Vote for London: Vote Ken

Ken sets out his vision for London in tonight's election broadcast. Check it out. I think that Ken comes over really well? So does London!

UNISON Local Government Service Group Executive Elections (London region)

Following my last post on the UNISON London Health SGE elections (in support of Layla, Bill and Rachel). Here is a copy of a flyer that Irene and I are sending out for the London Local Government SGE elections.

In the picture left Irene is seen receiving a prize for being the top trade union recruiter for 2007 with Gordon. You all know by now what I look like.

If you are a member of UNISON Local Government in London, please copy this flyer and email to any other members you know. UNISON branch funds and distribution lists should not be used. Ballot papers are due to be sent out tomorrow to members home addresses.

Irene is a traditional Labour Party supporter and is a care assistant in Newham. She is standing against a SP candidate. While I am standing against the incumbent United left candidate (David Eggmore) as well as a high profile Socialist Party candidate (Glenn Kelly) and Oreleo Melvin Du Cann. My candidacy has in the recent past caused discord amongst the comrades. Shame.

UNISON: URGENT INFORMATION PLEASE READ: UNISON

Vote Irene Stacey and John Gray for the UNISON London Elections April 2008

Dear UNISON Member

You will shortly get ballot papers from UNISON for important London wide union elections. These ballot papers will be sent to you at home.

The elections are important since the people who you elect will directly represent you and all other London UNISON members nationally.

Irene Stacey has worked in schools and home care for over 20 years and is Newham Branch Secretary. She has represented London in UNISON for many years. John Gray is a housing estate officer in Tower Hamlets, branch health & safety officer and the elected London UNISON Finance Convenor.

Irene and John are standing as UNISON London representatives because they believe it is time for change. They want London to send representatives to National UNISON who put ordinary members interests at heart and put members concerns first.

They also want the union to listen to London and help us fight low pay, privatisation, poor health & safety, and inequality.

Irene and John are also UNISON Labour Link members. They want to use our influence in the Labour Party to work for and promote UNISON aims and values. Protest or gesture politics are a luxury we cannot afford.

VOTE FOR IRENE AND JOHN!

X IRENE STACEY (FEMALE SEAT)

X JOHN GRAY (GENERAL SEAT)

UNISON Health Service Group Executive Elections (London region)

As well as the GLA and other Council elections taking place across the land, there are also some fairly important UNISON internal elections taking place.

UNISON is divided into 7 Service Groups. These elections are to elect regional members of each National Service Group Executive (SGE).

In London Region there are only two contested elections for regional delegates. For Health and Local Government service groups. Here is the election statement for the Health centre left slate that I am supporting. I will post next the Local Government slate (guess who is standing in that election!).

If you are a member of UNISON in London, please copy these statements and email or photocopy to any other members you know. UNISON branch funds and distribution lists should not be used for such purposes. Ballot papers are due to be sent out tomorrow to members home addresses. Enjoy!

"United Left" SWP and SP Trotskyite candidates are standing against them. Nuf said?


LAYLA RUMBLE, BILL BEEKOO AND RACHEL VOLLER
ALL HERE FOR YOU ON THE HEALTH SERVICE GROUP EXECUTIVE

Dear Colleague,

As you will be aware we are currently in the nomination period for the Service Group Executive (SGE) elections. We are writing to you to seek your branch’s nomination for the three positions available to represent the Greater London Region.

As your existing SGE representatives we have worked hard together as a team to speak up for our members. Sometimes speaking up is not easy but we have always aimed to put UNISON members first and not political agendas as some representatives are known to do. We have consistently fought to use UNISON budgets in the best interests of our membership, to serve all of our members not just the more vocal, and have particularly spoken up on behalf of our low paid members.

Bill Beekoo (General seat)
Bill works for Havering PCT and has been an SGE representative for 6 years bringing with him a vast amount of experience in negotiating and organising. He is a firm believer that NHS workers should be well rewarded for the hard work that they do. He has contributed to debates on pay, pensions and privatisation and if re-elected would be particularly interested in making sure low paid contract workers received Agenda for Change in ALL Trusts in London.

Layla Rumble (Low paid seat)
Layla works as a Maternity Health Care Assistant and is also training to be a midwife. She is passionate about representing our lower paid workers as they are integral to the smooth functioning of the NHS. Layla is also keen to see more opportunities for our members to increase their skills and prospects through the Knowledge and Skills framework and if re-elected would make this a priority.

