Pensions: Speech to Edinburgh TUC Rally on PCS strike day

I’m proud to be here from UNISON to bring a message of solidarity to the workers on strike today. You are leading the way today in the face of the most indecent, vicious and self-serving attacks on our people in a generation. And you take on that fight in the face of many enemies.

Conference Review: Everybody agrees it was consensus

UNISON National Conference 2011: Organisation, dispelling myths, winning hearts and minds to defend over 60 years of a civilised society that our people fought for and won.

That’s what this week was and rightly should have been about. Consensus on the need to defend the founding principles of our NHS. As Bevan said, it will be there so long as we have the faith to defend it.

Consensus on the need to defend care of the most vulnerable; the welfare state; education for all, not just the few; a voluntary and community sector that enhances rather than competes, underpinned by properly resourced public services.

Unions and the union

The need for change while avoiding the danger of over-reaction to the seismic shift in party control in the Scottish Parliament was well recognised by UNISON’s Scottish Committee meeting in Glasgow on Tuesday.

Given the unions were the only voices really promoting a ‘better way’ than cuts in jobs and services, it wasn’t hard to focus on ‘business as usual’ in maintaining that campaign irrespective of who was in power. We’d have had to do it even if Labour had won.

But that didn’t mean there was no room for change. How we organise, how we recruit and how we engage activists – not least Scottish Committee members – in leading forward policies and action, were all part of the discussions.

SNP victory: What now for Labour and public services?

With the SNP winning an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament - the thing no party was ever meant to be able to do - what will this mean for Scotland’s public services and for public sector unions trying to defend those jobs and services?

We can analyse – and we will no doubt do so for months – why the result is what it is. Boundary changes had an effect. The Lib Dem vote collapsed and didn’t go to Labour. Labour’s lacklustre campaign must have been an element with policies not clearly articulated and in some cases changed or created on the hoof.

New vibrancy on May Day around the world

May Day events took on a new significance yesterday as trade unionists around the world took to the streets in defence of working people and the right to organise.

“It’s safe to say that for the last five or six years it (May Day) was about celebrating the past, but this year all of us are fighting for our lives and our movement, and it’s brought a great vibrancy to it”, UNISON’s Jennifer McCarey told The Herald before the Glasgow Rally

Workers Memorial Day: Fight for the living.

Speech, Workers memorial Day Edinburgh 2010: 20,000 people die prematurely every year because of work related injury or disease. Another 1.2 million say they suffered illness that they thought was due to their work.

Many of them still come to work, despite their illness.

Another million who have left work say they have ill-health because of their work - still suffering in retirement.

70% of workplace accidents have been shown to be down to poor management of health and safety.
And the government says health and safety regulations are just 'red tape'.

Danger of 'national' services

Speech on STUC motion from FBU on a national fire service: UNISON will be abstaining on this motion for a number of reasons but primarily because we cannot commit to supporting a national fire and rescue service without a full debate, discussion and consultation with out members who provide the vital infrastructure for this service. But we also have reservations in general about the drive towards national rather than local services.

While we respect the views and knowledge of our FBU comrades – and we would have to defer to their understanding of the needs of this front line service – we would be worried if a national service became a template for a host of other services.

We can achieve anything acting together

We can achieve anything if we act together like this, said one marcher today as hundreds of thousands march through London. Here we report on the march at Piccadilly, with the huge UNISON contingent still passing after at least an hour.

One reported police estimate is that 400,000 are marching. Even the Daily Mail is owning up to 250,000 in the biggest trade union demonstration in a generation.

A huge sea of purple and green UNISON banners, flags and placards are packing London’s streets to the deafening sound of UNISON vuvuzelas in a massive show of solidarity and resolve to save our public services and welfare state from the most savage attacks they have ever seen.

Myths rally to attack national bargaining

Attacks on national bargaining are not new. Neither are myth-peddling and selective statistics to whip up hysteria against public service workers. But to see both so transparently together in a self-contradicting liberal think tank paper would be entertaining if it were not so dangerously dressed up as academic analysis.

The Telegraph jumps on the bandwagon with a piece by Julian Astle of the CentreForum think tank extolling the work of Professor Alison Wolf who manages to conclude that “Britain needs to rid itself of rigid centralised wage bargaining. These systems are economically harmful, undermine quality in the public services, and perpetuate disadvantage.”

