no direction or purpose. Those who hoped the Green Party was a new road to a new Jerusalem can pick their way through the litter strewn streets of Brighton as they contemplate their error. The largest far left political party has imploded, and those clinging to its wreckage simply haven't noticed yet that it is over (though it may not be dead for years - some people still sell the "Newsline").

The latest electoral project of the far left has broken all records for tragic irrelevance. Socialists might as well practice "entryism" in the Monster Raving Loony Party as continue to place hope in TUSC. Such is the lack of hope in ultra leftism that an excellent film maker has managed to lever his deserved reputation to promote the "Left Unity" project (which falls somewhere between Sir Richard Acland's Common Wealth Party and the political equivalent of vanity publishing).

There is no alternative to the Labour Party - and no matter how many lamps the middle class ultra left rub no such alternative appears. The political problem confronting the working class in this country, as throughout Europe, over the last generation is the political inadequacy of the wreckers and splitters in our trade unions, not the political label of the politicians we can vote for. They provoke and encourage infighting and allow the right wing to make us appear irrelevant. Unable to make a difference in the wider world, comrades retreat into squabbles they believe they can win even if no one else has a clue what on earth they are going on about.

Internecine strife between and within groups on the left will continue to get worse as long as we fail to change the script of this tale and tell them either to get on the bus or go forth and multiple. So what do we do? We don't just say sloganise. Wherever you are, working or unemployed, you can organise collectively to resist the ruling class offensive as best you can. We have suffered many defeats and will suffer more if the ultra left have their wrecking ways.

Lives are being ruined - and ended - and we, who should lead the resistance, are continuing to fail since we put up with those who want to destroy us and our unity for their selfish ludicrous politics So we must rethink, regroup and redouble our efforts. Due to the wreckers, some may be rudderless in a storm but that is no excuse for failing to keep the boat afloat. Our trade union movement, the oldest in the world, remains the largest voluntary organisation in UK civil society by a country mile. We are not weak. We are not powerless. We need not be ineffective.

We have just got to sort out the ridiculous sects and the fantasists who divide us.

Trots throw toys out of pram over pay consultation

UNISON is beginning a consultation process of its members subject to local government pay and conditions on the employers final offer of 1%. This is following a meeting of UNISON elected lay NJC representatives on Monday.

It’s not at all surprising that the middle class, self proclaimed revolutionary hero of Skidrow-on-Sea, has attacked those he doesn’t agree with as being in some way weasel worded.. timid...feeble...pathetic, inadequate failures (as well as being secret Tories).

The fact that he publically discloses the voting record of a private and confidential internal union meeting on our negotiating stance regarding this final pay offer from employers is probably far more significant.

The ultra left in UNISON not only think they are right and everybody else is wrong on everything but they can say and do anything they want regardless of the interests of our union or our members.

Amazing isn’t it that these people actually think that they can “unite the left” around them?

Now, I doubt that many people in that meeting are that bothered about the childish name calling nor am I criticising anyone at the actual NJC meeting. Since it was actually one of the better meetings I have ever attended, since it was a honest, largely fraternal and constructive debate between lay representatives, who agreed that we were all in a rotten situation but did not all agree on the best way forward. These things happen from time to time and this is what union democracy is suppose to be all about. I respect the reasoned arguments and opinions of those who on this occasion I did not agree with.

What really bothers me is the contempt that the Ultra left extremists outside that meeting since have shown for the Union and ordinary rank and file union members. Demanding that the union preempts the consultation by recommending rejection and strike action. They clearly consider members to be sheep, incapable of any free or rational thought, who must be told what to do and think by the “Great Leaders”. Workers are too thick to know what is good for them so they need to be led by the nose into yet another “glorious defeat”.

Since such an attitude is so essentially divisive and self defeating then you are forced to conclude that the Ultra left could not give a toss about tackling low pay but are throwing their toys out of the pram because they see yet another opportunity for strike chasing and revolution going out of the window.

There is actually a real opportunity for the union to fight back and organise around pay cuts by using it to build density in the workplace to increase our real bargaining power. We also need to talk with and not talk down, to our members about politics and economics. We need to persuade them without lecturing or sloganising, that there is a viable alternative economic policy to austerity.

