NIPSA News October

NIPSA NEWS

1,000s OF JOBS TO BE AXED NIPSA in landmark Working Time Directive case

THE NEWSPAPER OF THE LEADING PUBLIC SERVICE TRADE UNION

October/November 2014 Tel: 028 90661831 www.nipsa.org.uk

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UNION DRAWS UP BATTLE PLAN TO SAVE JOBS

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News

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reasons It’s time to make a stand to join to save the Welfare State NIPSA

Why should you join NIPSA?

NIPSA offers a wide range of services to its members. As a NIPSA member you will enjoy a great range of benefits, including:

1. Personal Representation: Access to advice, information and personal representation. Whether you are experiencing difficulties at work in a grievance or disciplinary matter, feel overloaded, or believe you are being discriminated against, we are there to help you.

2. Collective Negotiation: NIPSA is viewed across the public sector as a formidable negotiator for improved pay and conditions.

3. Job Security: NIPSA campaigns for permanent contracts, career progression, adequate staffing and resources.

4. Professional Support: NIPSA provides you with a forum to raise professional issues, voice your concerns and influence decisions that affect your job.

5. Health and Safety Protection: NIPSA promotes good health and safety practices in your workplace.

6. Legal Advice and Assistance: Free legal assistance – NIPSA members won around £1m in compensation last year alone.

7. Other Membership Services: Membership Plus, latest discounts and offers.

8. Financial Services.

If you wish to become a member of NIPSA complete the application form or if you would like further information about becoming a member then please contact us:

Apply online: https://www.nipsa.org.uk/About-NIPSA/JoinUS/Apply-Online-%281%29 Or email us at: recruitment@nipsa.org.uk

NIPSA NEWS

NIPSA Harkin House, 54 Wellington Park, Belfast BT9 6DP, Tel: 028 90661831 Fax 028 90665847 or email: alison.millar@nipsa.org.uk Editorial contact details: Bob Miller email: bob.miller@nipsa.org.uk Correspondence should be sent to the above address.

Unless otherwise stated, the views contained in NIPSA NEWS do not necessarily reflect the policy of trade union NIPSA.

THE background to the current crisis in public finances involves the outworking of the UK Government’s austerity and anti-public sector programme. This attack on the public sector has intensified since the Tory/Liberal Dem Coalition came to power in 2010.

NIPSA is very clear that the UK Government is taking advantage of the financial and economic crises to undermine permanently the Welfare State.

The Welfare State, set up in the aftermath of World War II, has lead to significant improvements in Health, Education, Housing, Social Security and brought about the expansion of public services, which have, in turn, provided important protections for working people and their families.

This development of public services has not only fundamentally improved the lives of citizens but it also contributed to the UK becoming a fairer and more equal society.

All this is threatened by the current UK Government’s plan to “shrink the state” – in effect an agenda that threatens public sector jobs, pensions, pay levels and services which are delivered to the community.

The fact that this is their declared ambition makes this a matter of grave concern to all public servants as well as to society in general.

2015/16 Financial Year

While we have already experienced significant cuts since 2010, the scale of cuts forecast for 2015/16 and beyond is significantly greater. You will be aware of First Minister Peter Robinson’s recent statement that £160m could be saved annually if a Voluntary Exit Scheme was made available to public servants.

NIPSA estimates, depending on the salaries of those who might avail of any such scheme, that more than 6,000 public sector jobs could be lost.

It should be borne in mind that this would be in addition to the almost 6,000 public sector jobs in Northern Ireland that have already been cut since 2010.

Where the cuts will fall

The Northern Ireland Executive is tasked with agreeing a budget for the next financial year (April 2015 to March 2016) by the end of October this year.

It is not clear as yet whether there will be agreement within the Executive on this. If the Executive fails to set a budget, then it becomes the responsibility of the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Finance and Personnel to do so.

It is the normal practice that any draft budget is subject to a public consultation process, usually a 12-week period although it is not clear how any public consultation would proceed if the DFP Permanent Secretary sets the budget. In this context, substantial cuts in the budget for next year and indeed beyond are expected.

Until the budget is finalised it is not possible to

By Brian Campfield, General Secretary

state exactly where the cuts will fall.

While there are competing demands including a view that Health and, possibly, Education should be protected, we will have to await the draft budget to establish where the bulk of the cuts are going to fall.

If the Health budget or Health and Education budgets are “protected” (though in reality this is a cut in real terms accounting for inflation), the other public sector areas will experience the full force of the cuts. That is because the Health and Education budget constitute more than 60% of the Northern Ireland Block Grant allocation. The total cuts would then be placed on the remaining services and the impact would be disproportionately severe on both staff employed in those areas and the services they provide.