Brain hurts: £900m bankers’ bonus ‘fair’ while £5k cut for police staff ‘good deal'

Justifying £900m in bonuses, the RBS’s Stephen Hester told the BBC yesterday that, “Along with my staff, I want to be treated fairly”. Well, Stephen, so do thousands of police staff in Scotland who are facing up to a £5,000 a year cut in wages which is described by the employers as a ‘good deal’.

Another of those ‘my brain hurts moments’ isn’t it? In order for the country to recover, one of the banks who created the mess while earning huge bucks have to get more bucks as a reward for losing £1.13billion. That is, apparently, being treated ‘fairly’. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12571381 

On the other hand, the people who suffered from the mess and who deliver essential and efficient police services, are facing a cut of £5,000 on a wage of £25,000. That, according to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, is ‘a good deal’. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/plans-to-slash-pay-of-civilian-staff-are-attacked-1.1087172

Tourist tax would help combat the looming cuts

It is hard to comprehend just how savage the cuts are. Such is the scale, that they are destroying the very fabric of services, not just for the next few years but forever.

The cuts are ideologically, not financially driven. The debt was much higher in the 1940s but we could still build our treasured NHS. The few economists who actually predicted the crash say that cuts of this speed and size will make things worse.

'Don't handcuff our councils' says UNISON as cuts hit Scotland

UNISON Scotland says Government moves to dictate how council budgets are spent is effectively ‘handcuffing’ local authorities and sounds the death knell for democracy. http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/news/2011/janfeb/1002.htm 

Trade unionists, community groups and members of the public were lobbying council meetings across Scotland today to urge their elected members to put the needs of their communities first when setting their budgets.

Deficit fibbers

“He knows the deficit hasn't been caused by "waste", but seeing as that starting point is a lie, the stories they tell might as well be made up completely”. Mark Steel writes a knockabout on the deficit and Grant Shapps in the Independent…….

Poll shows Labour 8% ahead but still not winning on economy - Why?

Labour has opened up an eight-point lead over the Conservatives, according to a ComRes survey for The Independent. The figures would give Labour an overall majority of 102 if repeated at the next election. However, Labour has not yet won the key battle on the economy. Why http://www.comres.co.uk/page1902124918.aspx

Snow: Public service workers at their best

As extreme snow conditions hit hard, public service workers across the country have as usual responded above and beyond the call. Here are just a few examples from Edinburgh of the human faces behind the numbers of jobs facing the axe or being sold off.

Home carers visiting on foot through up to a foot of snow. The Ranger service providing a 4x4 to get them to inaccessible clients. Other staff volunteering their own 4x4s to help out. The police helping out.

Mobilise to defend public services

Closing speech to UNISON Scotland Mobilise 2010 training weekend: That’s the end of our event and I don’t know about you but I’ve been inspired by the weekend. Inspired by the work everyone has put in and about the way everyone has got involved to make it a success.

Aung San Suu Kyi Released – 1 Down, 2,202 To Go

"We will not let the world forget that you and thousands of others are in prison for standing up for democracy and the rights of workers", UNISON President Angela Lynes told 2009 National Conference as it marked Aung San Suu Kyi’s 64th Birthday under house arrest. As she is released today, the Burma Campaign turns to the thousands of other political prisoners in Burma’s jails.

We don’t believe your lies – and we won’t accept your cuts

Expectations were high for the Edinburgh demo. All the signs were that people were building for it. But even then, the turnout exceeded expectations, such is the widespread anger against the unfairness and savagery of the cuts. The anger at a government that “blames the excesses of the privileged on the poor”. Colourful and lively, over 20,000 people marched along iconic Princes Street with one clear message. There is a better way. http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/

Deficit deniers? What about cuts deniers?

Nick Clegg was yesterday trying to rubbish the Institute of Fiscal Studies' evidence that, with the exception of the richest 2% of the population, the least well-off would be hit the hardest, and families with children would lose out the most due to ConDem cuts.

Does Green realise he's arguing against privatisation?

UNISONActive readers will not have missed the irony of Sir Phillip Green advising the government how to save money while quite legally depriving it of the very millions in taxes that could avoid cuts in the first place.