Letter about Tory political infidelities

My apologies for not posting this link sooner - an excellent post from Labour & Capital about the investment fund managers Fidelity, who unlike all other major British managers are significant financial contributors to the Conservative Party. Over £320,000 in the last three years.

Tom P (the author) and his wife, have an ISA investment account with them. He has written this letter asking why they are donating money to the Tories, are they planning future contributions and do they disclose these donations when they bid for business in Conservative controlled Council pension fund authorities?

I would argue that they should disclose this fact before bidding for business for any local authority not just ones with a Tory majority? A Council pension scheme panel will probably still have Tory members present even if they do not control the authority. I am sure that they will not want to be put in a potentially compromising position. Also, vulnerable without any such declaration of interest by Fidelity would be any Council officers present or their professional advisors if they themselves are Conservative Party members or supporters? Actually I’m sure this information will be gratefully received in the Labour heartlands.

Anyone who has an investment or personal pension plan with Fidelity should consider sending the same letter. Also check to see if your insurance or pension scheme employ Fidelity as their fund managers. If so, you should consider writing to your plan administrators or trustees asking them about the wisdom of employing such partisan managers.

Tom and wife point out that if Fidelity continues to give money to the Tories they will move their savings. However, usual health warnings about taking appropriate advice before you actually change any such investments apply.

A letter to Fidelity

The letter below has gone in the post this morning. My wife and I have been with Fidelity for about 6 years now. We have an ISA we set up to help pay off our mortgage, so we were intending to stick with them for the long run. We are therefore both really p***ed off that we may have to go through the hassle of changing fund manager because the one we chose prioritises making partisan political donations over the concerns of its customers. I hope they reply saying they are going to halt the donations. But if they won't stop doing it we feel we have no option but to move our savings elsewhere.

Fidelity International,
Oakhill House,
130 Tonbridge Road,
Hildenborough,
Tonbridge,
Kent TN11 9DZ

My account Number: XXX My Adviser: XXXI

I was concerned to learn from the Electoral Commission website that Fidelity International has donated £95,000 to the Conservative Party so far during 2007. I am not a Conservative Party supporter, but I do not believe that a fund management business like Fidelity should make donations to any political party.

As you are no doubt aware most institutional investors will vote against resolutions at companies’ AGMs where authority is sought to make party political donations. Indeed party political donations are rare amongst listed companies these days.

It is therefore somewhat surprising to see an institutional investor make such donations itself.

As a long-standing Fidelity customer I am very concerned by these donations. I would therefore be grateful if you could answer the follow questions.

1. What is the rationale for making donations to the Conservative Party?

2. Does Fidelity intend to make similar party political donations in future?

3. Does Fidelity disclose these donations when this is a potential conflict of interest (ie when presenting to Conservative-controlled local authority pension funds)?

I also wish to make clear that if Fidelity does intend to continue making partisan political donations I am likely to move my family’s savings to another fund manager.

Yours sincerely

PFI firm run by Tory Peer fund SWP "Fighting Unions"

Just when you thought that fact could not get any stranger than fiction with regard to the Diss-respect farrago, it appears that their general secretary, John Rees (pre-split) accepted a dubious $10,000 company cheque from a Dubai construction company, Khansahed Civil Engineering.

This is owned by Interserve, who are a leading Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contractor, chaired by Tory Peer and former Head of the John Major’s policy unit, Lord Norman Blackwell.

It was I suppose pretty amazing was that this cheque had been previously been sent back by Galloway (unheard of him to refuse money!). However, apparently he suspected a “sting" by an undercover reporter.

The money was later used by Rees to cover a £5,000 loss made by the SWP/Respect backed “Organising for a Fighting Trade Union”. There may have been nothing “illegal” about this payment but it is particularly shameful of the SWP who have constantly jeered at the Labour Party and other democractic political partes who have dug themselves into big holes over funding. For them to now deliberately take money via a company cheque made out by a foreign construction company on behalf of trade unions? A company who in the UK openly makes money out of privatising British schools and hospitals?