Types of pay bill reduction measures

To date a number of public service employers have been engaged in what is termed “scenario planning” where various options for achieving the cuts are considered depending on the extent of the budget reductions they say are required.

NIPSA has met with the Northern Ireland Civil Service Management Side to discuss the situation and we have been advised that the main emphasis will be on pay bill reduction.

The type of measures being considered include some of which have already taken effect – a freeze on all promotions and recruitment, reduction or discarding of agency and temporary staff, as well as a halt to overtime and pay freezes.

It is likely that savings based on these measures will be costed and that pay bill reductions from the impact of any Voluntary Exit Schemes would then be factored in or considered.

The approach in other public bodies is likely to be similar although it will be a matter for each Executive Minister to request each of the NICS Departments’ Permanent Secretaries to initiate such exercises in those public bodies within the jurisdiction of their own central government department.

While we are aware that a number of public sector employers, for example, Further Education and a number of Non-Departmental Public Bodies, have started this type of work, it is unclear whether this is the case across the public sector.

NIPSA will be insisting that every public sector employer properly consults with the union and other recognised unions on these matters.

Voluntary Exit Schemes

The First Minister commented that they would

IC SECTOR JOBS www.nipsa.org.uk

News

Major protests and a public sector-wide strike being planned against job cuts

“get knocked down in the rush” if voluntary early retirement or redundancy schemes were made available to public sector workers.

NIPSA appreciates that many staff who have been working under unacceptable pressures for a number of years may view these schemes as an opportunity to leave the public sector.

However, as a trade union, NIPSA would caution members to consider if leaving the public service is the right choice.

No doubt members will weigh up the pros and cons and take into account their own financial position and personal circumstances.

Members should, of course, consider all relevant matters before making decisions.

Members within the Northern Ireland Civil Service will be aware that the compensation terms available have been substantially reduced for many grades as a result of the passing by the Northern Ireland Assembly of regulations which were detrimental to the interests of staff.

These regulations were eventually introduced after a four-year campaign by NIPSA to maintain the previous more-beneficial provisions.

When we objected to any dilution of redundancy and early retirement terms, we were told

by Department of Finance and Personnel officials that there were no plans for redundancies in the Northern Ireland Civil Service but we were well aware of the meaninglessness of that projection!

As a trade union we have a responsibility to argue for the retention of public service jobs.

It is clearly the case that with every reduction in jobs, our ability to provide high quality services to the public is reduced.

This, in turn, undermines the services we provide and leaves public servants facing additional criticism in an understaffed environment.

This results in a crisis of confidence and this will obviously impact detrimentally on those left to deliver the services.

In Northern Ireland any loss of public sector jobs will have a negative impact on the local economy and young people leaving school and colleges will be deprived of potential employment opportunities.

They face a situation where the only jobs available are low-paid, are part-time, or are on offer as temporary, zero hour contracts, etc.

In the absence of such “opportunities”. the only alternatives are unemployment or emigration.

What next?

NIPSA will be actively opposing these draconian cuts to public sector jobs and the interests of members will be paramount in all that we do. It is essential that we build opposition to these cuts, not only in the interest of members and their families but also to defend the wider community of which we are a part.

NIPSA will be working within the trade union movement in Northern Ireland to build a campaign of opposition to these unprecedented public spending cuts.

We believe that the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly must do more to oppose the cuts and to reverse policies being pushed through by the Coalition Government at Westminster. These policies will undermine the very fabric of society in Northern Ireland.

Next year there will be a UK General Election,

by May at the latest. This gives an opportunity to send a strong message to all those political parties who wish to form a Government that the people of Northern Ireland will not accept the decimation of our public services and that the programme of cuts should be stopped and reversed.

In particular there is an onus on NIPSA and the wider trade union movement – as the only organised force which defends the interests of ordinary people – to take a lead in mobilising the population against these cuts.

The NIPSA General Council, meeting on October 17, took the view that in the lead up to the UK General Election, probably in the spring of 2015, we should be organising major public protests including a public sector-wide strike, in order to increase pressure on both our local and Westminster politicians and parties.

We will be liaising with our colleagues in the other unions and making the case both for community opposition along with action by all public sector trade unions.

Remember the attack on public sector jobs is part and parcel of the broader cuts that have raised pension contributions, cut the value of pensions, restricted promotion opportunities and reduced the real value of take -home pay. It’s time to demand, in as strong and as united a voice as possible, an end to all these attacks on public services and public sector workers.