If we achieve this then we can deliver successful strike action on pay. This will not happen overnight nor will it happen at all if we treat our members as mere cannon fodder.  Or if we try and force them into taking action that they may not believe in at this stage just to satisfy the warped beliefs of a tiny, tiny minority.

This tiny minority really don’t want action to bring about a decent pay offer they just want strike after strike after strike to bring about the fantasy Trotsky idyl of permanent revolution (yes they actually believe in this load of old nonsense).

There are many members who are not activists but are incredible loyal to the union and if the union recommends action they will support it instinctively almost without question. They do so not just out of collective solidarity but because they trust the union to only promise something it can actually deliver. If we play games with that trust then the next time we ask them for support on something we can deliver on then the answer is going to be NO.

Miserablist's moaning that no one listerns to them

Do young people really, really like this music? Or have I turned into my Dad?

Apologies to those who haven't a clue what this post is really on about :)

Eastleigh by election result and the 0.15%ers (aka Useless Lazy Trots)

Eastleigh By Election Turnout was 52.7%, down from 69.3% at the 2010 general election. Results in full:

Mike Thornton (Liberal Democrat) 13,342 (32.06%, -14.48%)

Diane James (UKIP) 11,571 (27.80%, +24.20%)

Maria Hutchings (Conservative) 10,559 (25.37%, -13.96%)

John O'Farrell (Labour) 4,088 (9.82%, +0.22%)
Danny Stupple (Independent) 768 (1.85%, +1.56%)

Dr Iain Maclennan (National Health Action Party) 392 (0.94%)

Ray Hall (Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party) 235 (0.56%)

Kevin Milburn (Christian Party) 163 (0.39%)

Howling Laud Hope (Monster Raving Loony Party) 136 (0.33%)

Jim Duggan (Peace Party) 128 (0.31%)

David Bishop (Elvis Loves Pets) 72 (0.17%)

Michael Walters (English Democrats) 70 (0.17%, -0.30%)

Daz Procter (Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts) 62 (0.15%) aka Useless Lazy Trots Party

Colin Bex (Wessex Regionalist) 30 (0.07%)

UPDATE: Check out Uncle Joe's "cut and paste" in comments below. Hilarious.

A Modest Proposal on Cults, Trots, Socialist Unity, the Great Day and LaLa-ism

Since this is the season of goodwill to all I checked out the Socialist Unity website to see the latest brother and sisterhood back stabbing, infighting, petty point scoring, abuse and general hatred. I was not disappointed. The reader comments are just amazing.

While the SWP are busy as usual ritually expelling “traitors” in advance of their annual conference, I was surprised at the post by SU editor Andy Newman  “THE “ALLIANCE FOR WORKERS LIBERTY” – THE DYNAMICS OF A MALIGNANT CULT

I must admit to wondering why Andy has picked on the AWL? Who in my perhaps limited contact so far, have not appeared to be as narrow and dogmatic as the other various Heinz 57 Trotskyite/Anarchist sects?  However, I think that this is actually all just a bit of a red herring (no pun intended).

Since surely all of the “ultra left” are by definition going to be in some form of a cult since they all profess to be “revolutionaries”.  If you think the world is so horrible you need revolutionary change, then you are going to have to have some sort of tight discipline and control to try and bring it about?

The real problem is not that they are “cults” or that they are “revolutionaries”.  Good luck to them if that is what they believe (dare I say, it’s a free country!). The real problem is that they think that by their actions they can bring about “the Revolution” in this country sometime soon.

How on earth can anyone honestly think there any practical likelihood of there being any sort of a revolution in this country?

Now, I want radical change in our society. But all my adult life I have seen articles and posters advertising meetings that proclaim the “great day of the revolution” is just around the corner. What complete and utter rubbish.

The idea that if the unions were just more militant, organised more demos, occupied some phone box and took more strike action, then the masses would come to their senses and storm Buckingham Place is just fantasy and indulgent politics. There was more chance of the Mayan prophesies happening.

Since 2007 there has been an open goal due to the economic crisis and there is not the slightest interest whatsoever in revolutionary class politics. 