Rachel Voller (Women’s seat)
Rachel works as a midwife at UCLH. She has served on the SGE for 4 years and has fought hard for recognition by the government of the high standards of work provided by our NHS workers. Rachel is keen to see an end to privatisation and outsourcing of services within the NHS and if re-elected would make it a priority to address ways in which Trusts can be supported to bring their facilities back in house.

We hope that you will re-nominate us so that we can continue with the work we have been doing and ensure that the voices of London members are heard at the highest levels. There is important work to be done especially with changes afoot under the Darzi report and we feel that with our experience and motives for standing we are the best placed to serve you.

Bill, Layla and Rachel.

Green Street Labour Stall for Ken & John

Just a quick post about today’s West Ham CLP stall in the famous Green Street, Forest Gate, London.

Our existing City & East London Assembly member John Biggs (left) was there, as was our local MP Lyn Brown MP.

Local councillors and Labour Party activists from across the borough turned up to spend a hour or so talking to local people about the GLA elections. The Labour Party Free balloon’s once again went down very well!

Without being in the slightest sense complacent and recognising the Newham is a pretty solid Labour borough, we seem to be getting very positive reception from local residents. Dare I say an even much better response than in the 2006 local elections?

Still, getting the vote out will be key. Every Newham vote will matter.

Corporate Killing Law in force from Tomorrow.

From tomorrow (Sunday) the new Corporate Manslaughter and Cooperate Homicide Act 2007 comes into force.

The TUC broadly welcome the Act. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber is quoted as saying “'Too often in the past senior executives have been taken an overly casual approach towards the safety of their employees...... 'Although unions would have preferred to see the new law make individual company directors personally liable for safety breaches at work and for it to have introduced tougher penalties against employers found guilty of workplace safety crimes, we hope the Corporate Manslaughter Act will see the start of a change in the safety culture at the top of the UK's companies and organisations.

'The new law would be tougher if it were accompanied by a new legal health and safety duty on directors and a requirement on companies to report annually on their workplace safety culture.'

The safety pressure group “Centre for Corporate Accountability” (CCA) are disappointed that the Act will only apply to deaths that occur after April 5 (and all the evidence supporting the allegation must also take place after this date). This will mean that it will probably be at least until 2010 before any large organisation charged. In the meantime the old common law offence of manslaughter will still of course apply.

By co-incidence “Inside Housing” leads on a Police corporate manslaughter investigation into the high profile housing association “Notting Hill” and House builders, Barrets, following the death of 26 year old Elouise Littlewood. She died in her brand new “shared ownership” home from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning only 2 months after moving in.

It is also only 3 weeks before this years Workers Memorial Day.

Happy 90th Birthday RAF

A few days late, but belated Happy 90th Birthday to our Royal Air Force.

Many members of my family have served in the RAF and I still have friends and relatives who proudly serve their country in the RAF.

I don't think that anyone can better summarise the contribution that the RAF has made to this country than Churchill's "Never was so much owed by so many many to so few".

The RAF still makes a vital contribution to the defence of this country.

Please consider donating to the Royal Air force Benevolent Fund

Labour “Out and About” in Forest Gate North

A quick report from the canvass teams out tonight in parts of Forest Gate, London for the GLA elections.

We had the support of our Labour, West Ham MP Lyn Brown and City & East Assembly member, John Biggs (front Left).

Newham is traditionally one of the safest Labour boroughs in the country. Historically, in General and local elections, Newham CLP's East & West Ham will usually “export” Party activists to campaign in other parts of London and Essex, where there are marginal seats.

While the City and East assembly member will be re-elected by the traditional “1st past the post” system, the Mayor and London wide list members will be elected by PR.

What this means is that every single vote in London will count. So across the borough we will be actively campaigning and canvassing to maximise the vote for Ken, John and Labour.

The Real BNP – on Rape and Violence towards Women

Some commentators on this blog suggest that the BNP is not a nasty, thuggish, extremist fascist party. It is they claim, just a traditionally minded politicial Party that happens to be against immigration and has nothing to do with the Nazi's.

