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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a Card Vote..Where is the B............y Card?

You had to feel for the Unite union delegate at yesterdays TUC conference at Brighton, who lost his or her voting card. This was during the close vote on whether or not to support national strikes over public pay.

This meant that the motion was lost despite Unite supporting it. Their joint General Secretary, Tony Woodley, admitted to the BBC that this was so but claimed that it matters “not a jot” since many unions were planning action anyway.

It is the stuff of nightmares to most delegates at trade union or political conferences I think. It is even worse than walking into the conference hall in the morning and realising you have left the card at your hotel. Or the bell goes and you find the delegation leader holding the card has popped to the loo.

(BBC Picture of the Day - Alistair Darling at today’s conference)

Christian Bigots Alliance

I received an email via this blog the other day from the creator of a “take-off” site attacking the fundamentalist Political Party in Newham, the (so called) Christian Peoples Alliance (CPA).

This site is modelled on the MegaMosqueNoThanks which was set up by the CPA to attack a proposal to build a large mosque in Newham.

Now, I have had a dig at the CPA, especially their Megalomaniac leader, anti gay, anti pro-choice, Alan Craig, who makes Sarah Palin seem like Richard Dawkins. I think that Alan Craig’s behaviour over the mosque has been an utter disgrace and he has deliberately pandered to islamophobic sentiment to try and gain political support.

The parody site does make some very serious allegations against the CPA and its connection with the BNP, which I don’t totally share, but I do understand why many people in Newham equate the CPA with the BNP.

The CPA appear to have had to change their website design due to the spoof site and on the “real” CPA website, their “Poll” on the building of the mosque now shows a vast majority of people in favour of it. Well...

Newham is in East London, and it is a great place to live and work. It is also one of the most diverse communities in London. There are of course problems, nowhere is perfect. The deliberate stoking up of fear and ignorance by Craig does nothing for Newham. All he has done is to offend and cause division.

This morning I heard a very good “Thought for Day” on the “Today Programme” Radio 4 by Clifford Longley, about US Protestant fundamentalism and the phrase “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars’ and unto God the things that are Gods’”. Now I am probably the last person to quote scriptures but frankly it would be better for everyone if Craig kept his views for his pulpit rather than trying to ignite modern day crusades.

European Health & Safety Week - Monday 20 October to Friday 24th

This year’s theme is “risk assessments”. This is a superb campaigning issue for trade union safety reps to take up in their workplace.

Despite clear legal (and common sense) requirements of organisations to have sufficient and suitable risk assessments to protect their employees from significant risks, it is I think pretty clear that many organisations to do not comply. They may indeed have detailed "assessments" filed on shelves, but in practice many workers will have no idea whatsoever that they are there and that they are supposed to be protected by these “assessments”.

The Wednesday of European Health & Safety week is always “national inspection day” in UNISON. So on this day all safety reps are encouraged to inspect their workplace. As part of the inspection process also audit all the site risk assessments.

In all probability you will find that in many cases either they do not exist, are out of date or otherwise inadequate. In that case bring it up with your local safety committee and if that does not result in an appropriate response make an official complaint to the Health and Safety Executive or the Local authority environmental health department.

It is always a failure if you have to involve outside agencies over internal safety issues. But sometimes it is necessary. Make sure that you can demonstrate to the enforcement agencies that you have tried your up most to work with your employer to get them to comply before having to complain to the HSE or EHO.

But if it is necessary do not hesitate to complain, because your members lives are at risk.

Making a difference – real “joined up” local politics

This morning I helped out as a volunteer at our local MP, Lyn Brown's, latest “Community development” meeting (a.k.a “Coffee morning”)in the super swish new headquarters for East Thames Housing in Stratford, London, E15.

Lyn holds a series of meetings across her constituency each month and invites local residents to come and meet her to discuss local issues and their concerns. In the past she has held joint meetings with various local agencies such as the Police Safer Neighbourhood teams to discuss anti-social behaviour. Today she had a joint meeting with the local NHS Trust in Newham. The Chief Executive, Melanie Walker, attended together with a team, who did free MOT health checks for every one who turned up (height, weight, blood pressure and blood sugar levels).

As befitting in my position as a senior Party activist I had a suitable vital and important job to do i.e looking after the teas and coffee.

Local Councillors for the ward also helped out and took case work.

The meeting was packed from beginning to end and everyone I spoke to felt it was a really good event. Meeting your community leaders face to face around a table and having the opportunity to question and challenge your local MP, councillors and the boss of your local health services is what local politics should be all about.

Being East Enders, most people had quite a lot to say and didn’t hold back, but the atmosphere was absolutely very constructive and positive. “Trust the people”comrades!

I think that on the whole most people were very appreciative of the improvement in health services in Newham. There are still problems with, for example, GP surgeries who take too long to answer the phone and don’t offer appointments early enough. But people did accept that things were getting better.