This is not about the “politics”. I am a fully paid up believer in reformism, parliamentary democracy, rule of law, equality in all aspects, strong trade unions and a genuine mixed economy. Yet I will work with anyone who may completely disagree with me in the long run but will sees the sense in unity to bring about common and achievable immediate goals.

There cannot in my view be any unity with those who think that their primary purpose is to bring about something (the Great Day) that is silly, ridiculous and laughable. Everything they do is driven by this obsession. So we cannot trust them nor their many and competing “Fronts”. We also cannot work with those who will do what they are told by their central committees regardless of what they believe in or were elected to do.   

My father believed that communism in this country was inevitable, but he thought it would not happen in his lifetime nor for many generations. In the meanwhile he would support the Labour Party and work with others such as the Communist Party of the time, in the interests of working class people.  While they and others may believe in revolution, they are realistic about the prospects and will not sell out the interests of working people to satisfy nonsensical dogma.

So my New Year 2012 Modest Proposal is - we can have a socialist unity of sorts.  But not with LaLa-ism

Trotski finishes 16th (but still beats TUSC)

Ivan Antonovich Trotski from Belarus finished 16th in the London 2012 Olympics 20k walking road race. Mind you he still did better than the TUSC in the British local elections in May.

:)

Hat tip Ali G.

More Key Facts about the LGPS 2014 (and Too Hot Ta Trot)

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More key facts from UNISON about the the new proposed Local Government Pension scheme (LGPS 2014).

• 90% of members willpay the same or less contributions as now

All pensionable service before 1 April 2014will retain a Normal Pension Age of 65

• Most part-time workers and those with actual pensionable earnings between £15,801 and £21,000 will pay less in LGPS 2014
• Over 55% of local government workers work part-time


Only those earning over £43,001 will pay more


They make up just 4% of LGPS members
• 95.6% members earn less than £43,000 - the point at which contributions increase


The LGPS 2014 will for many members deliver a better pension than LGPS 2008, especially for those with less than 20 – 25 years of membership
• But the average length of membership in the scheme is just 7 years, so most members will do better in LGPS 2014

• From 1 April 2014 the Normal Pension Age (NPA) will be at least 65 and will then increase in line with the State Pension Age – which is set to rise to 68 between 2044 and 2046.
• The existing Rule of 85 protections will remain. Members aged 55 or over at 1 April 2012 will be protected by an underpin, which ensures that those people will be no worse off as a result of these changes. Under the proposals there are no plans to remove the pension protection for those made redundant from age 55

• Those who have to work longer will get a bigger pension because they will be paying contributions – and benefitting from employer contributions for longer
• Because all earnings will be pensionable – including non-contractual overtime and additional hours for part-time workers – members will have bigger pensions than now
• Most UNISON members not in the LGPS give cost and low pay as the reason. The "50/50 option" will help them to join

I note that the blogging Miserabilist in Chief, Jon of the Rogers (failed ultra left candidate for London regional convener and General Secretary) has been having a pop at me over this post. Now of course he misrepresents what I have said (I do accept that some non trots do think we could have got a better deal - amazing but true) but since he also makes a series of blatant untruths about the impact of CPI, survivor benefits, the stability of the LGPS, accrual etc etc I would hope by now that very few people paid any attention to his whining and whinging.

He again attacks our staff which is unacceptable especially since as a NEC member he is suppose to be their employer. He also shows his ignorance of the difference between a guaranteed public sector pension scheme and a private sector scheme.

So desperate are they to continue with their calls for general strikes and student union toytown revolutionary politics they want to destroy a perfectly good pension scheme.

The bottom line is he and the other Miserablists support the continuation of a discriminative pension scheme which penalises low paid women workers and benefits senior management and Chief Executive Officers. Nuf said.  (Hat tip Mel for Youtube video)

LGPS 2014: The Future of the British Sovereign Wealth Fund?

Yesterday there was an announcement that the trade unions, the LGA and the Government had come to an agreement on new proposals for the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in 2014.