I wonder what it is like to be a member of the SWP at this time. Their activist's excuse may be that they are “Lions led by Donkeys” but in reality are they just “Sheep being led to Slaughter”?

Another Hat tip to Ted Jeory at the East London Advertiser

“A bad day for Rights at Work”

No Justice for agency workers I’m afraid. The European Union “Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council” (also known for some reason as Europe’s Social Affairs council) met yesterday. I posted on Wednesday about media reports that a deal had been struck.

Apparently enough member states had agreed to finally give agency workers in the EU employment rights and to put an end to a two tier “terms and conditions” workforce. Agency staff would be on broadly similar terms as permanent staff. There is majority voting on this issue.

However in a classic EU fudge – the decision has been put off again (I quote) “Having in mind the fact that this proposal is still very recent, as well as the sensitive nature of these directives to some member states and the importance of exploring all attempts to reach an agreement as large as possible before final decision, the Council agreed that the best option at this moment was to postpone a decision, in order to further pursue the dialogue”.

Naturally TUC General Secretary, Brendon Barber is furious “'This is a bad day for rights at work across Europe, but especially in the UK.'

It is very disappointing that there has been no progress on the agency working Directive. There is real anger among unions today that the UK Government played the pivotal role in blocking progress today on this modest measure to improve workplace justice. '

Contrary to business scare-mongering, this Directive would not stop agencies providing temporary staff to employers who need them. What it would have done was both make it more difficult for employers to undercut wages and conditions and help slow the growth of a two-tier workforce. But unions will not give up the campaign to deliver justice for agency workers......"

The next Council meeting is not until I think February next year. The T&G Unite have a good site on this matter.

OK we need to think on the next step forward. Agency workers rights is still a "Warwick agreement" and Labour Party manifesto commitment. How to lobby and pressure the government to do the decent thing next year?

"Arrogant superior young toffs...”

“The arrogant, superior young toffs who lead the Conservative Party, neither of whom have done a serious day's work in their life... David Cameron was executive at Carlton Television which lost over a billion pounds while he was there. I take no lectures from that young man about business competence. ...Nor can we blame Gordon Brown for the sub-prime disaster in the United States of America or the recklessness of bankers.”

This was my crimbo present come early from Paul Myners on BBC1 Question Time
last week. According to today's Professional Pensions the Tories have now made an official complaint about Paul’s comments. He is the Chair of the government’s “Personal Accounts Delivery Body” PADB.

This is actually one of the most important governmental bodies you have never heard of – hopefully, soon up to 10 million Brits will be members of this “National pension scheme” which for the first time will oblige firms to contribute to their workers pension future (there are the usual “get out” clauses). The PADB should result in millions of people being brought out of poverty in retirement.

This is a really vital body and I suspect (hope) that while Paul was a probably a little unwise in his comments, as Chair of the PADB it will soon blow over. Part of his charm is that he is a bit of a maverick at times.

To me it shows how sensitive the Tories are to the justifiable accusation about Cameron that he is a “out of touch toff”

Hopefully, at worse Paul will just have his knuckles rapped. He is probably one of the most respected businessman of our time - chairman of the Guardian Media Group, the Low Pay Commission (which sets the minimum wage and advises the government on its implementation), and chair of the trustees at the Tate; a member of the Court of Directors of the Bank of England. Previously been Chairman of Marks & Spencer, and an Executive Director at NatWest; Trustee of the Brownite think tank The Smith Institute and has been dubbed "Gordon Brown's favourite businessman"; He is also part of the management team put together by US private equity house JC Flowers which is bidding to take control of Northern Rock.

He has written to the Tories pointing out he appeared on the programme in a personal capacity.He wrote: "I should also add that you make no reference in your letter to two other occasions on the same programme when I was deeply critical of government policy and actions. No mention was made of PADA or pensions in my description or during the programme."

