Local Government Pension Scheme is safe and substainable

Check out this response to amongst the daftest report ever by a right wing think tank.

It is more than a shame that organisations such as the Centre for PolicyStudies (CPS) feel they have to temper their reasoned attacks on the financial services industry for ripping off the Local Government Pension scheme (LGPS) with such bizarre sectarian silliness.

The Local Government Pension Scheme unlike all the other public PAYG funds has collectively some £200 billion of assets and face liabilities over a 60 years or more time frame. There is no crisis.

If we were not being cheated by the financial service industry there would be no real affordability issues with the LGPS. If we also did not have such a weird and broken yardstick of measuring LGPS liabilities then nearly all our funds will be in surplus.

Why don't we open the LGPS to all UK workers including the self-employed? Everyone deserves a decent pension and unless you are rich nearly all alternatives to a defined benefit pension scheme just will not deliver.
 
"Dismissing the Centre for Policy Studies report on the local government pensions scheme (LGPS).......,

UNISON head of pensions Glyn Jenkins said:

“UNISON fundamentally disagrees with the conclusions of this report. The LGPS is both safe and sustainable – being funded both by contributions from scheme members, employers and investment income.

“Scheme investments generate a significant portion of the income so the taxpayer is not paying the full increase in employer contributions. The report misses the fundamental point that if the cost of benefits increases, that increase is shared with scheme members.

“Scheme benefits did not improve in April 2014 as the report claims. It was fully costed to be lower in value, and the build up rate is higher now because retirement age has increased.

“It is not that the current LGPS is unsustainable that has caused past service deficits to build up.  Messing around with current benefits will do nothing to reduce the deficits caused by employers paying in too little or taking contribution holidays in the past.

“UNISON takes the issues on costs and governance seriously and has around 200 trained members on fund boards who push for greater transparency on scheme costs.

“This doom and gloom report implies that there will be no recovery in UK investments and that yields will never recover, whereas we know that although there are always ups and downs, the indicators are that markets will recover.

“It is over prudent assumptions on growth that is killing the pensions future for workers all over the UK, and giving rise to the fiction that adequate pensions are unaffordable.”

"It's the economy, stupid" Sunday Night Live 31 Jan 2016

Sunday Night Live: It's the economy, stupid 5pm, 31st Jan 2016                    View this email in your browser

It’s the economy, stupid As applicable now as it was during the 92 Democrat US Presidential election campaign, ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ remains a de facto slogan of our times.   With continuing financial spasms occurring across all major markets amidst fears that China is heading into a recession; the world economy facing the prospect of another 2008-style crisis; and criticisms that the Bank of England are sleepwalking into another financial meltdown despite Osborne’s talk of 2016 being ‘mission critical’ for the UK economy, this Sunday Night Live session with key economic figures and ahead of the March budget, will explore: How realistic is it to reduce economic inequality in a financialised global economy where national governments are limited?  What are the disruptive consequences of technology plus implications for inequities in the wider Labour market including persistent wage stagnation? Can governments create balanced and sustainable economies?  What exactly is New Economics? So come join next week’s Sunday Night Live session following a week when the Labour Party has announced a series of public events to broaden the debate around economics in Britain, and inspire members of the public to talk about economic ideas in the hope they will inform Labour policy, plus a Fabian Society conference speech by Corbyn who placed addressing economic inequality at the heart of Labour’s renewal.   We look forward to seeing you! Sunday Night Live Team Register HERE for free

‘UNISON means? Confidence, learning and not getting a pay cut’

Hat tip to UNISON efocus on this article about top union activist (Newham resident & my branch member) Mitsy Harman-Russell.

"Careworker Mitsy tells her story
 

“I first got involved with UNISON six years ago when they cut our pay from £9 per hour to £6.

“I work with elderly people who have substance abuse problems, dementia, and mental health problems.

“A lot of the residents we’re getting now are highly dependent. Before, we were encouraging people to go out to school, maybe getting them in to classes so that they felt independent, but now the atmosphere is lower.

“Sometimes my shifts are spent with service users: doing personal care, providing lunch, doing their shopping, or sometimes I’m in the office booking appointments with GPs or taking people to hospital, and sometimes I do a sleeping in shift.

“Zero-hour contracts are a problem. It means the service users don’t know the staff that are coming in, because the staff change a lot. Service users are affected. There are people there to support them, it’s just that they don’t know them. They have to deal with strangers more often.

“Some of them have complained, because they have a specific way they want things done and it’s not being done, or they’re being asked about something that the regular staff know exactly how to do.

“The manager has created a list with details of exactly what each resident wants, but the problem is not everybody reads it; they don’t always have time. This creates more work for the permanent staff. There is always more work to do.