If you are not in the LGPS bear with me, since this is an important issue.  The LGPS has assets worth over £145 billion and collectively is the biggest pension fund in the UK and the 4th biggest in the world. It is a major shareholder in Britain and the world economy. Arguably it is the British equivalent of a Sovereign wealth fund. Over 4 million Brits are members of the LGPS with 1.6 million active members in England and Wales alone.

Why I understand that there are a lot of people who have genuine fears and concerns about these proposals there is also a lot of old nonsense being put out by the usual suspects who should know better and are just scaremongering.

I'll use a comment in a post I did yesterday from the "we don't care how good this offer is we just want to go on strike all the time to bring about the revolution" brigade to illustrate what I think about the proposals.

I will say this is early days and once we have been properly briefed on the offer and given time for it to sink in I will probably post again. Please note that is my own summary and interpretation and no-ones else's.

Q. Are we paying more?
A. No, average contribution remains at 6.5% gross.  Some part time workers may well pay even less. Those earning under £43,000 per year will pay the same while those who earn more will pay a little extra but after tax relief even those who earn over £150,000 will still pay less than 7% net. At long last if you have financial problems you will be able to reduce your contributions by 50% (with reduced benefits) until things improve rather than just pulling out.

Q. Are we getting less out?
A. No, the majority of members will get more out of LGPS 2014 than the deal in 2008. The accrual rates is far better. It is also a more valuable and better scheme. Especially for the low paid. For too long we have allowed a small number of very high earners to milk our pension scheme for their own benefit. For the first time workers will also build their pensions on non contractual overtime and allowances. A real improvement to those who rely on such money.

Q. Are we working longer?
A. Yes, in line with state pension age. Many of our members earn so little that they will not be able to retire without the state pension in any case. Remember we're living longer. It's supposed to be a good thing. In return we get a world class guaranteed pension scheme. There is also a 10 year protection. There also may be scope for members to "downsize" when they are older into less stressful and demanding jobs under Career Average than Final Salary

In many ways this is unfinished business from 2008. There was no agreement reached back then about future cost sharing over longevity. It had to be sorted sooner or later. Final Salary was always unfair to the mass of our members when compared with a decent Career Average scheme. We also never could agree with the need to modernise, get meaningful member representation and consider merger to deal with the 101 different ways that the financial services industry rips us off (i.e 101 separate LGPS funds).

What I really hope is that LGPS 2014 can be an an affordable and sustainable model for pension schemes that the millions and millions of public and private sector workers who don't have any access to such security in old age.  If we don't get such a model established in the private sector then the public sector schemes will always remain vulnerable.

What happens next? We ballot. Let the members decide.

Letter from a new union bureaucrat to those he left behind

Guest post from Comrade Eitingon. "Dear John's Labour blog. This letter (see scans left - double click to bring up detail) was recently sent to all members of a trade union branch.

I was surprised to read that it was from its branch secretary, who announced that since his substantive job had been privatised by the Council and he would now not be able to have paid facility time off to carry out his union functions, he was giving up his job and joining a trade union as a full time official.

Now, I happen to think that it is a good idea that a trade union recruits from its lay membership but this branch secretary is a supporter of the ultra left sect SPEW, who has constantly attacked such "unelected" full time trade union officials as "bureaucrats".  Yet he gives up being a lay rep to become a unelected full time official? What is wrong doing a worthwhile job while being a normal shop steward?

Also a trade union rep should be there to protect and defend their members and if a service is being privatised then members need their union rep even more than ever. Surely the union rep should follow the members in order to defend and not just leave them in the lurch?

Did you try and leave your members and get a bureaucrats job when

your job was privatised John?

Finally I understand that this strike ballot he called on his first day as a full time union bureaucrat had to be withdrawn - because he messed up the paperwork.

Yours Nahum Eitingon".

UPDATE: Onay Kasab has claimed that he sent this letter. Check comments.

UnisonActive take on defeat of London trots

Check out UnisonActive report : "UNISON London Region's existing leadership team, led by Convenor Gloria Hanson, saw off an attempt by the SWP and its sympathisers to take over at yesterday's Regional Council AGM. This is the seventh victory in a row for London grass root union activists who soundly defeated the challengers at the ballot box.