I have meet Paul at various pension conferences and reminded him that Tower Hamlets pension scheme had sacked him (he was head of Gartmore Fund Managers at the time) in the past. Which he took in good part and described that occasion as the “worse day of his life” (joke). Of course being a staffside observer and not allowed to be a full voting member of the scheme I was able to blame everyone else for this decision!

NB - I thought Labour Employment & Welfare Minister Caroline Flint was very,very good at QT

"LOGO 'NO GO' FOR UNISON'S JOHN"

Hat tip to East London Advertiser Deputy Editor, Ted Jeory, in his “Trial by Jeory” Column last week.

I couldn’t possibly comment.

“ALTHOUGH better now, Tower Hamlets council's press office has, over the years, developed a well-earned reputation for control-freakery.

But judging from the following tale, they're 'little angels' compared to their cousins at Newham.

John Gray, a Tower Hamlets Unison official who lives in West Ham, runs an excellent and thoughtful blog site. Last Thursday, he posted a comment attacking Newham council for sacking his union colleague and Respect member Michael Gavan.

To illustrate the comment, he included an image of Newham council's extremely dull logo.

Within days, Ian Tompkins, Newham's communications chief, fired John the following email: "We've noticed on your blog site there is a reproduction of our council logo. I cannot trace any request from you for permission to use this so would ask that you remove it immediately."

In his reply, John expressed "surprise that senior managers spend time scouring the blogsphere on the lookout for errant Newham council logos."

He added: "I am not sure that this is a good use of my council tax.

"I have replaced the offending logo with a photo taken from a public place. I assume that this is OK? If not please let me know."

As they say, good work fella!

Just to update about Michael - there will be a hearing at Stratford Employment Tribunal on December 14 to hear UNISON solicitors argue for what is called “interim relief” for Michael. What this hearing will be asked to decide is “whether or not” there is a case to answer, that Michael was sacked due to his trade union activities. If the tribunal decide there is - then Newham Council will have to continue to pay his wages until there is a full tribunal hearing on the matter. This could be a year or so.

Justice for Agency Workers?

Good to read in the Times On-line today that exploited agency workers may finally be given some protection under an EU directive and no longer treated as 3rd class citizens.

Details are a little unclear but I suspect that “The Times” is scaremongering as usual over the suggestion that agency workers will be getting “full rights” after only 6 weeks. It takes a year for permanent staff to be given protection from unfair dismissal so I can’t see agency staff being given greater rights than permanent.

I hope that it is intended to put an end to a two tier “terms and conditions” workforce and that agency staff should be on “broadly similar” terms as permanent staff. I cannot for the life of me work out why anyone apart from agency bosses would be opposed to this? We gave part time and long term directly employed temps the same rights years ago. The world did not end. The harsh facts of the matter are that many agency workers are treated like dirt by their employers and something simply needs to be done about it.

Also, we see the CBI are up to their usual dirty tricks by claiming that up to “250,000” workers will lose their jobs if this directive is implemented! Yeah, just like the millions of jobs they forecast will be lost if there was a minimum wage.

It is, to say the least, “disappointing” that the Labour government is apparently trying to delay the changes. I can understand why they feel that they have to keep up this “Fairness not Favours” balancing act on employment issues. Labour wants (and needs) the support of “middle England” as well as the unions. However, this is 100% a fundamental fairness and social justice issue. Many agency jobs are not on real “temporary” assignments. They are just cheap and easy to get rid of. Millions of vulnerable British workers having to put up with low wages, no employment tenure and no sickness or pension benefits. The exchequer is being robbed out of billions in lost PAYE taxation and national insurance payments from bogus so-called self employment. In Tower Hamlets Council most of the housing caretakers are agency staff on minimum wage, no sick pay, no overtime rates, no employment protection and of course, no pensions. How on earth can anyone survive on £5.52 per hour in inner London?

To be fair to the government they say they are committed to bringing in rights for agency workers (its also I think an outstanding commitment from the Warwick agreement?) but say they “are worried” that the current proposals are badly written and could harm employment. I think these worries are overdone and exaggerated.

