I see the same thing where I work.  My part of the company has a union presence and the terms we negotiated for redundancy are a lot better than those in other parts of the company.  Of course the union hopes that the cost of redundancy will ensure the company don’t resort to it lightly and see it as a last resort, but if the worse happens we have better protection.

I do hope the Novartis staff are successful in finding new jobs, but when they do will they be more inclined to participate in union membership? It would be nice to think so.

On reflection, ‘dipping a toe in’ is not quite right and ‘diving in at the deep end’ might be more appropriate, as I was speaking at a public meeting about the Stop the Cuts organisation.  Along with getting married, getting divorced and moving house public speaking is supposed to be one of the things people get most stressed about, and I am no exception to that.The invitation to speak arrived last week and I accepted without thinking of the implications – like actually having to speak for a start.  I think I underestimated how long it would take me to get straight so in the end I didn’t have time to properly prepare except for an hour or so typing up some ideas after work today.

These meetings are usually full of SWP/SLP/Respect typeswho spend half the time laying into New Labour, and I am often the only Labour member there.  Not a problem.  After standing for Labour in Horsham it will take a lot more than a room full of prople trying to out-left each other to get to me.

As per usual there were lots of eloquent and passionate speeches about how the only answer is to ditch the capitalist system,  and not enough practical proposals.  Its not that I don’t like the idea of a socialist paradise with mutuals and workers co-operatives replacing big business, but I’m all too aware that it is hard for one socialist country to exist in isolation in a capitalist world and more importantly that if only 17% of the electorate even bothered to make the minimal effort to vote in a recent byelection in town then the chances of them rising up to revolt are slim indeed.

It wasn’t all bad though.  There was lots of talk about forging links with other Stop the Cuts groups within the region and to make an effort to try and bring all those affected by proposed cuts together under the same umbrella.  A representative from the Brighton group was also speaking, and they have had been setting a good example.

I was also relieved to find some other Labour members there, including Chris Oxlade and Colin Lloyd.

The main point I tried to make was that we have to concentrate on getting the message across that these are not “unavoidable cuts” as a consequence of “Gordon Brown’s deficit” but totally avoidable cuts.  They are ideologically motivated and most of the taboid press is complicit in making sure the word “cuts” never appears without the word “unavoidable”.

Just getting all the tax that is avoided and evaded would be worth more to the public purse than all the cuts and assaults on social housing.  Not only that but it would be popular and would not screw up the economy the way that 490,000 extra unemployed from public sector redundancies will.

Now if we can just stop arguing amongt ourselves and actually unite to get that message out we might get somewhere.  The Tory tactics are always to divide and conquer and the only way to counter that is to unite and resist.

My old union, the TSSA

Jayne and I went down to Dorset for the day today to see the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival.  I checked the weather forecast on the BBC yesterday and it gave variations of ‘white cloud’, ‘grey cloud’ and ‘black cloud’ throughout the day, with maximum temperatures of about 18C.

What we actually got was bright sunshine, mostly totally clear skies and lots of sore red skin.To be honest, it was not as good as last year.  Jayne admitted it was not really her cup of tea, because she doesn’t really do crowds and the place was very crowded.  The festival gets busier each year but I think there were only half as many catering stalls as in 2009 so the queues were extraordinary.

The journey left a lot to be desired too.  The coach we went in had really small and uncomfortable seats (5 in each row instead of the normal 4) and the driver didn’t seem to know the way.  We went the really long way – M23/M25/M3 instead of cutting across on the A24.  On the way back he got lost, despite having sat nav.

I have mixed feelings about seeing so many people there.   It is good to be reminded that there are so many trade unionists out there.  Sometimes it is too easy to feel in a small minority, but really there are so many people in the labour movement (and they all seemed to be in the queue for the burger van).  The slightly depressing thing for me is the reminder of how fragmented the labour movement is: the Labour party, the unions, Hope Not Hate, Class Warfare, the Communist party, CND, the SWP are all fundamentally against the Tories but for all the talk of uniting it just doesn’t happen.

I guess it did happen in 1997, and a lot of people felt let down by New Labour, though they now seem to be realising how much worse things could be – and are.

As usual there were some excellent t-shirts on view.  A few of my favourites were:

• The simple red shirt with the slogan “I still hate Thatcher”
• The Barking and Dagenham election t-shirts that said “Hope 51 BNP 0″
• The t-shirts done in the style of the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks album that said ‘Never mind the bosses join the union’
• The RMT t-shirts with a picture of a snake’s head and the slogan ‘Strikes when provoked’
• The shirts with a large picture of Thatcher. At the top they say “Hurry up and die” and underneath they say “I want to party”
• The Hope Not Hate shirts which just have a large star and the words “anti fascist”

Having said that, I did catch one chap of a similar age to me pointing out my 2004 vintage Spizzenergi t-shirt to his daughter.  I think Spizz fans are bit like owners of vintage Morris Minors, flashing their headlights when they encounter another enthusiast.