Interestingly, many of the complaints were about the relative high cost of using the borough gyms and swimming pools. Residents wanted to become healthier but felt they could not afford it. Isn’t prevention better (and cheaper) than cure?

I came away from this event on a real high. This is “joined up” politics in action.

Maybe next time Lyn could meet residents with the CEOs and staff of the major housing organisations in West Ham?

Just a thought.

What Jo Brand wants for her local area?

The Fight Back Starts Here: A Ward Meeting with Labour AM John Biggs

While earlier today I attended an excellent London regional committee meeting of UNISON Labour Link, this evening I’ve just come back from my first Labour Party meeting following the summer break.

We first had a short local ward business meeting (introductions, minutes, Councillor reports, Q&A - a very good debate on a Capital Stewardship motion) then had a joint meeting (North and South) with our sister Forest Gate ward with local London Assembly member John Biggs (City & East) as our guest speaker.

Despite all the “doom and gloom” put about by commentators and so-called “critical friends” about the state of the Party, this particular meeting was well attended, constructive and very positive. We had brand new Party members (one a UNISON trade union activist!) turn up and while we made jokes at the current problems facing the government I feel that there is in no way any sense that we are facing “utter disaster”. There are very difficult economic problems to face but it is just nonsensical to claim that all is lost.

John was “on form” and gave not only a lively speech but a thoughtful analysis of why Labour lost the London mayor elections, the current state of the Party, life under Boris and what we need to do in order to win next time.

For example John pointed out that we need to think why in a era of general rising prosperity in London (until recently) many voters who turned their backs on Labour felt left out of this prosperity, even though by most indicators their standard of living had indeed improved.

He warned us that Boris is by nature a very right wing Tory but he knows that London is on the whole quite a “moderate” electorate and therefore he will try to pretend he is something else.

Boris has said that he will review the “London Plan” and it is feared that he will redirect resources away from areas of extreme poverty and need into the Tory suburbs. Tory Council leaders on the night of the election were openly boasting that with the election of Boris “their time has come”.

Boris has promised to freeze the GLA Council tax contribution. Eventually this can only be paid for by reducing Police numbers, fire and transport services. But Labour needs to be mindful that for many of our traditional voters that Council tax increases are painful, especially if you are on a fixed income.

Boris has promised to do away with the infamous London “bendy buses”. Despite the fact that they are very efficient at transporting people into central London and back during rush hour. Instead of possibly redesigning “bendy buses” to take account of complaints (too crowded, too much fare evasion) Boris is going to scrap them and supposedly replace them with modern day Routemasters (the open door – jump on/jump off buses). This is not going to happen since no form of Routemasters will ever comply with disability access laws.

Boris has control now over planning and has declared that he will let London Councils build what they want to allow. The fear is that Tory boroughs will simply stop building homes for social housing. There are so many people in housing need in London, if this happens where will they live? Instead of affordable “homes for rent”, Boris wants “shared ownership” housing. However, the income needed to buy these homes he sets at about £50,000 per year. This is far out of reach for many Londoners.

I put a question to John that the Government should take back the investment powers over housing that the Mayor was recently given, since Boris has already proved himself incapable of exercising these powers properly (going against the advice of his professional planners etc). John, I suppose quite sensibly, pointed out that Boris was democratically elected and that we will just have to live with this fact for the next 4 years.

Finally, John pointed out that we should not underestimate Boris. To many non-political Londoners, he comes over as a “cheeky chappie”, witty and charming. Boris has a lot of goodwill at the moment. I think that John meant by this that Labour needs to build its organisation and work hard to win and not just rely on Boris pressing the self destruct button.

There again, with Boris, you never know, that might just happen!

Fingers and toes!

“No Dividend Appropriation without Representation”

You don’t have to be raving loony left to get out of your tree at this recent report by the TUC “Pension Watch”.

They have found by examining the published accounts that the average top 100 directors of UK companies will look forward to a pension of £201,700 a year from pension pots that average £3 million each.

This is annual pensions, not salary.

The real issue is not just the size of these payments in itself (although many would disagree) to me the issue is that this is a stonking 25 times the average workplace pension that ordinary workers receive (£8,100 v. £201,700).

Not only that, while many large firms decide that they cannot “afford” to pay what is called “Defined Benefit” (or DB - pensions to its ordinary workers which are much less riskier and much fairer than the new “Defined Contribution” or DC), 76% of director schemes are still on safer “Defined Benefit” (DB)!

The shame gets even worse. Where you have directors on DC schemes, the top directors receive average pension contributions equivalent to 21% of their salaries, while the average for ordinary workers is only 6.5%. This unfairness is difficult (for me anyway) to really get your head around but remember that not only are the directors already paid far more than their average employees but the multiple that their pension contributions are paid is also far, far higher (unlike income tax?)

Finally, while we find that nearly all public and private pensions schemes for ordinary mortals now have a retirement age of 65, the majority of schemes allow directors to retire at 60!

