"Out of Order" Outward - UNISON protest against Poverty Pay

The picture collage is from this morning's lively and colourful protest by low paid UNISON carers who work for registered Charity "Outward" (Part of Newlon Group) in North and East London.

Over 400 workers are employed by Outward to provide care and support to over 1000 clients with severe learning disabilities, older people, young people leaving care, mental health and autism spectrum conditions. Some of whom need 24 hour care.

Many of Outward workers already earn less than a living wage and the charity is proposing to cut pay even lower and increase their working week.

Parents of clients attended the protest and spoke about their fears for the quality of service for their children if the pay of carers was reduced even more.

Apart from the absolute moral argument there is a clear business case for workers to be paid at least a living wage from improvements in quality of care, sickness levels, recruitment costs and training budgets. The reputational risk to Outward and Newlon from employing staff in London on poverty pay rates is also clear.

This morning was the last day of consultation on proposed cuts to pay and conditions. I hope that Outward will listen to their workers.

Check out today's National UNISON press release.

Fob Off Amazon!

We’ve had an Amazon delivery!

"Hi John

After 4 months and over 59,000 signatures, Amazon has finally responded to the living wage petition that kickstarted Amazon Anonymous.

But Amazon is trying to fob us off. Click here to send an email telling them to try harder.

Amazon’s reply says that: "Permanent UK associates start at a minimum of £7.10 per hour increasing to a median of £8.00 per hour after 24 months…Additional benefits for permanent employees include private medical insurance, a company pension plan, life assurance, income protection and an employee discount."

Even ignoring the fact that £7.10 per hour is STILL under the UK living wage rate outside London, the real problem with this reply is the word “permanent”.

Amazon is trying to sidestep the small matter of tens of thousands of temporary contract workers to whom it pays poverty wages.

It’s simply not good enough.

Let’s show Amazon we’re not going to be fobbed off! Click below to tell Amazon's 'Employee Relations Department' what you think of their reply. We’ve included some template text but feel free to explain to Amazon in your own words:

Click here to tell Amazon to try harder

Thanks for all your support,

Amazon Anonymous"

(just to say that there is alternatives to Amazon - recently I bought online a DVD series box set which was cheaper than Amazon. The only way consumers can change corporate behaviour is to boycott thieves such as Amazon. You cannot engage or persuade such large private pirate companies who get off by robbing their workers).

UNISON Workers Memorial Day poster 2014

"Remember the dead and fight for the living" on 28 April 2014. Check out UNISON resource web page for the day.

"Care & Support workers deserve a Fair Deal, says UNISON"

Check out our branch protest this Friday 11th April 2014, 9-10am at Outward, Newlon House, 4 Daneland Walk, Hale Village, London, N17 9FE. This has been picked up by Inside Housing. 

Press release "Low paid workers who care for some of north and east London’s most vulnerable people will be demonstrating to demand a fair deal over pay.

Over 400 workers are employed by Outward to provide care and support to people with severe learning disabilities and Autism Spectrum conditions. Most earn below the London Living Wage. Their employer is proposing to cut pay, extend the working week and implement a restructure which staff say will make services less viable.

UNISON members are lobbying their management to protest against the proposed cuts and to demand a Living Wage* for all staff.

UNISON Housing Associations Branch Caseworker Nazan Sen said: “Staff at Outward are being paid below the Living Wage and took a pay cut in the last restructure less than three years ago. They do a hard job, which is a lifeline for those they support.”

“If people are not paid enough to live on they will get a job elsewhere. This will have a direct effect on quality of care for very vulnerable people.”

“The London Living Wage is not an extravagance, it is simply the minimum necessary for a dignified life and the increasing numbers of employers who pay it recognise the benefits it offers in improving staff morale and retention.”

Support worker Donna Shannon said: “My job means a lot to me, I can see the difference I make every day, but I can’t afford to work for less.”

The lobby will take place on Friday 11th April, 9-10am, at Outward’s management offices in Tottenham Hale.

For more information contact Josephine Grahl, UNISON Housing Associations Branch Outreach worker, on 020 7697 4030/4033 or info@unisonhablondon.org

London UNISON Labour Link AGM, Collins Review & GLA Mayor Selection

Last week there was the UNISON Greater London Labour Link AGM. This is our UNISON Labour Party supporting political fund for London. I was pleased to be re-elected unopposed as Chair of the committee.

We had a very good London Assembly report by UNISON member, Joanne McCartney AM (see left of collage) who briefed us amongst other things on the bizarre and contradictory "evidence" that Tory Mayor, Boris Johnson gave to the Assembly in favour of buying second hand German Police water cannon to deal with public order disturbances.

Apart from the usual AGM business of elections, minutes, finance report and work plan, we had a excellent debate on the Collins Review and its consequences for UNISON Labour Link.