We missed a lot of the entertainment, but did see the Bad Shepherds, who the sister has been raving about, having missed them when they came to Crawley last month.  We both enjoyed them, and their folk versions of punk and new wave songs.  I don’t mind folk, but know so little about it that not much of it is familiar to me.  So this was ideal – it is like folk but you already know the words!  Which is a bit ironic if you think about it.

The agricultural workers union - with Horsham CLP's chair holding up the banner

The Bad Shepherds onstage

Jerry Hicks drumming up support for his bid to be leader of my union, Unite. I doubt I will vote for him, but he is certainly running an energetic campaign.

In the foreward, Berndan Barber says that:

Regulation can be an essential means to achieve both economic success and greater equality. Of course that doesn’t mean that every regulation is good. Making someone with a red flag walk in front of every car did not help the motor industry develop. But it does mean that the mirror image argument, that all regulation is bad, belongs in that old cliché, the dustbin of history. Regulation can boost the economy, make society fairer and contribute to a better life for all.

Worth looking at if you have the time, or have trouble sleeping.

To oversimplify it, the Surrey & Sussex NHS Trust (SASH) has had a post of Trade Union Facilitator (TUF) for about four years now.  The position is elected by all the unions in the trust and the person who is elected is seconded into the post, which is paid by the trust.

The trust have now decided that they are making the post redundant and are replacing it with a new post of Trade Union Convenor.  The new post will be an appointment by management.  The current TUF has been told she is ‘at risk’ and will be made redundant along with the job.

What is wrong with that?

First of all there is the principle that the unions would be represented by a management appointee.  This will not be somebody who the staff will feel is on their side, and it removes the staff’s representation.   Will the new convenor really stand up to the management when it counts?  Or ever?

This a bad precedent to be setting.

In this case the incumbent has been a very effective campaigner, fighting to keep a shuttle bus service between Crawley and the East Surrey Hospital for staff and patients to use, leading to suspicions that the move is designed to remove somebody who has been a thorn in the side of the trust management and board for a long time. Victimisation in other words.

With the removal of the current TUF role (which the unions were not consulted on at all) the incumbent, Zena Dodgson, will not revert to the original job she was seconded from, or a similar job.  The trust say that she has been doing it so long that it is now her substantive job, although I would be willing to bet that is not what her contract says.

In that case it should mean that she should be offered the new role which, on paper at least, is similar to her current job, but that is not an option either.  The trust really are trying to have it both ways.

This would obviously have a big impact on Zena, making her unemployed, but it has other results too.  The local Unison branch would lose a senior officer – if she was no longer an NHS employee she would not be eligble for the office – which they can ill afford to do.  The hospital would also stand less chance of meeting criteria for foundation trust status – failing with Core Standard C17 which states “the views of patients, their carers and others are sought and taken into account in designing, planning, delivering and improving health care services.”

If the trust fails to get foundation trust status it could have serious effects on the healthcare in the Horsham/Crawley/Horley/Redhill area as the trust could end up getting moved into another foundation trust elsewhere and management would be even more remote from local influence.

Another impact is that if the trust go ahead with this then there is every chance that staff at the trust could find themselves considering industrial action, because Zena is very popular amongst the staff there for all the work she does on their behalf, and that is something nobody really wants.  If we can do anything to prevent them needing to turn to that last resort then we should.

What is happening about this?

Obviously Unison are giving legal support and advice as any union would for any member.  However, they can’t really do much in legal terms unless and until the employment is terminated, which in many respects is too late.  They can get compensation which for many people would be enough, but that would still leave the trust with a glove puppet instead of proper staff representation.

Staff in the hospital have been signing a petition on the noticeboards, and members of other unions in the area have offered support.  They intend to turn up at the hospital at the time Zena’s appeal interview takes place to lobby the trust and show their support.

Other members of health unions, and other unions, across the country have written to the trust’s chief executive to express their opinions on the situation.

What can I do about it?

There are a few things that anybody can do:

• Read more about the case – don’t just take my word for it.  You can Google “Zena Dodgson” and find lots of references like this and this.
• Pass the word around.  Make the case more widely known.  If you are in a union or progressive political party pass this information on to your members.  Tweet it. Blog it.
• Write to the SASH chief executive Gail Wannell (details in the links above) in a personal capacity.
• Get your local union branch or party branch to write
• Turn up at East Surrey Hospital for 3pm on December 8th and join the lobby.  If you want to do that and need transport I can put you in touch with the local trade council who will help – although the contacts in the links above would be able to do that too.
• Or if you know somebody who works at the trust, see if they would want to go along to make the support more visible.