“I really like working with people with dementia, but you don’t know what you’re going to experience with each person.

“I care about health and safety at work. A lot of the time working with people with dementia, even though you like working with the individuals, they don’t realise what’s going on and they can slap or hit you. It’s an everyday occurrence, I’m trying to encourage my colleagues that when that happens we need to record it.

“Personally, being involved with UNISON has built my confidence. It’s made me more vocal when I think something needs changing. I like putting the members’ voices forward and getting things changed.

“I enjoy my job, and I also love learning. Since I’ve been working I’ve got a couple of degrees and a masters – a degree in health service management, and one in health promotion. I’ve also got a masters in health promotion, and I’m currently doing a diploma in nursing, but I won’t leave my job.

“Six years ago my branch fought the pay cut and won, and recently we fought for the Living Wage and won.

“I love my UNISON branch, it’s part of the reason I haven’t left my job even as it’s got harder.”

Mitsy Harmon-Russell

(Good luck to Mitsy and all UNISON delegates to Black members conference which is taking place in Llandudno this weekend) 

"Five Million Conversations (How Labour lost an election & rediscovered its roots)"

The picture is from last Thursday's social at Custom House branch, West Ham Labour where the guest speaker was BBC political reporter, Iain Watson.  He spoke about his new book on the failure of the Labour Party to win the last general election "Five Million conversations - How Labour Lost an election and rediscovered its roots". 

This is of course a very topical (and to me personally painful) subject that must be addressed by anyone interested in politics. The meeting was chaired by local member UNISON activist, Kim Silver. 

Iain began by speaking about the official Labour Party report by Margaret Beckett, which will finally be published later today. There will be no surprises in the report he thinks. Labour lost due to 4 main reasons:-

1.  Labour never took on the "myth" that they caused the financial crash. 2. Ed Miliband was not seen as strong a leader as David Cameron. 3. Fear of SNP and finally - 4. The most challenging, Labours "lack of  connection" problem with some voters over immigration and benefits.

Ironically Labour was not seen as too left wing, since most of the most popular policies in the campaign were those of the "left".

He doesn't think that Labour Party staff were to blame but surely having 106 "attack" seats and no "defensive" seats was wrong. The Tories had 50 "defensive" and 50 "attack" with far, far more resources. They had on the ground information, since they had surveyed every single parliamentary constituency. Labour thought they could take 3 seats that they didn't even win in 1997.

The pre election attempted coup against Ed Miliband by some Labour MPs didn't help.

Despite being Scottish, the scale of the SNP victory in Scotland surprised him. In the past Labour used to argue successfully against the SNP that "divorce is a expensive business". Now it is clear that many Scottish voters simply don't care about this cost. There has been a "mood change".

He thought Ed was a decent candidate but made mistakes. The Labour campaign was brittle and too protective of him.

After the election and during the leadership elections, Iain remember the trade union GMB hustings in  Dublin. Jeremy Corbyn was the only candidate who was clearly against the Tories benefits cap, Liz was for it but the other candidates did not give convincing answers.

In the Q&A I asked whether with hindsight, Labour was never going to win in 2014. There had only been a single one term government in 100 years and that was in 1974 after the 3 day week. The British electorate do not like one term governments and will nearly always give them the benefit of the doubt.

Also, since I, like so many others, were so absolutely wrong about the outcome of the Labour leadership campaign, we should be humble about any predictions that Corbyn will not win.

Iain responded by saying that the opinion polls actually had Labour in the lead before the election and that it seemed at the time that maybe they could have won under Ed in a minority government with the SNP. The Labour Party faces an enormous challenge to win in 2020.  Boundary changes, the Tories are reducing Parliamentary Short money, the trade union bill will have an impact on its funding and Scotland will remain a problem.

Another question was why does Jeremy Corbyn have such a bad press? Iain thought he was honest and straight talking but the trouble is that he answers other peoples agendas and not his own. For example, what happened over his comments about "shot to kill" and a recent survey that found only 1:20 of people thought that Jeremy was "Anti-Austerity".  When the Tories were under pressure over the Trade Union Bill, Jeremy was side tracked by questions on Trident.

Next was on the threat from UKIP to Labour who came 2nd in 120 consistencies. Iain agreed this was a threat that has not gone away and that Labour in the past did not have a "core vote strategy".

Ali G thought that many CLP Labour campaigns (unlike Ilford north) last year were poorly run. We need to appeal to the "better off" voters. Iain agreed that he was surprised that the Labour policies such as on free childcare for all was hardly mentioned.

Sue asked how will Labour win back Scotland? Iain said that it would be really difficult. Possibly now that the SNP government will be given the power to raise all income tax rates, if they don't then the claim they are on the left and "anti-austerity " will be undermined and they will be open to attack.

