The rotters.

They got a fright, though, when we told them to credit us, and in the end had to put a copyright link back to my hangbitch site, which was full of stories about the cuts they were making. Splendid day, that. Really enjoyed it. Google Hangbitch and Councillor Paul Bristow if you want to see the whole thing in all its glory.

Many many photos of Saturday’s rally here http://photos.snapsthoughts.com/p400096224/

Contact Kate if you want to use any of these

Diwali Mubarak – Fremantle Care Workers
http://barnetunison.blogspot.com/2007/11/diwali-mubarak-fremantle-care-workers.html

Fremantle Strike, March and Rally – short report
http://barnetunison.blogspot.com/2007/11/fremantle-strike-march-and-rally-short.html

Firstly, in relation to the legal remedy. Clearly the sheer scale of the cuts frightened staff and we quickly pursued advice on a legal remedy. We were told that despite the draconian proposals, Fremantle could get away with it on the grounds of Economic reasons!

It took several months, meetings, newsletters before our members realised that our fight would have to come from the membership with the support of the branch.

Last week, I sought an opportunity to broach the Fremantle campaign to the Minister of Social Care Ivan Lewis. In his speech he conceded that Emplyers who were treating their staff badly should be brought to account. I could go on for ever as to what Fremantle have done but suffice to say it has not been pleasant and it has been a task for our branch to provide as much support as possible.

We are looking to our Union both regionallly and nationally to help bring all parties to the negotiating table.

This was not a fight we would or could not ignore…..we are proud to be involved in this struggle.

Older People Services touch us all sometime and it is time the voices of service users, carers and relatives and staff are heard. Any support, ideas, suggestions from anyone reading this article woudl be most welcome

best wishes
John

in the case of Freemantle, it appears to be a Private Monopoly operating under State mandate (or concession). This is the worst kind of monopoly in my view and I am not surprised things are not looking good. This is of the same DNA as PFI and similar. It is not capitalism or the free market, but, if it is anything, it is corporatism.

Another influence in terms of the rise of strikes, IMHO, is the perception that Gordon Brown will be more fragile than Tony Blair, even as he tries to be rigid.

Anyway…

Until next time.

I’m also quite sure the regional and national officers in Labour-affiliated unions do all they can to help beleaguered branches and members get there.

TUPE was very problematic for my union branch. I remember when leisure services were outsourced to a not-for-profit at the council I worked for then, TUPE’d staff were having to apply for restructured jobs in a matter of months, or having to take redundancy. The company in question must have been quietly working on the new contracts even as they were talking to the union about the TUPE transfer. And if memory serves, there are times when TUPE is negotiated for a fixed term – say a year or so. I will ask Barnet Unison more about this aspect of the Fremantle situation on Saturday.

Certainly, union branches should and do pursue legal redress where possible. The point is that people like the women I talked to in this article don’t necessarily feel they can wait for formal process to play itself out. Their financial problems are immediate. It’s also important to note that they were put in an awful situation by their employer – they either agreed to their new contracts, or faced dismissal. Not much room to negotiate there.

Fremantle has not been kind to critics, either. Andrew Rogers, a Fremantle worker and Unison steward who was involved in the strikes, was sacked this year. I talked to him as part of the above interview session. He isn’t the first union steward I’ve interviewed this year who was sacked after organising industrial action: there are several interviews with JJB Sports depot worker and GMB steward Chris Riley on my hangbitch.com site to that effect. Chris and his colleagues were taking home about £180 a week by way of salary. Anyway, Chris organised strike action and was sacked after it on some trumped-up gross disciplinary charge.

The point is that a lot of people have very little protection in the workplace now, and they’re obviously finding the salaries and conditions they have to accept too awful to be tolerated. I can tell you as a former union organiser that it is generally quite difficult to get people to take strike action. They find the thought of taking on management in that way, and of losing pay, very frightening, and rightly so.

People are desperate to hang onto their jobs. I sympathise with that. I’d quite like to hang onto mine. People would much rather their unions sorted issues out at the negotiating table (the problem being, of course, that there ain’t much negotiating going on at negotiating tables at the moment). You know that things have reached a pretty dire stage when people do start to strike. Matt Wrack said something similar at a recent TU lobby at parliament, and he was absolutely right.

Anyway – more soon. Cheers, Kate

Phil – “A transferee cannot down grade terms and conditions, following a TUPE transfer”

My understanding is that they can. There’s no time limit on when TUPE ends following the transfer, so if an organisation wanted to be really evil they could down grade the terms and conditions the very next day – it’s only really at the point of transfer that TUPE stands.

“I do wish that NuLab acolytes wouldn’t keep using left or liberal in association with their free-marketeering,management consultoid bullshit.”

Hear hear.

Furthermore imposing new ts and cs without agreement amounts to a constructive dismissal. Following a case called Yates you can claim constructive dismissal and remain in employment. Why not go to Employment Tribunal, rather than strike and go without pay?A couple of hundred tribunal claims would wake the employer up!

This is exactly the kind of reporting that LC needs.