Is this just a party political thing?

Far from it.  Zena Dodgson is not a member of the Labour Party.  In fact, she is a member of the Respect crowd who  is as likely to be attacking our local Labour MP in the newspapers as the trust board and whose fellow left-wing fringe colleagues stand against Labour and nearly caused us to lose the Crawley seat at the last general election.

This is one of those cases where solidarity amongst workers and trade unionists in the face of victimisation and injustice are more important than party matters.

Peter Mandelson at this year's party conference - still waiting for photos from his visit to Crawley

Today was the long-awaited official opening of the new site where I work.  Personally I have been in the new buildings for just over a year, but the industrial building with all the labs and test and manufacturing facilities took longer to finish, and now the company has decided that enough of our operations have moved in that it is valid to get officially opened, and it was Lord Mandelson, First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, President of the Board of Trade, Lord President of the Council, Politician of the Year and Professor of  the Dark Arts who came along to do the honours.

As you can imagine, this caused more than a little excitement and disruption in the workplace.The way our company is organised, there are several individual companies or divisons of the group sharing the site, so all of their managing directors were on-site, as well as the overall managing director for the UK, with HQ and divisional PR people all in a flap.  They had a carefully worked-out plan for the visit, with timings for every little thing (eg “0952-0954 – refreshments offered”) which all got scuppered from the start when the train from London got delayed by half an hour.

Part of the schedule was a meeting with the local trade union reps.  I was really glad to see that included on the itinerary: Labour ministers and MPs visiting a workplace should go out of their way to meet the unions, who are often an integral part of making a company function properly.

When everything started to to run late we fully expected our allotted time to get seriously curtailed or even bumped completely.  We had an eight-minute time slot, which does not sound like a lot, but considering the VIP schedule included a demonstration of about 8 major products in a 16-minute slot, it was quite generous.  It was also the last item on the tour so ripe for getting dropped.

In the end the VIP party did still spend some time with us.  Lord Mandelson seemed to be genuinely impressed by the range and scale of our operations.  He asked us whether industrial relations were good at our company (they are), and we took the opportunity to remind him how many local jobs are directly affected when the government moves a major project like the new aircraft carriers or T45 destroyers to the right or scales it down.

I think we were preaching to the converted though.  Hope so anyway.  Lord M was also very accommodating in posing for a few special photographs, especially when our local MP told him I am a parliamentary candidate.

The biggest surprise was when our little union delegation got to the appointed place we found a great big display sign for Unite the Union.   We didn’t even know we had one.  Must have been the work of the corporate PR people. In itself that speaks volumes about the good industrial relations we have – or have we just got them well trained?

I think it was a good day for everybody.  The senior management got their site openend and were able to remind the government about what a big player we are in government work, the union got its profile raised a little, I got some photos that might come in handy for my election campaign, our local MP got to bring yet another senior minister to the town, and Mandelson himself got to meet all us nice people and had refreshments offered for two minutes.

Bit of a bummer having to wear a suit on a Friday, but such are the small sacrifices I will make for the movement.

So there we had individual members, branches and a different union making a contribution to the CWU – or actually not to the union itself but directly to its members.  I’m sure that if Unite members were in a high profile dispute the CWU members would make some sort of financial gesture.  And I am sure the CWU have received similar help from Usdaw, from the GMB and from other unions. I’m also sure that the CWU and some of its members will give some financial support to the local Labour party, beyond the political levy, as the elections get nearer.

Even during the same meeting there was something in the Treasurer’s report about a small cheque arriving from the CWU.  Probably an affiliation fee or something.   At other times you will have the Labour party paying rent to the Labour Club for the use of its rooms for meetings and the Labour Club will make donations to the party for campaigns, and there are many, many other organisations of different types either paying each other directly or in transative configurations.

It can appear very incestuous, and it must cross everybody’s mind every now and then that maybe it all evens out somehow, and that if that is the case why don’t all the individual organisations just keep their money and the net effect would be the same?

One response to that would be that each organisation has its own peaks and troughs of need.  So a Labour party branch might support a union’s members when they are under pressure, and later on that union might support that part, or another part of the Labour party during an election campaign when they need funds more.

But the real response is that these donations, affiliations and other transactions server a sort of meta-purpose.  They help to foster a spirit of inter-connectedness, inter-dependence and mutual co-operation.  Comradeship if you like.  This is why there is a Labour movement and not just a party.  These sums of money, sometimes little more than token amounts, are visible ways in which the different parts keep re-affirming their mutual support for each other.

