#TUC13 Congress fringe: Building Safety & Employment Rights in the Bangladesh Textile Industry.

This was the last Congress fringe I attended which took place on Tuesday lunchtime. Chair was Gail Cartmail from Unite (middle) who reminded us that our role is not just to remember those who have suffered in the recent Bangladeshi disasters such as the Rana Plaza building collapse which killed 1200 people but to prevent future ones.

First speaker was Bangladeshi garment workers’ union President, Amirul Haque Amin who addressed Congress on Sunday evening.   He explained that international support and solidarity went two ways - it was not just about the North providing financial support for the South.  It is about how to stop international companies exploiting all workers - in Bangladesh and the UK. Workers in Textile factories, retail, transport and consumers. All are being exploited. We need to work together to challenge such exploitation.

Amirual called for the British companies who have refused so far to sign the international "Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh" to do so. The so called "Alliance" by Walmart and Gap is completely inadequate since it is voluntary and not binding.

Workers protected by the Accord have right to refuse dangerous work and keep their salary. Also they will themselves play a key role in safety training and inspections.

Phil Jennings from the UNI global union spoke next. His union had played a key role in creating the Accord. He thought it was a "beginning to the end to the race to the bottom". Beforehand there had been a failure of reporting as well as collusion between safety investigators and factory owners.

The issue of adequate compensation for the relatives of the dead and the injured is still outstanding.

Then Debbie Coulter (on right) , Head of Programmes for the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) pointed out that Bangladesh is the 2nd biggest clothing exporter in the World but allows widespread labour rights violations. Union activists have been tortured and even murdered. This had led to disasters such as Rana Plaza and the earlier Tazreen factory fire. Workers have little power and as shown at Tazreen fire doors were locked and fire alarms ignored by managers.  

Without workers rights disasters will happen again. The only solution is freedom of association and bargaining rights for unions to protect them. 

Final speaker was Fiona Wilson from UK retail union USDAW. She named the UK companies refusing to sign the Accord :-

River Island, Matalan, Bench, Bank Fashion, Peacocks, Jane Norman, Republic and Mexx.

She also criticised the UK government for inviting the top 20 retailer to a conference in July on this issue but excluded the TUC. Need to promote the Accord and draw up similar agreements in other Countries. At least now we have a model.

(take action to get the 8 UK retailers to sign the Accord at the TUC Going to Work website)

What Will A Future Labour Government Do With the NHS?

A Debate Held by Newham Compass in association with Newham Fabians (Guest Post)

By Susan Masters (Labour Council Candidate in Newham, Compass Member, Founder Member of Newham Save Our NHS) – twitter @newhamsue

"The night could have been so different.

If Debbie Abrahams – Parliamentary Private Secretary to Andy Burnham - hadn’t been held up, delayed by a crucial lobbying bill vote. If she had kicked off rather than arriving to find the course of debate already charted. If the night’s audience hadn’t been such an articulate, well-informed collection of health campaigners, the discussion might have stayed on brief.

As it was, by the time the evening’s concluding speaker arrived, the penny had dropped: Where the NHS is concerned, the question isn’t what a Labour government might be able to do in 2015 (if elected). The sad reality is that if we don’t fight to preserved our NHS services now, if we don’t share ideas and resources, stand together as unionists, activists and local service users, there will not be an NHS to work with when Ed moves in to number ten.

Set against the background of the Barts Trust’s colossal debts, huge planned cost-savings, on-going staff review and rumoured attacks on local A&E services, Unison Regional organiser Jay Williams kicked off the debate in Debbie’s absence and took us to the very heart of the experience of being an NHS worker in the times of the coalition. Starting with the well-worn current strains on the NHS – an aging, growing population; poor public nutrition and a growth in mental health issues – he charted the way our present government have cast such problems as a crisis in the NHS for which the only remedies are private health insurance and privatisation, where to Jay the problem is largely one of poor management. We heard about workers seeing their jobs rebanded and downgraded, while the pay protection policies designed to slow the impact were whittled away and the lure of comparatively lucrative foreign pay deals brought about a skills drain in areas such as midwifery. 10% of vacant posts are left unfilled with temporary staff covering at far greater cost. We learned of the huge cuts to ambulance services and the failure of the 111NHS number.

To say the picture was bleak would be an understatement and yet Jay’s speech was no study in fatalism and there were plenty of suggestions of ways to fight back. His ideas of lobbying the CCG or contacting union officials at Newham General, might have raised wry smiles among local health campaigners who’ve hit walls down such routes, while his pleas to lobby our council for changes in public policy might have felt somewhat belated when faced with a local authority that’s delivered everything from free school meals to primary school students and free swims for pensioners, to initiatives like ‘Every Child A Sportsperson’. But where one contact, route or idea was deemed unsatisfactory, another was soon on hand.