Maybe this is a vision thing for Gordon? It is also electorally clear “red water” that we ought to exploit for all its worth. The Tories are of course opposed to any such change.

Millions of agency workers could see tangible real benefits from a Labour government – pounds in their pocket, money if they become ill and money towards a pension for when they grow old. Genuine, real short term employment needs and flexibility will not suffer and no doubt there will still remain a large agency sector.

However what we can get rid of is 19th century Dickensian employment practices that have no place in a 21st century that should be led by principals of fairness and social justice (and BTW – a century of Labour Party governments with clear majorities?)

Unionlearn – TUC Education on-line

Tonight, despite a bad case of the lurgy I’ve started (a bit late) the TUC Pension “On-Line” training course. I haven’t really done any on-line education beforehand so I am interested to see how I get on. I have always been fan of traditional learning techniques (“face to face” classes). However, things change and I probably wouldn’t have the time to do such a course if it wasn’t on line.

The course has two parts. There is firstly a compulsory module on “Getting ready for E-Learning”. Which will bring us up to speed on how to “learn on the net” Then the Pensions course will start in January. There seems a good mix of other students and my email inbox has been quite busy. The course is being run by the Merseyside Trade Union Education Unit.

There is a range of information about trade union courses (traditional classroom, distance learning and “online”) at the unionlearn website.

Many trade union activists including myself see workplace education and in particular union learning representatives as being key to the future of the movement. This is what even HR thinks of learning reps potential.

I’ll see how things pan out. So far so good.

Fanning the Flames of Hatred?

Before we "tut, tut" too loudly about the morons in Sudan who have locked up a volunteer teacher for allowing a teddy bear to be called “Mohammed”, we shouldn’t forget we have more than our own share of home-grown religious berks. I’m not this time referring to Galloway and his Respect Renewal but rather to the new Christian Fundamentalist website “MegaMosqueNoThanks”. This site appears to be run by a certain Newham Councillor, Alan Craig, from the “Christian Peoples Alliance” (CPA). His name and telephone number is on the press release.

In one way I am reluctant to pay any attention to such ignorant and puerile nonsense. However, it’s hard to do nothing and stomach people in your own neighbourhood who simply want to inflame age old religious prejudices by trying to divide our communities.

Religion and race is a sensitive issue in Newham which is probably the most ethically mixed borough in Britain. However, by and large, despite problems, I think that communities in Newham interact and get on much better than elsewhere in Britain, especially when compared to some northern cities. This hasn’t happened by chance, but due to hard work by many local political, community and faith leaders. This is what makes these opportunistic attacks on the proposed mosque so despicable.

The simple facts of the matter are this, a Muslim religious group (Tablighi Jammaat) has been trying for some time to build a large mosque (seating for 12,000 - a little bigger than the East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets) on an isolated Brownfield site in West Ham, Newham.

As well as Craig, a number of others including the British National Party (BNP) have been deliberately provoking tension by spreading lies and misinformation about the mosque.

For example, Craig claims that even more Muslims will move into the area because of the mosque (untrue, but so what?), others have wrongly claimed that £100million of public money will be used to fund the mosque, reports have linked the mosque with the Olympics and deliberately exaggerating the size of the mosque.

There are claims and inferences that in some way Tablighi Jammaat supports terrorism and that there is a “threat” to the Olympic site?

This is irresponsible gutter rabble rousing at its worse.

Sensible decent Christians such as the Newham Christian Socialists Movement CSM have attacked Craig over this issue.

Does anyone seriously imagine that Craig would have opposed the building of similarly sized Christian evangelistic church? No, I don’t either. I really do not know how anyone who calls themselves a religious leader can be so upset and concerned about another faith building a religious centre, regardless of its size? Good luck to them if they can fill it! would be the response of most reasonable people.

By all means you can express your views, but send out press releases, to post videos of your self on YouTube, to pay for and set up a web site on the subject? There are plenty enough real issues of concern in Newham such as poverty, poor housing and gun/knife crime. Why is all of this of secondary interest to the building of some mosque?