I remember when we were trying to launch a local UAF branch and several organisations like union branches, Labour branches and constituencies affiliated, sometimes topping up the small affiliation fee with a donation.  The local Conservative Association could not affiliate because, they said, it was prohibited by their constitution to pay money to such organisations to affiliate.

This is not a criticism of the local Tories, who on a personal level have been very supportive of the UAF’s intentions.  It is just an observation that their institutions are set up in a way that discourages the sort of sense of shared purpose that the Labour movement actively encourages.

It may sometimes feel that half the time I spend in meetings of union branch meetings, party branch meetings, constituency meetings and pressure group meetings is spent discussing and agreeing small donations – that I go to one meeting where the Chair or Treasurer announces the receipt of a cheque that I voted to send at a different meeting the week before…  but I feel good about that.

Royal Mail site in Horsham

Following my failed previous efforts to support the striking Royal Mail workers I took the rather drastic and extreme step of getting up before 6am on a Saturday.

This ludicrous tactic worked and I met with the workers who were manning the picket line.  They did mention how several other members of Horsham Labour Party visited last week, so our support is not going un-noticed.

On top of everything else I now have another reason to support the Royal Mail workers: they get to work at this sort of stupid time regularly. Henning Wehn would approve of them.

A rather fine CWU stress toy I picked up at the Tollpuddle Martyrs Festival in the summer

It is proving to be harder than I had expected to support the striking postal workers.

I should rephrase  that…

It is proving to be harder than I expected to show my support for the striking postal workers.

Having a full-time job myself with a lot going on there, and more limited access to transport since writing off my car, it is harder to get to the Horsham depot to visit the picket line and physically show support.

In fact I did pop over after work last Friday, since we finish work at lunchtime on Fridays.  Unfortunately I did not arrive to see a picket line, but open gates with one van a minute going through it.  Perhaps I should have gone at 0600 like my colleagues did.

I can’t even say that I have shared the suffering of interrupted mail: I seem to have had more post in the last couple of weeks than normal, even on what were supposed to be strike days.

I suspect it would be inappropriate to put my fraternal greetings on a postcard and send it off…

Bernie Hamilton, Unite’s national officer for aerospace and shipbuilding, said:”Liam Fox’s proposals can only mean one thing, thousands of skilled manufacturing jobs are now at risk. A cut of 25% off the MOD’s budget means a cut to the procurement budget, potentially the cancellation of the aircraft carrier contract or Typhoon.”The Tories would devastate Britain’s defence manufacturing base. Tory political dogma of purchasing off- the- shelf defence equipment will consign tens of thousands of skilled workers to the dole queue and hand the UK’s defence needs to other nations and companies from overseas.

Also, in more detail:

Unite anger at Tory and Lib Dem Defence Cut Plans

The UK’s largest union Unite has reacted with anger to the calls for cuts in defence spending which would jeopardise thousands of jobs across the UK by Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osborne and his Lib Dem opposite, Vince Cable.

George Osborne was reported to have cited the £20billion Eurofighter/Typhoon project, the £4billion project to build two aircraft carriers and the £2.7billion order for 25 A400 transport aircraft as projects to be slashed. The BAE Systems assembly line for Typhoon at Warton alone is estimated to have 100,000 jobs dependent on the project.

Vince Cable has also outlined that there should be a review of defence spending priorities including a second new aircraft carrier and argues that cheaper options from abroad could sought for projects including the £7 billion Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) in his pamphlet published by the think-tank Reform.

Unite’s National Officer for Aerospace & Shipbuilding,  Bernie Hamilton said:

“The comments by Vince Cable and George Osborne fundamentally exposes the Lib Dems and Tories as slash and burners. Both these parties fail to understand that the defence of our nation starts with the ability to be able to supply its armed forces with its own manufactured defence equipment. To casually talk about the cancelling of contracts such as the Aircraft Carriers, Typhoon and the FRES armoured vehicles as if they are pieces on a chess board betrays the loyal hard working people who build these advanced pieces of equipment for our nation’s armed forces.”

“Both these parties fail to grasp that we must have the capability to research & design, manufacture, upgrade and repair our own defence equipment. The failed policy of purchasing equipment off the shelf from other nations would consign tens of thousands of UK workers to unemployment and it at a stroke leaves our nation in a weakened position by being dependent on others to supply equipment to our armed forces.”

“The muted and proposed cuts ignore the wider impact on employment due to the linkages and reliance of the supply chain companies on the sector. The dividing lines between the parties are evident. It is becoming ever clearer that the only way to secure our defence, aerospace and shipbuilding manufacturing base is to re-elect a Labour government next year.”