Hurrying in on the tail end of Jay William’s opener, you had to feel for Debbie Abrahams. I should stress that to have Andy Burnham’s articulate and committed Parliamentary Private Secretary attend at all was a real coup for Newham Compass. Not just because she’s an MP at the very heart of our Shadow health team, but because you can’t argue with the dedication of someone who entered politics not as a career move but as a response to the privatisation she’d witnessed as chair of Rochdale Primary Health Trust – a post she resigned, giving up on a successful career in health, to fight for the core values of the NHS within the Labour Party.

Her description of Labour’s plans was both clear and comprehensive: A commitment to the World Health Organisation’s definition of health as a holistic mix of the physical, mental and social; a desire to repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012, but to avoid further top-down reorganisations in favour of far greater integration coupled with a bigger role for local authorities; public health initiatives to tackle drinking and nutrition, and the abolition of zero hours contracts…All really good stuff (if we can keep the NHS alive long enough!). The only moment of controversy lay in Debbie’s mention of solutions to paying for social care, whether through a Dilnott style cap or a levy on estates – moves questioned by one attendee as an affront to the original notion of the NHS as providing care free at the point of delivery from cradle to grave.

As the evening drew to a close, however, it felt like the real winners were local health campaign group ‘Newham Save Our NHS’, strongly represented at the debate. If you’d like to join them and help defend East London’s Health Services now, do get in touch and check out their website at newhamsaveournhs.weebly.com or attend one of their monthly meetings at the café in Central Park, East Ham.

(hat tip picture Darren Steer @SirSteer)

Most Influential Trustee - Mallowstreet Awards 2013

I am looking very serious but last night's event at the Mallowstreet 2013 Awards (Pension social media site) was actually fun. The event took place at The Globe Theatre, South Bank in London.

There was a great turnout by members of the AMNT.

I was up for two awards - "Most Influential Trustee" and "Top Blogger" of the year.

This is the second year in a row that I was nominated as a trustee.

This year I was selected as "Most Influential Trustee" and this was the judge's comments :-

“With one of the most viewed blogs for 2013 on the Church of England's investment in Wonga, this individual never shies away from sharing provocative view points, personal experience and opinion. He has provided the foundation for some very interesting discussions, he has always done his research, whether you share his views or not there is something about his musings that make you want to have your say as well.”

"provocative view points"? Do they mean me?

Surely not :)

Picture with Judge, Louise Inward and host Vincent Franklin (Rowan the trainer in "The Office")

Congratulations to all nominees and winners for all the awards. Especially to the quiet and unassuming Henry Tapper from First Actuarial, who won two awards.

Michael Gove on foodbanks and how they are unnecessary if you are wealthy

aka the ultra Tory Boy

nuff said.

#TUC13 Congress Fringe "Whole person care - a future for health & social care?

This fringe took place on Monday evening. TUC Assistant General Secretary Paul Nowak chaired. 

Andy Burham MP was running a little late, so UNISON AGS (and former nurse) Karen Jenning started the event.

She said that the problems between Health and Social Care has been going on for decades. She used as an example the age old dispute of who pays for a health or a social services bath for a client.

If the NHS recommend this then it is free, if  it is social services, then this same bath could be means tested!

While she is explaining this, Andy Burnham comes into the meeting. Karen apologies for starting without him and he says "just carry on". Karen says that is okay since, I have just been very horrible about you! (joke)

Andy spoke about the 2009-2012 - 66% rise in the very elderly A&E admittance via ambulance. Hospitals are becoming warehouses for old people. We need instead to invest in preventive care to also save money.  

The Tories are running down the NHS. According to them "GPs are to blame for A&E waits" while all nurses are "uncaring" and hospitals are just "coasting".

The press and Tories criticised the last Labour Government proposal on this issue as the "death tax".  Yet we now have already the dementia tax,  Which is surely worse? Andy also reaffirmed his pledge to abolish the Tory Health and Social Care Bill and that the NHS will be the preferred provider in any future Labour NHS reforms.

Andy made it clear that markets are not the answer in health and social care. The UK is one of the few countries to spend under 10% of GDP on health care because it has such an efficient national service. 

Justin Bowen from the GMB  (another former Tower Hamlets bod) said that Andy's comments was music to his ears. The problem however is money. Health and social care reforms will not be totally cost neutral. It will cost more. The crisis in social care now is all about money.

Andy countered by saying that there will be huge savings by bring together health and social care but also provided people knew what they would get, they would be willing to pay more for quality services.  