I am afraid that I am left with the distinct impression that Craig is using his own followers, his electors and the media purely to stoke up his own ego and sense of importance. He is a squalid, grubby, tin pot politician who will do anything regardless of any cost in order to chase cheap headlines and notoriety.

Now, come to think of it, perhaps this post is about Galloway......?

World Aids Day - Edinburgh CRO

UNISON has a good web page on what the trade unions are doing to mark this day. Check out the links with the TUC and the UNISON guide to “Working with HIV and AIDS”.

In the mid 1980’s I was a welfare rights volunteer at the Edinburgh “Citizen Rights Office” (CRO). Edinburgh at the time was one of the first British cities to have significant number numbers of heterosexual HIV and AIDS sufferers. The majority of them had been exposed to HIV by sharing needles while injecting heroin. This was just a few years after the time and the place where the film “Trainspotting” was supposed to have been set.

At the time the CRO was very proud to have won the right for people who had HIV to have extra social security benefits in order for them to be able to afford a better diet and kept their weight up. This had been argued successfully at DHSS appeals to have made it less likely that they would go on to develop AIDS. I don't know if this practice is still accepted?

Times have moved on and now the CRO in Edinburgh is closed and due to medical advances HIV/AIDS, although very serious, is not what we thought at the time to be almost an automatic death sentence.

Still, I often wonder how many of the young people (I was in my early 20's at the time and most of them were much younger than me) I saw while at the CRO are still alive?

Things are not by any means perfect in the UK with regards to medical provision for HIV/AIDS. But it would be good if in another 20 years (or rather sooner!) everyone in the world with HIV/AIDS had access to decent health care and life saving medication.

I suppose this is the real point about today.

Safety of Front Line Housing Officers

Excellent article and survey in yesterday’s “Inside Housing” by Simon Brandon on the risks from violence at work and occupational stress for front line housing staff.

Working in “social housing” (ugly word, wish they could think of something else) has changed dramatically in recent years. The article has housing officers pointing out that they are now expected to be “social workers.....environmental health officers, plain clothes police officer and agony aunts”. None of which is in any job description. 73% have feared for their safety while at work.

I remember another inside housing survey in 2005 where 11% of staff reported that they had been held against their will in resident's homes.

I think that one of the biggest challenges is that most housing organisations are now really trying to tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB). For years “neighbour nuisance “was sweep under the carpet as the sector complained about either the lack of effective legal powers or not having any co-operation with the Police.

However, “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.” St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582). The government have now responded with an avalanche of ASB legislation and reorganised local policing. If you tackle this behaviour then the risk to housing staff has to be reassessed. Not only is the threat of being thumped (or worse) increased but often staff are expected to carry out this time intensive role without adequate extra resources.

Specific problems were identified such as inadequate sharing of information about known violent residents. Staff report that they are often alone in a room with someone whose background they know nothing about. They later find out that this person has a history of violent conduct. Also the massive increase in the size of many housing associations is also blamed for “driving a wedge between bosses and their housing officers”.

I think (surprise, surprise) that the role of the union safety representatives is central to addressing these problems. We need to make sure that suitable and sufficient safety risk assessments (including the risk of occupational stress) are carried out and regularly reviewed. Regular safety inspections of workplaces are undertaken, particularly of receptions and interview rooms. Accidents and incidents must be reported and properly investigated. There should be formal joint safety committee meetings with union reps and management. Problems and issues should be sorted out locally whenever possible.

The safety management system of an organisation must be constantly reviewed and audited. An organisation may have the best policies and procedures, however if they are not actually being implmented in practice and are just gathering dust on a shelf (or nowadays a computer hard disk) then they are just a waste of time.

The unions also have a responsibility to make sure that we recruit enough, train and properly support our safety reps.

One positive outcome of the survey was that a majority of staff (70%) reported that they enjoyed their work (despite low pay). I think we all recognise that the overwhelming majority of residents are not a threat, it is only a small minority of “vulnerable, desperate, manipulate or unwell people and they can often be very unpredictable”.