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Hamilton’s NICS pay decision ‘disappointing’

GENERAL Secretary Brian Campfield has branded as “very disappointing”, Finance Minister Simon Hamilton’s decision to impose a 2014 pay package for the Northern Ireland Civil Service.

It is understood DFP issued a note to all NICS staff, setting out details of the package, the principal elements of which are: (a) all eligible fully satisfactory or better performers receive one step progression with effect from 1 August 2014; (b) all eligible fully satisfactory or better performers receiving less than a 1% consolidated increase will receive a non-consolidated pensionable payment to bring them up to the equivalent value of 1%; (c) with effect from 1 February 2015, the cap on Overtime Band 2 will be increased to the maximum of the Grade 7 pay scale; (d) with effect from 1 February 2015, the calculation for overtaken/undertaken annual leave will be amended to use a devisor of 260; (e) with effect from 1 February 2015, the calculation for a daily rate for deputising will be amended to use a divisor of 260.

Mr Campfield told NIPSA News: “The decision of the Minister, while not surprising, is nonetheless very disappointing.

NIPSA have been to date involved in negotiations with DFP officials on 2014 pay and one of our primary objectives was, in addition to the payment of incremental progression, to secure consolidated increases on all scale points especially at the maximum.

“Unfortunately we were not able to reach a point in these negotiations where Management Side were prepared to offer consolidated increases.”

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7.4 million losing sleep over money

MILLIONS of peope lie awake in bed at night worrying about money, debt charity StepChange said in October.

Those whose sleep patterns are being disrupted typically lose 11 nights’ worth of sleep a year, the group reported.

Fifteen per cent of more than 2,000 adults surveyed said that being plagued by latenight thoughts of their financial difficulties is preventing them from sleeping properly.

This equates to 7.4 million people across the country.

Workers ‘hiding stress and depression’

HUGE numbers of workers are hiding mental health conditions from their employers because they fear it will affect their career, according to a new report published early in October.

A survey of 2,000 adults by insurers Friends Life showed that two out of five have suffered from stress, anxiety or depression in the past year and not told their boss.

More than one in four of those surveyed said they had taken a day off sick and claimed that it was for a physical rather than mental health problem.

The most common cause of stress was excessive workload, followed by frustration with poor management and long working hours, the study found.

More than half of those polled said their career prospects would be damaged if they were open about stress or anxiety.

Younger workers were more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety or stress, said the report.

Friends Life group chief executive Andy Briggs said: “Our research shows that there is still much to be done in tackling mental health issues in the workplace.”

Women 'still doing most housework' despite working

WOMEN are still responsible for the lion’s share of household and family tasks even when working outside of home, Mumsnet has revealed.

Britain’s largest website for parents said that working mums undertake an average of 10 hours of chores a week — twice as many hours as men.

Out of 54 tasks including arranging childcare, managing routine health appointments and buying birthday presents, mothers were chiefly responsible for 36 of them and 15 were roughly shared, the poll of 1,000 working mums revealed.

Taking the bins out, changing lightbulbs and DIY tasks were the only three that men primarily took responsibility for.

Mumsnet chief executive Justine Roberts said “One-in-three working mums is the main family wage earner, a rise of one million over the last 18 years.

DOJ jobs at risk over deep cuts

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News

NIPSA News understands Department of Justice officials are trying to identify cuts of between 10% to 15% in 2014/15 amid fears that these can only be achieved by reducing programmes and ceasing a number of current initiatives.

The exact budget position for this year has been described as “fluid” as the Department struggles to cope with more than £47 million in cuts on top of £113 million planned cuts.

Describing the position as “critical”, NIPSA Assistant Secretary Ryan McKinney said: “Although we are being told that every effort will be made to protect the ‘frontline’ this is hardly comforting for staff.

“Justice Minister David Ford has already announced the clo-

Justice Minister David Ford has warned jobs at risk with deep cuts

sure of the Northern Ireland Law Commission. Funding to other ‘arm’s length bodies’ and NDPBs is to be slashed and this will put more jobs at risk.

“DOJ staff do a crucial job which is often out of sight – however, it is no less important to society in general. Backroom policy work around prisoner rehabilitation or with vulnerable young adults pays dividends in the long run.

“Short-term decisions to slash services will have long-term effects and dangers. It is despicable that Tory budget cuts are going to once again impact most seriously on working class communities.”