UNISON President Eleanor Smith was a keynote speaker together with Labour Party candidate for Mayor, Ken Livingstone. A motion attacking Boris and supporting Ken and Labour Assembly members in the election in May was passed unanimously. Motions calling for "Secure and Affordable Housing" and "Why income equality at work matters to everyone" were passed and prioritised as regional motions for National Delegate Conference.

Welcome Back Big Bad Mikey :)

Welcome back to Newham blogging Big Bad Mikey. I always knew that you could not leave me and close your blog. I am so sorry that Dud and Pete upset you so much and I am glad you have returned to the fold.  I am sure that you will appreciate the above "You say goodbye and I say Hello" clip :)

Protecting Your Pension from Tory Dummies

Well done to Barnet Local Government branch and UNISON for commissioning an independent report on the threat to pensions and the likely huge cost to Council taxpayers from Tory policies. Local and national.

First Actuarial LLP warn that the Tory led government plans to increase contributions to the Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) by up to 50% could cause many council workers to leave. They will simply not be able to afford it anymore, especially after years of no pay rises, tax increases (and high inflation).

While Tory "easyjet" Barnet Council are trying to outsource nearly all its services.  This will result in even less active members of the scheme.

The government is considering getting rid of Labour's "Fair Deal" for pensions and banning Council workers who are outsourced from being in the LGPS at all.

What this collapse in scheme membership could mean locally is that the pension cash flow in Barnet Council will move from being £22.9 million per year in the black to being £25 million in the red! With fewer contributors to the pension this could double the fund deficit. This will also mess up the investment strategy and make the scheme pull out of equities and pursue a low growth policy. Which will make funding even worse.

Barnet has already had to pick up a bill for £1.4 million in June this year after a private contractor went bust. More outsourcing, more risk to the scheme.

Barnet is of course a rabid Tory borough but all Councils potentially, face huge potential financial problems from these policies. If the Government goes ahead and forces pension contributions to rise by a half and the outsourcing of services and workers continues, this will dramatically increase the risk and cost of the pension fund (to Council taxpayers).

The LGPS protects millions of ordinary working people from extreme poverty in old age. The Tories, locally and nationally, risk destroying it.

(BTW shame that someone did not check the facts and even used this report to attack their own union! not that I'm surprised...)

A Spewful of Lies and Bile

An email was sent out to various London branches this week, full of anti-union bile as well as complete and utter lies, by a former UNISON NEC member (see left) who had resigned after only one meeting. 

These people only want to rule or ruin.  If they cannot rule then they will wreck and split and then go off in yet another childish and pointless huff.  They think that if they keep repeating their newspeak big lies then us proles will believe them. 

We are not all mugs.  No-one, surely by now believes a word that the ultra left toy town revolutionaries SPEW puts out.  They have lost out in an internal dispute within the union.  Their attitude is that they are bigger and better than the union and its democratically elected lay bodies.  They want to rubbish the union in front of the employers at the very same time that the union is trying desperately to defend members.  Sorry, but in my view those who have left don't give a damn about their members only what it will do to further the revolution. 

I was brought up to believe that when you join a union you put the interests of the union and members first and you leave your Party card at home.  Shame on all of them for not doing this.

(Personally Capacity as always).

"Battle of Cable Street" Veteran Urges Support for TUC March on 26th

Max Levitas who marched against the fascists in Cable Street in 1936 joined our Labour Party and Trade Union stall in Stratford on Saturday to pledge support for the TUC March for an Alternative on the 26th.

Max (picture) is now 95 and was a Communist Party Councillor in Whitechapel from 1945 to 1958. At Cable Street he marched alongside Phil Piratin (on of the first Communist MP's and father of one of my former UNISON branch secretaries).

He still comes shopping to Stratford twice a month and takes the 25 bus here and back.

I have seen Max speak at events in the past and once even knocked on his door while canvassing for Labour.  He is still proud to be a Communist but says he would usually vote for Labour if there was not a real Communist standing and is pleased to see the Labour Party out campaigning.  He will be there on the TUC March on the 26th.

Max warned us about the threat to the Labour Movement from those who have their own agenda and will try their best to wreck and split us.  Of course, I haven't a clue who he means?