Since UNISON has had for the last 20 years separate and voluntary, Labour Party and General Political funds, it is likely that we will be affected less than other affiliated unions by the Collins Review. In fact UNISON could become the largest trade union affiliate to the Labour Party.

The first big election test of the new arrangements could be the selection of the Labour Candidate to be London Mayor for 2016. While UNISON will have to ask all our existing Labour Link members to sign up as Party supporters in order for them to take part in this selection, this should be easier since they have already made a  conscious choice to support Labour than the other unions.

There are about 60,000 existing London UNISON Labour Link member who could be entitled to vote for the selection of a London Mayor candidate. Since there is one person, one vote - this means there could be more UNISON members voting than Party members in London.

There is a huge job of work for us to do in the next few years. While many affiliated trade unionists think that the Collins report was an unnecessary distraction, it is now clearly Party policy and we just have to get on with it.

Picture collage of AGM and top right is that of me with GMB, West & East Ham CLP Comrades and Ray Collins at the Special Labour Party Conference on March 1.

 Hat tip pics Gerard McGrath

My "last" Overview & Scrutiny Committee Meeting...

On the 25th March I went to the Newham Council Overview & Scrutiny (O&SC) Committee meeting at Newham Town Hall.

This is the last such meeting before many Council functions close down for "Purduh" due to the impending elections on May 22nd.

As a Newham Councillor I am a member of the O&SC because I am Vice Chair of the Housing Scrutiny Group.

I am re-standing as a Labour Candidate for West Ham ward (many thanks for the support of ward Party members in my reselection). So if it goes badly in May this could have been my last O&SC meeting.

Check out the publicly available agenda and minutes here.

There was some controversial items about the proposed closure of the Vicarage Lane "walk-in" medical centre and a planned 6% cut (Tory speak for NHS cuts is "over target"). Our local NHS budget is also planned to be "flat" (0%) for the next 2 years. This will mean that in real terms (after inflation and it was confirmed that the cost of health care rises faster than normal inflation) that the cuts to our local health services will be much, much worse than 6%.  So much for the Tory pledge that the NHS will be safe in their hands! 

Next item was the on the Britannia Village Medical practice. Representatives from NHS England confirmed that the lease on the practice will not be terminated early but it will remain under review when it does end.  

There was also an update on "NHS Health Check".

The final item was a written report and presentation by the Newham Council team who are implementing the national programme locally on "Troubled Families". The report was very positive about the teams efforts to turn around the lives of such families. This scheme was introduced following the riots in 2011. Councils are given money to give these families intensive support to change their lives.

I am very supportive of these initiatives but made the point that if families live in extreme poverty and overcrowded homes there is only so much that can be done.

I did ask whether any of the officers presenting this (very good) report had heard of the social housing pioneer, Octavia Hill? Sadly, they said they had not, but said they would look it up. I am sure they will.

I love history and find it fascinating that this new government initiative on "Troubled Families" mirrors very much the work by Octavia Hill  (see picture) more than 100 years ago.  She said that you cannot deal with people and their homes separately. I would of course add that you cannot ignore poverty either in that mix.

If the good folk of West Ham ward repeat what is in my view their very good judgement of 2010, I hope to be back in some Council scrutiny role after the elections in May.

Pension deficits and La La accounting

I have posted this comment on the "Inside Housing" website in response to this article on "deficits" in the Social Housing Pension Fund (SHPS).

"Hang on, the so called "deficit" in SHPS is mostly La La land accounting.  The "deficit" is based on the price of gilts which are at a 200 year low. It is a completely ludicrous way to measure liabilities and bears little relationship to any real deficits.

If you had to pay off your home mortgage by investing in gilts at current rates you would very soon be bankrupt and homeless. Why is your pension treated so differently?

Due to recent changes in the gilt market and good investment returns the SHPS deficit will now be probably hundreds of millions pounds less.  The irrational volatility of these "deficits" is a real concern for schemes and employers but the fault lies in the yardstick, not what it measures.

SHPS should be working with its stakeholders to take on the government and accounting bodies for their failure to do anything to defend modern sustainable funded defined benefit schemes from the "Alice in Wonderland" regulation it currently suffers from.

Don't keep cutting NHS workers Pay!

Picture of London NHS workers protesting about the announcement of the Tories latest public service pay cut.

Please make sure that everyone understands that any pay "offer" under the rate of inflation is a pay cut. 

Why is it when the rich in this country are getting, richer and richer, the Tories are cutting the pay, again and again, of those we want to look after us when we are sick?

"UNISON today described health secretary Jeremy Hunt's pay plan as "divisive, unfair and disingenuous", as NHS staff across the country took part in protests against it.