It is understood union reps on the ground are monitoring the impact on the core directorates of the DOJ and in agencies.

Members are being asked to provide feedback about what impact these cuts are having on services.

Gangmasters Licensing Authority to appeal 'shocking' sentence

THE body that licenses the supply of temporary labour has said it will appeal the sentence given to an illegal gangmaster (labour provider) who kept fellow Romanian workers in inhumane conditions in County Armagh.

Gheorge Ionas pleaded guilty to operating as a gangmaster without a licence at Craigavon Magistrates' Court.

He received a £500 fine.

The Gangmasters Licensing Authority described the punishment as "shocking".

The maximum sentence under the Gangmasters Licensing Act for working as an illegal gangmaster is 10 years in jail.

The court heard that officers from the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) and police searched Mr Ionas' home in Albert Avenue in Lurgan, County Armagh, on 2 October 2013.

They discovered three Romanian men sleeping in an outbuilding - the building was made out of bare breeze blocks and had no heating and only limited electricity.

It was later declared "unfit for human habitation" by environmental health officers at Craigavon Borough Council.

The court heard the men were employed as apple pickers, working in orchards in County Armagh, and were paid £100 per week, which was below the minimum wage.

Foraging

Officers working on the case were told that at one stage, up to five men had been living in the outbuilding.

It was alleged in a police interview that at least one of the men had foraged in supermarket bins for out of date food.

Mr Ionas took money from the men for food, transport and accommodation before he paid them.

GLA chief executive Paul Broadbent said he was "appalled" by the leniency of the sentence and would be seeking an appeal.

"I simply fail to see how this punishment fits the crime and is in any way a deterrent for someone who preyed on vulnerable men," he said.

"I will be writing to the public prosecutor for Northern Ireland to seek leave to appeal this derisory sentence and express my utter dismay that slavery - for that is what this was - is seemingly not recognised in the court where this defendant appeared.

"At a time when the proposed Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill in Northern Ireland stipulates a minimum sentence of two years for 'trafficking' offences, and the very offence that was admitted under the Gangmasters Licensing Act carries a maximum of 10 years, this case must surely be reconsidered."

Organise to protect services, jobs, pay and pensions

YOU HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY...SUPPORT YOUR UNION AND YOUR COLLEAGUES

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Jolie good result as cancer tests rise...

BREAST cancer tests in the UK doubled after actress Angelina Jolie (pictured above) revealed her own preventive mastectomy.

The number of GP referrals for genetic and DNA tests for breast cancer grew by two-and-a-half times between July 2012 and last year.

Researchers said the rise in awareness was welcome as most of the women testing had family histories of breast cancer.

..but many cancers are being found late

ALMOST half of cancers diagnosed in England are detected at a late stage when treatment is less likely to be successful, Cancer Research UK reported yesterday.

The group says catching cancer early could improve the prospects of more than 52,000 patients a year in England, saving nearly £210 million.

Experts estimate that if the best early diagnosis rates were delivered an extra 5,000 patients would survive five years or more.

Work deaths down 80% FATALITES at work have fallen by almost 80 per cent since Labour introduced the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974.

Non-fatal injuries are down by more than 75 per cent.

The beginning of the month, October 1, marked the Act’s 40th anniversary.

But one union leader said the protections provided by the Act are at risk because of the Coalition Government’s “obsession” with de-regulation, cuts and political interference.

He said “Cuts and political interference from Ministers mean that most workplaces are no longer being inspected.

Local authorities enforce health and safety in shops and they have suffered cuts, with latest estimates indicating that local authority inspections have plummeted by 90 per cent or more since 2010.

“The law is needed just as much today as it was in 1974, to protect the health, safety and welfare of all workers.”

PSNI faces ‘serious’ cuts as 300 temp jobs slashed

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NIPSA representatives have met with senior HR and Finance officials following PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton’s dramatic announcement that the organisation was facing an impossible position due to budget cuts.

Since the announcement, the union’s reps have been inundated with queries from concerned workers both within the civilian staff and the managed service contract.

PSNI have now confirmed that the DOJ has asked the organisation to plan for up to £120 million in cuts in 2014/15 – that is in addition to in-year cuts of £57 million.

The last four years have already seen a budget reduction of £135 million.

In response to the most recent cuts to the PSNI budget, the controversial ‘Grafton’ contract has been axed with around 300 agency workers losing their posts and the Historical Enquiries Team being wound up.

And NIPSA Official Ryan McKinney told NIPSA News he fears this is far from the end of the matter.