This stinks! I can accept that there will always be in a capitalist society significant differentials in wages and benefits. But the scale of these differentials in pensions is just wrong and surely destructive. Do we really want to live in such a society where there is such blatant unfairness? Surely even those who do not believe in social justice will realise the drip, drip damage that such inequality will result in?

The irony is of course that the ordinary workers who get such a raw deal when compared to their directors are actually the real “owners” of these companies via their pensions and insurance policies. If these owners were able to exercise their rights of ownership would such abuses continue?

So do we need to dress up as native Indians, invade the London Stock exchange and then throw annual reports into Limehouse harbour under the call for “No Dividend Appropriation without Representation”?

68th top “left of centre” blog

Found out that “John’s Labour blog” has come 68th in the top 100 of “left of centre” blogs as reported on Tory boy Iain Dale site.

“These blogs were voted for by the readers of more than 75 UK political blogs and the readers of TOTAL POLITICS Magazine.

Each person voted for their top ten blogs. Their favourite was awarded ten points, their second favourite nine points and so on down to one point. 1,142 people cast a vote”.

Not sure whether this is good or bad? Being in the bottom 50 isn’t something to shout about I suppose, but it is surprisingly quite pleasing to read that some people have obviously found this blog interesting enough to vote for.

I didn’t actually vote in the poll but I suppose my top 10 would be:-

1. Labourhome (7th)
2. Dave Part (10th)
3. Labour & Capital (63rd)
4. Bloggers4Labour (21st)
5. Normblog (20th)
6. Harry Place (12th)
7. Hope Sen (2nd)
8. Rupa Haq (44th)
9. Luke’s blog (6th)
10. TIGMOO (not listed I think?)

However, to be frank, sad person that I am, I enjoy reading most blogs from time to time.

Congratulations to everyone, especially the top 3 Tom, Hopi and S&M!

This is the full list: -

1. Tom Harris MP2. Hopi Sen3. Stumbling & Mumbling4. Liberal Conspiracy5. Recess Monkey6. Luke Akehurst7. LabourHome8. Tom Watson MP9. Ministry of Truth10. Dave's Part11. Sadie's Tavern12. Harry's Place13. SNP Tactical Voting14. Socialist Unity15. Paul Linford16. Labour Outlook17. A Very Public Sociologist18. Obsolete19. Ordovicius20. Normblog21. Bloggers4Labour22. Theo's Blog23. Kezia Dugdale's Soapbox24. Beau Bo D'Or25. Bob Piper26. Forgesian Thinking27. The Daily (Maybe)28. Stuart King29. Lenin's Tomb30. Pickled Politics31. Never Trust a Hippy32. Chris Paul's Labour of Love33. Bloggerheads34. Chicken Yoghurt35. Bethan Jenkins AM36. Conor's Commentary37. John McDonnell MP38. Neil Clark39. Adam Price MP40. Snowflake541. Jane's the One42. Progress43. Two Doctors44. Rupa Huq45. The F Word46. Fat Man on a Keyboard47. Cynical Dragon48. Scots and Independent49. Byrne Baby Byrne50. Rachel North London51. Drink Soaked Trots52. Adam Smith was a Socialist53. Tory Troll54. Penny Red55. Kevin Maguire56. Nosemonkey's Eutopia57. Five Chinese Crackers58. Grimmer up North59. Guerilla Welsh Fare60. Welsh Ramblings61. Kerron Cross62. Three Score Years & Ten63. Labour and Capital64. Mars Hill65. Wheeler's Website66. Indygal67. Tartan Hero68. John's Labour Blog69. Charlie Beckett70. Ian Bone71. Another Green World72. Harpymarx73. Blog Menai74. Kerry McCarthy MP75. The Exile76. New Direction77. Lancaster Unity78. Modernity79. Organised Rage80. Madam Miaow Says...81. Calum Cashley82. Clairwil83. Councillor Terry Kelly84. Stroppy Blog85. Shiraz Socialist86. Labour Left Forum87. Amlwch to Magor88. Defend the NHS89. Jon's Union Blog90. Paul Flynn MP91. Scribo Ergo Sum92. Andrew Burns's Really Bad Blog93. Don Paskini94. Oliver Kamm95. Bid for Freedom96. Macuaid97. Reading Marx's Capital with David Harvey98. Sit Down Man99. Tygerland100. Jon Worth Euroblog

Blears Blocks Boris

Good news. A few weeks ago I posted on Mayor Boris caving in to his “pals” in Tory Council Hammersmith & Fulham. Despite the objections of his professional GLA planners, Boris gave permission for a major housing scheme to be built with no social housing in it.

Many fear that the Tories are gerrymandering and trying to stop social housing being built in the Councils they control.

Now Communities Secretary Minister Hazel Blears has intervened by ordering Hammersmith & Fulham Council to withdraw permission while she considers what can be done.

Fingers crossed!

(Picture of Hazel at last years UNISON Labour Link forum)