The day of protest on pay comes during Fair Pay Fortnight, and the union's head of health, Christina McAnea, writing for Labour List, pointed out that Mr Hunt is "will not even honour the recommendations of the independent pay review body to offer them [NHS staff] all a 1% increase to hourly rates".

Ms McAnea says that the recommended 1% was "woefully inadequate" after "years of below-inflation pay awards", but for staff in England, Mr Hunt "has restricted the 1% offer to those at the top of their pay bands" and it will come as a cash sum.

Over a third of non-medical NHS staff are paid below £21,000 and most health service staff have had their pay cut by 8-12% between 2010 and 2013 in real terms".

hat tip Captain Swing

Gregg McClymont MP: Rethinking Pensions Conference 2014

Picture of Labour Shadow Minister for Pensions Gregg McClymont MP, speaking at last months "Rethinking Pensions" conference. 

This took place only a day after the Budget, when the Government announced its plan to allow personal pension policy holders to "cash in" their accounts when they retire rather than buy an annuity. 

Gregg apologised to us that he would have to leave early since he had to go to the House of Commons to listen to Coalition Pension Minister, Steve Webb MP give further details of the proposed changes. 

This is the sort of situation when politicians earn their money. A massive change in pension policy (and largely unexpected by all including the media) was less than 24 hours old yet the "Loyal Opposition" had to come out very quickly with a considered response. 

Gregg suggested that he could be using this conference as a test bed for the debate in Parliament later that day. He wants more detail about the Budget proposals but thought that the the new approach of yesterday, seemed to be a move away from the Turner Commission consensus building on Auto-enrolment? It also seems at odds with the apparent government support for Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) schemes? How can CDC work if people take their money out in cash at age 55? How can you share the risk? Who and how will this "advice" to savers be provided? Are pensions becoming an Individual Savings Accounts (ISA)? 

As well as being a professional politician (and of course in my view on the side of the forces of light and reason), Gregg is also a former Oxford don - so was able to think on his feet and give a good account of himself. 

Check out this article in Professional Pensions about what I think is the debate between Greg and Steve Webb later that day in Parliament.

My own initial views on the Budget proposals are here. 

Great British Rip Off

Last month I went to the "Great British Rip Off" debate at the House of Commons. Sponsored by "Unions Together"; "Class" and the Parliamentary "Trade Union Group".

The excellent Katy Clark MP, from Trade Union Group of MPs Chaired (apologies for not getting her into picture!).

Zoe Williams from the Guardian was the first to speak (2nd left - another useless photo by me). She thought tonight that she was speaking to the converted on why inequality is "bad" but she doesn't understand why the Tories don't get that despite the economy picking up on GDP, inequality is still growing? Wages have not gone up since 2003. 

There is 500k "self employed" who are not really employed but playing the benefit system and then another 500k on insecure "0 hour" contracts, then 150k on unpaid placements.  People are not being paid enough. They cannot buy enough. There is not enough demand and ideology is hamstringing the economy.

Tories would rather have a weak economy than free collective bargaining,

Even a living wage for all will not solve housing crisis. Housing is not affordable even on a high wage. So many cannot afford housing then something radical may actually happen. Solution is collective bargaining, land tax and collective housing provision.

Next was Sadiq Khan MP who agreed that we have seen a Great British Rip off in recent years. The most wealthy have increased their wealth while the poorest have become even poorer. 28% of Londoners live in poverty despite 60% of them being in work. 

In his constituency of Tooting he has many houses worth £1 million plus but it also has food banks.The last Labour government spent money on improving the housing stock but did not spend enough on building new homes. A future Labour government will build 200,000 new homes per year by the end of its term.

Sadiq noted that in most successful countries there is more collective bargaining over pay (I will ignore the silly interpretation that a branch of the stupid Party online made about his comments)

Matthew Pennycook, the Prospective Parliamentary candidate for Greenwich and Woolwich was next. He reminded us that for the first time, the majority of people in poverty were in work. Since the election the average family is worse off by £1600 per year. Stagnant wages have caused a massive cost of living crisis.

A living wage is part of the solution but not the silver bullet. We also need affordable child care and (real) affordable rents.

Final speaker was the General Secretary of the TUC, Frances O'Grady. 

Frances asked for not a plaster but to address the root cause of poverty. Which is giving Billions to subsidise poverty wages to employers who can afford to pay more. We need a fair share of wealth in this country and a right to bargain. We need wage councils or "Fair Pay" councils (whatever you want to call it) who can work on the whole pay package.

We need a new economy, a  fair economy and in tribute to the RMT trade union leader, Bob Crow who died recently, we need greater public ownership. 

Frances finished by quoting Docker trade union leader (and former Newham Labour Councillor) Vic Turner, who when asked what trade unionism is all about answered "its about working class people looking after each other".

(usual disclaimer about the absolute accuracy of my hurried note-taking)