He warned: “There is no doubting the seriousness of this situation. On top of the ending of the associates’ contract, there will now be a review of all so-called managed services and I believe that it is highly likely that some NIPSA members

Chief Constable George Hamilton in dramatic announcement

working on those contracts are likely to be affected.

“The budget reductions will be sought from the running costs so civilian staff will potentially be in danger too.

“This is not about identifying efficiencies – this is cuts and there can be no doubt that the public will notice a reduced capability.”

Mr McKinney added: “NIPSA has asked for a meeting with the Chief Constable and in the meantime further engagement with HR is planned.”

Fury over disabled pay comments

DAVID CAMERON was challenged to come clean on whether the government had investigated Lord Freud’s suggestion of slashing the minimum wage for disabled people.

Labour demanded that the Prime Minister reveal all internal papers and details of work commissioned about cutting pay for disabled workers.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves wrote to Mr Cameron after it was revealed that Lord Freud said disabled people were “not worth the full wage.”

Her letter was issued as at least one Tory backbench MP defended the Welfare Reform Minister’s statement.

He had told fellow Tories at a conference fringe meeting that he was “going to go and think about that particular issue, whether there is something we can do nationally.”

Mr Cameron insisted “those have never been the views of the government” when Ed Miliband confronted him with the comments at Prime Minister’s questions.

But Ms Reeves challenged him to prove it by releasing all related research carried out by or for departments over the last 12 months.

She also called on the PM to order Lord Freud to come and explain his comments before Parliament.

The Tories had told their Lords

frontbencher not to take part in today’s social justice debate in a bid to hide from the growing media storm over his comments.

But Ms Reeves said: “If you cannot agree to this, people will only conclude that your government has something to hide — that you cannot publicly defend your position in relation to disabled people’s entitlement to the minimum wage — and your inaction will haunt you.”

A Number 10 spokeswoman told the press yesterday morning that Mr Cameron had not even discussed events with Lord Freud.

She said the PM’s office had instead “made clear the PM’s views.”

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THE TRUE PAY SCANDAL

FORTY nine minutes after returning to work after the 2013 New Year break Britain’s highest paid director, Simon Peckham, Chief Executive of engineering company Melrose, earned as much as a worker on the living wage earns in a year, according to new TUC research looking at directors’ pay in Britain’s top 350 companies.

Simon Peckham – Britain’s highest paid director in the financial year ending in April 2013 – received more than £31m (£31,157,399) or £119,836 a day.

This is 2,238 times more than a worker on the living wage of £7.65 an hour who worked 35 hours a week.

The top pay research contained in Executive Excess was provided by independent researchers Incomes Data Services. It covers the year ending April 2013 and shows that across the FTSE 100 the average (median) total earnings for the highest paid director was £3,195,353 – 230 times an annual full-time non-London living wage.

It would have taken just over a day for the average director to have earned a year’s worth of the living wage (£7.65 an hour), according to the research.

Companies with high inequality between top pay and that of the rest of their staff perform less well, according to research. But employees and investors do not have access to robust information that would allow them to assess the gap between top directors and staff in the rest of their company.

The TUC is calling on the government to compel firms to disclose full information about employee pay.

Only 39 out of 288 companies (14 per cent) asked by the TUC to provide sufficient data to make an accurate calculation of the ratio between director and staff pay even replied to the request. A third of them provided no more information than was in their annual report.

At present companies are only required to publish a figure for the total cost of staff remuneration and the number of staff they employ. But while these totals allow calculation of a figure for average (mean) pay, different companies compile the data in different ways.

For example, some include overseas staff based in countries where pay might be higher or lower than the UK. Some companies include contractors and some do not. And a crude mean of this type only reveals what an average staff member earns a year without taking into account whether they work full or part-time.

The published figures show that across the FTSE 100 the average (median) ratio between the total earnings of the highest paid director and mean staff pay was 85.

Union in landmark WTD case News

www.nipsa.org.uk

Health board’s decision to settle workers’ claim will have wide repurcussions

NIPSA recently settled Industrial Tribunal proceedings with the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust, recording an important victory over the proper implementation of the Working Time Directive (WTD).

This involved the employer’s obligation to ensure members of staff are not made to work excessive hours without adequate compensatory rest or payment.

The union had supported the case on behalf of staff working in a residential care home at William Street, Newtownards.

The unit provides accommodation and care for vulnerable children and supervision is needed 24 hours a day.

There is a rota system using shift patterns. Part of the shift system means that members of staff working late shifts are then required to sleep on the premises.