My question to Andy and the panel was about the present decimation of wages in the social care sector (I mentioned the disgrace at the "charity" Future Directions which he was well aware of)  and what are we going to do about future pay in the voluntary care sector?  Much of which is minimum wage.

I think it is fair to say that Andy was very supportive about the need to have decent pay in our sector but he and Labour are not yet in power.  So, roll on 2015.  

#TUC13 Congress: River Island: Sign the Bangladesh safety accord now! "Keep away from fire"

Hat tip to TUC Going to work "We visited River Island in Bournemouth with Bangladeshi garment workers’ union President Amirul Haque Amin. River Island are one of the 8 UK clothing firms still holding out from signing the Fire and Building Safety Accord for Bangladesh, which could save many lives in that country’s hazardous garment industry.

 

Most UK companies that source clothing in Bangladesh have signed the Accord, which will pay for safety inspections and repairs aimed at stopping disasters like the Rana Plaza building collapse and the Tazreen factory fire.

River Island need to step up to their responsibilities to the people who make our clothes. Nobody’s life is worth as little as a few pence extra on a T-shirt.

Please help us convince River Island and the other 7 UK brands who still won’t sign by sending them an email.

 

Send an email now

 

And please also sign our friends SumOfUs.org’s petition to River Island to face their responsibilities and sign now.

 

Sign the petition now"

#TUC13 Congress - Fair Pay Fringe with Unions21

"What can unions and policy makers do to make wages fairer?"

Monday lunchtime fringe by Unions21 and Fabians on this key issue.

Meeting was chaired by Chris Weavers (middle) who pointed out in the last 2 years 93% of all British workers have had below inflation pay rises (i.e. pay cuts).

First speaker Liam Byrne MP who wanted us to "batter and punish this government" for what they have been presiding over in last 2 years. The problem is the shortage of work. Big mistake of Tories to cut corporation tax by £6 billion? For what? Nothing invested? Nor more paid out in pay? £480 billion lie doing nothing in company bank accounts. Small business should get this tax cut. Bringing forward capital investment has recently been recommended by those left wing nutters at the IMF.  

Nicola Smith from TUC was next who told us real wages have been falling for the the longest period since the 1870s. She made the important point that wage growth in UK is measured on "mean" pay levels (the average - which includes all very high earners who distort wage growth) rather than using a "medium" measure as other countries. This means that the cuts in wages may be even worse for the low paid than we think.

Ged Nichols, General Secretary of Accord spoke about when he started working in finance the wages were not very good, but you had final salary pensions subsidised mortgages and a career structure. Now you just get the poor pay. He argued that there is no evidence that Performance Related Pay works. Customers have become "commodifed" and this resulted in the mis-selling scandlas. He wondered why no senior managers had been disciplined for PPI scandal? 

Equity General Secretary Christine Payne wanted the law to be changed over minium wage so that the union could take enforcement action on behalf of members. Many actors are too frightened of victimisation if they take make named complaints against employers for failing to pay the minimum wage.

My question was about how a living wage is not enough and we need "fair pay" which included a living pensions and sickness benefits and how we need wage councils to get fair pay in many sectors who can afford more than a living wage rate. Which as you can imagine no-one on this panel disagreed with.

#TUC13 Congress: Opposing Union busting Charity Mencap

This morning Congress voted overwhelmingly against an otherwise worthy motion 36.  Which called for an enquiry into the premature deaths of people with learning difficulties. 

The movers of the motion had been asked to remit but had decided against this.

The reason for the opposition was that for some reason in this otherwise important motion there was statement "congratulating" the charity Mencap. 

UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis on behalf of the General Council spoke to Congress about how Mencap was a leading advocate of the Government plans to close 32 Rempoly factories which cost 1000s of jobs. It also has a poor track record on employment standards and refuses to recognise trade unions. 

A disabled delegate who was a former Remploy worker also spoke against the motion, accusing Mencap of “help hammer the nail” by writing open letters to the press which pushed for the ending of factory based supported employment leaving 2500 disabled workers on the scrap heap. Mencap was accused of betraying  vulnerable workers for its own self gain. This speaker received a standing ovation from the hall at the end of his speech.

Mencap was described as an anti trade union employer which also refused to recognise GMB members in former Southern Cross projects which is now subject to a 3 week court case in November. 

Another disabled delegate whose relation had helped set up Mencap said that it was an organisation that was not of people with learning difficulties but says it speaks for them.  When challenged about this a senior manager said "you wouldn’t let cats and dogs run the RSPCA?. They are viewed as "asset strippers" or have jumped into bed with the Government to win contracts.

#TUC Congress - Hovis Strike over Zero hour contracts and agency labour

First item of business at Congress today (Wednesday) was to send a message of support to members of the Bakers union (BFAWU) out on strike at Hovis (Premier Foods) Wigan.