Well, Searchlight has exposed the BNP Number 2 candidate in the GLA elections, Nick Eriksen (and London BNP organiser) as someone who openly excuses rape and violence towards women. Please check out the link. The BNP reckon they will get at least 8% of the vote in the GLA election and if that it true (I hope and expect not), then Eriksen would have probably been elected for the BNP.

Eriksen claims that "rape is simply sex" and “Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors”. He also seems to think that it is acceptable for men to give their wives "a good slap!”

I don’t think that anybody makes the case that all people who may feel sympathetic to BNP arguments are supporters of rape or violence towards women. However, I think that this illustrates the widespread concern that many people do not understand or appreciate what the BNP is really about. Why it was formed, who are their leaders and what are their true aims?

The BNP is a National Socialist political party which is rooted in Nazism. This is the political philosophy of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler during the Second World War. Its political theory is alien and foreign to this country. The BNP is not a genuine democratic nor British Party.

If you have concerns about immigration then join a democratic British Political party and argue your case. Don’t support something that hides its true identity and pretends that it is something that it is not.

LGPS seminar on UNISON TV

You may recognise the 2nd speaker on the UNISON TV interview of delegates to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) seminar last week. Click on this link and then left click screen: headphones or speakers on.

Class Action at the TUC

Apologies to those who may have just choked over their beer and sandwiches at the thought of some sort of radical action taking place within our beloved Trades Union Congress.

However, yesterday, I attended a seminar at Congress House, organised by its Pensions officers for trade union pension fund trustees. The seminar was on whether or not British pension funds should be taking part in "Class Actions" court cases in the US.

In a nutshell, US securities class actions are were investors sue a company (which is listed on the US stock exchange – not only US based companies, but nowadays many large European companies) for given “misleading” or false information (or simply lying) that caused these investors or funds to lose money. Usually as a result of a fall in the share price of that company.

Some well known cases in recent years have been against Enron and WorldCom. There have also been high profile equal pay cases against that bad guy of the international trade union movement “Wal-Mart”

So far so good. If a British Pension fund lost money by paying over the odds for a US listed company, since its fund manager had been mislead by that company over the true fair price for its shares, then it is logical to assume that the pension fund could sue to recover this loss.

In Britain the legal system makes it very difficult to pursue such claims. In the Good Old US of A things are very, very different.

Here, lawyers can sue companies on a “no win no fee” basis and the rewards from such litigation are potentially huge. These lawyers earn a fixed percentage from successful claims which are often for hundreds of millions of dollars. Many of the most successful "Class Action" lawyers are now multi-millionaires.

Many people find the whole business “distasteful”. Not just trade unionists! Some pension fund advisers think that if you take part in such lawsuits, you are just “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul”. Since if you a sue a company and are successful, the lawyers take most of the money and the bill is actually paid by either the company or its insurance company in which you may also hold shares.

It is not helped by the rather sleazy image of “Class Action”. Over the years I have now attended at least 3 presentations by teams of US lawyers recommending that British pension funds get involved. The first team of US lawyers that I saw 5 years ago, are now apparently about to go to jail in the US on bribery convictions connected to "Class Actions". Apparently this firm also attempted to "bride" British trade unions with an offer of $10 million to allow them access to their member trustees.

I accept fully that the other US firms I have seen in the more recent past, and of course yesterday, are totally different from these “rotten apples”. Mark Willis, the US lawyer from Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll, who spoke at the seminar seemed pretty upfront and honest about the seedy side of his business.

Just because this is potentially a dirty business then this does not mean that in the UK we should be too sniffy about the whole process. Not only have lawyers in the past made huge amounts of money from class actions but US pension funds have also received back millions and millions of dollars. At the seminar, Caroline Goodman, the MD of the British company "Institutional Protection Services" (IPS) said that, on average, a pension fund with £500 million of equity and bonds should receive back £100, 000 per year from taking part in class actions. That is a lot of money. Imagine what the return would be on the whole of the LGPS scheme at £125 billion.

I will seek advice from my pension fund investment advisers and trade union. Of course, the governance argument is that pension fund contributors would ensure that their money is only invested in decent well run companies that would not face such legal action over such dishonesty.

No doubt there will have to be some sort of “due diligence” test but if there is no further financial risk to the fund (no win, no fee) I cannot see what on earth we have to lose? Except a little bit of our deficit chains?