This was an excellent evening. Iain was a great speaker and will try to make himself available to plug his book at all different events. Many thanks for the Custom House councillors and ward members for organising this social. 

Keep Calm and Join a Trade Union

This is a modified version of a flyer that I sent out this morning. Up and down the country union branches are sending similar messages to staff.

"The more of us in the union the stronger we become, the greater the protection you will receive and the better the deal we will obtain".

The modern day snowman

I couldn't resist sharing this brilliant photo. Hat Tip Franz Bee

Sadiq Khan for London Mayor "SuperSaturday" in Canning Town & Forest Gate

Picture collage from today's "Super Saturday" campaign in support of Sadiq Khan as London Mayor. Around 20 activists turned up to work with West Ham MP, Lyn Brown, in Canning Town in the morning and a similar number in the afternoon in Forest Gate.

Greater London Assembly (GLA) candidates, Unmesh Desai and Tom Copley, also turned up to talk to residents. After the Forest Gate session, canvassers revived themselves from the cold weather with hot coffee (or cold beers) at the Forest Gate Tavern.

It was great to see new members to the Party take part and campaign for Labour alongside existing activists. The London Mayor and GLA election in May will be by proportional representation so every vote will count. It will be absolutely vital that we get the Labour vote out in Newham.

Monitoring Employees' Use of the Internet

Be warned!!!! I have made a number of urgent messages to union members over the years asking them to remove a post on social media about their employer or work colleagues.

"Is the right to respect for private life and correspondence breached if employers monitor employees' personal communications at work?

No, subject to reasonableness/proportionality, according to the European Court of Human Rights in Barbulescu v Romania.

Mr Barbulescu was an engineer who used his business Yahoo Messenger account to send and receive personal messages with his fiancee and his brother, including messages about his health and sex life. This was in breach of his employment contract. His employer, discovering this accidentally, dismissed him. Mr Barbulescu argued that the Rumanian courts should have excluded all evidence of his personal communications on the grounds it infringed his Convention rights to privacy.

The European Court of Human Rights held that Article 8 (right to respect for private life and correspondence) was engaged, but that the Rumanian courts were entitled to look at that evidence in deciding whether the dismissal was justified. The European Court was swayed by the fact that the Romanian court judgment did not reveal the precise content of the personal messages, but only the fact that they were personal messages. The Court recognised the need for employers to be able to verify that employees are completing professional tasks during working hours".

hat tip Daniel Barnett

Angela Rayner new Shadow Minister for Pensions

Congratulations to Angela Rayner MP for Ashton-under-Lyne who has been appointed as Shadow Minister for Pensions.

Angie is a former home care worker and UNISON branch secretary.

It is fantastic that we have a shadow pension minister who knows first hand how important decent pensions are for working people. 

I warn the financial services industry that she will not stand any of their nonsense.

I have met up with Angie, her husband Mark (UNISON pension rep) and their lovely children at various UNISON conferences over the years.

Angela was featured in a Guardian article a couple of years ago and I posted at the time that  "Angela typifies the very best of UNISON and how it can grow its activists".

"Apology to Dave Prentis"

"Apology from Jon Rogers to Dave Prentis

In December of last year, prior to the conclusion of the election for the post of General Secretary of Unison, I made various comments about Dave Prentis, General Secretary of Unison, who has now been re-elected for a further term, on social media and in other forums. 

I accept fully that Mr Prentis has "clean hands" in relation to the meeting of Unison staff in the Greater London Region which took place on 21 October 2015. I wish to make clear that I have no grounds to believe that Mr Prentis sanctioned or condoned any misuse of Unison staff resources at that meeting. 

Further, I also wish to make clear that Mr Prentis has done nothing, to my knowledge, that warrants his disqualification as a candidate or gives grounds for the election to be re-run.

By making this statement, I apologise unreservedly to Mr Prentis for the concern and distress I have caused him and for any negative impact my words may have had upon his or Unison’s reputation.

I am happy to confirm that I have provided Mr Prentis with undertakings which he has accepted that I shall make no statements which are at variance with this apology.

I recognise that Unison’s interests are best served by everyone giving their full support to the investigation currently being undertaken by Roger Mackenzie, Unison’s Assistant General Secretary into the circumstances surrounding the 21 October meeting. I recognise that there should be confidentiality around that investigation and, whilst it is ongoing, I have confirmed that I will refrain from commenting on the investigation or from circulating any material concerning these matters. No one should prejudge the outcome of the investigation.  Mr Mackenzie must be allowed to conclude the investigation without further speculation, interference or distraction.

I am also happy to confirm that I will abide by and respect the outcome of the investigation as required by Unison’s Rule Book as determined by the members at Conference"