The BFAWU call for support at their picket lines and for a boycott of Hovis Products during the dispute. See union press release. 

"The issue of zero-hour contracts is one that is taking up a considerable amount of column space in both local and national newspapers at the moment. The Bakers’, Food and Allied Workers Union highlighted this exploitation back in 2011 during a dispute with a well known supplier of cake products. Unfortunately, we remained a lone voice. With honourable exceptions, the media, local politicians and the general public alike decided to remain impassive and apathetic. Since then, the use of zero-hour contracts has reached almost epidemic proportions and it has been estimated that over a million UK workers are now employed on these contracts.

Sadly, it was only a matter of time before other organisations decided to jump on this particular bandwagon. Staff at the Hovis (Premier Foods) bakery in Wigan had already reduced their hours and subsequently, their pay in a bid to reduce the need for redundancies. However, after long and protracted discussions with the Union, the company decided to proceed with job losses. However, once the redundancies had been made, the company decided to renege on long standing recognition agreements and make up the ensuing staff shortfall with agency labour, with many being utilised on an ‘as and when’ basis, in other words; zero-hour contracts.

Since then, we have attempted to resolve this situation with the company, but to no avail. Ultimately, the Union took the painful decision to ballot its members at the Wigan site in order to seek a mandate for industrial action. The result was overwhelmingly in favour of strike action against the company on the following dates:

6.00am on August 28th 2013 until 6.00am on September 4th 2013

6.00am on September 11th 2013 until 6.00am on September 18th 2013

6.00am on September 25th 2013 until 6.00am on October 2nd 2013

Further branch meetings will be held to extend the action unless the company comes to a satisfactory agreement with the Union on the withdrawal of agency labour from the site.

BFAWU members at Hovis, Wigan have not taken this decision lightly. They have no desire to lose pay. However, they see the current situation as unacceptable and are determined not to allow the company to set precedents, undermine current terms and conditions, create a two tier workforce and leave a poor legacy for subsequent generations of people who may be employed at Hovis in the future.

We urge the company to re-enter negotiations with the Union and find a way to resolve this dispute fairly, amicably and in a way that reflects the strength of feeling among the workforce".

UPDATE: I tweeted this post and got this response

 Hovis Bakery ‏@hovisbakery 4h

1. @grayee The last employees at Wigan Bakery on zero-hours have been offered full-time jobs. We can reassure you we don't employ zero-hours.

   Expand
2. John Gray ‏@grayee 3h

   @hovisbakery very pleased to hear this. Is this the same for long term agency working?

#TUC13 Congress - Address by Ed Miliband

Ed started by comparing David Cameron - who considers unions a "threat to our economy" to a previous one nation Tory Prime Minister, the Earl of Derby, who first gave trade unions legal rights in 1867.

He called Cameron's attitude "nasty, small minded and divisive" and reminded Cameron what happened to Mitt Romney and his remarks about why 47% of voters will not support him.

He then championed his proposals for all trade union affiliates make an active choice to be part of the link with Labour. He then attacked the Tory economic policies and the prospect of a one sided unfair recovery. One which benefits the rich only. Followed by a raft of proposed Labour policies which are "union friendly". Such as action on zero hour contracts, living wage, public sector procurement apprenticeships, taxing bankers bonuses, British and regional investment banks, affordable child care, dignity at work, build more homes, regulate private sector landlords and letting agents, clampdown on payday loans with a cap on interest rates.

Finally a Q&A with firstly young delegates on the stage then with other delegates from the floor. He left to a respectable applause but no standing ovation (nor no jeers). 

So what do I think of it?

When you consider the recent blood on the carpet between the unions and the Party he was in my view remarkably self confident and upbeat. I wondered why? The Tory press however will be disappointed that there was no heckling or booing. 

While I still think that the proposals to change the way unions affiliate their members to the Party are unnecessary and potentially damaging, I thought it was clever of him to point out that unions have been complaining about their lack of influence over the Party for many years.  Increasing the number of union members joining the Party could change this.  This will depend on how much power you think ordinary members have over the Party.

He fudged a question on privatisation of public services (Railways) by saying he doesn't believe in "private sector good, public bad".

There was no mention of the NHS which surprised me a bit? I would have thought that it this would have  been a tub thumping issue that he could have "make hay" with.

I suspect that the personal attacks on Cameron and comparisons with him were there to remind delegates that it is less than 2 years before the next General election and that whether they all like him or not (and most are supportive) - it will be a straight choice between him or Cameron - on who will be the next Prime Minister.

So who will they prefer?

There is of course no choice and I think he knows this.

(personal impressions as always)