The shift system seems variable but a number of shifts were outlined to the NIPSA legal team: 07.00-14.30; 10.00-17.00; 14.00-23.00 (until settled) and 14.00-14.30 (24.5hr shift).

In practice, the full scheduled sleep is rarely afforded to members and staff described having at least two to three hours on average of work during the scheduled rest period.

The hours and shift patterns described were also outside the limits of the working time regulations.

A NIPSA source said: “It was clear from the consultation with our legal representatives that the health of members was being affected severely by the demands of the work. Furthermore the information provided by members to the legal representatives clearly indicated that members were being required to work excess hours without adequate compensatory rest.”

In the subsequent legal proceedings issued by NIPSA, it was argued that under WTR: 1. An adult worker is entitled to a rest period of not less than 11 consecutive hours in each 24-hour period.

There is no requirement that the rest period be particularly restful, so long as it is a period free from the obligations of work.

2. An adult worker is entitled to an uninterrupted rest period of not less than 24 hours in each seven-day period.

3. An adult worker is entitled to a rest break where his or her daily working time is more than six hours. The rest

break must be an uninterrupted period of not less than 20 minutes.

NIPSA took the case on behalf of three members at the care home and it was agreed to settle the case (without proceeding to a formal tribunal) in the following terms: a. All time during which the claimants were required to be present on the respondent’s premises during the overnight shifts was working time. b. The respondent is required to provide compensatory rest for working time carried out by the claimants. c. The respondent has failed to provide adequate or equivalent compensatory rest for night-time working under the present rota system at William Street, Newtownards. d. The failure to pay claimants the appropriate contractual rate for working time was an unlawful deduction of wages. e. The claimants are entitled to be paid at their appropriate contractual rate for all working time for six years prior to the date of lodgement of the ET1. f. The basis for calculation of the amounts to be paid and the date of payment have been agreed between the parties.

Finally, the parties further agreed that the ‘appropriate contractual rate’ would include the claimants’ normal holiday rates applicable at the relevant time plus the following allowances (where applicable) under the terms and conditions of Agenda for Change: unsociable hours; weekend working; public or bank holidays; and overtime.

However, it does not include disturbed time allowance or night allowance (which has been paid) – those amounts being set off and deducted from any sums due for the whole shift.

As NIPSA News goes to press, the calculations for this award are currently being agreed between NIPSA and the employer.

A NIPSA source added: “Clearly a decision of this nature could have wider implications for the HSC Trusts and other organisations employing similar types of arrangements. NIPSA will be liaising with branches and issuing advice accordingly to members with a view to considering if other similar proceedings need to be lodged.”

Developing a strategy to save our Health Service www.nipsa.org.uk

FOLLOWING a number of resolutions at both the main NIPSA conference and the HSC annual delegate conference, the union has written to NIC-ICTU emphasising the need to call a public demonstration in support of health and social care services in Northern Ireland.

NIPSA suggested Congress convene a public event in Belfast and possibly a number of other locations in support of the Health Service.

This request has been picked up by the NICICTU Health Committee through Congress.

However, it is understood a special conference, titled ‘Health, Safety and the Wellbeing of our People – delivering a trade union response to the crisis in healthcare’, is scheduled to be held in November.

The full-day conference will be held at UNISON headquarters in Belfast on November 12 and unions are being asked to send delegates to the event.

It is anticipated that as well as raising awareness of the issue, the conference will look at developing a strategy, advocacy and platform for a NIC-ICTU-led, cross-trade union campaign in defence of a public health service.

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Three sections to the conference are being proposed:

Part 1:

Information and analysis on the state and potential future of the health service, three speakers have been identified to address the crisis in the NHS in England, the NHS in Scotland and the TYC initiative in Northern Ireland followed by a Q and A session.

Part 2:

Information and analysis on the state and potential future of the NI Health Service, three trade union side speakers have been identified to address TYC privatising your health service in Northern Ireland, governance in the NHS and failure to tackle health inequalities in Northern Ireland and the crisis in our NHS, is there an alternative? Followed by a Q and A session.

Part 3:

Developing the Trade Union strategy. It is hoped that a NIC-ICTU-led, cross-trade union campaign will be developed in defence of a

public health service with the emphasis on highlighting what are appropriate demands, how those demands are raised and how can such demands can be delivered. The NIC-ICTU Health Committee also wishes to see the preparation in advance of a declaration in defence of the NHS based on its founding principles that could be adopted by the conference with a view to getting politicians, including MLAs, MPs etc, to sign up to it.

A NIPSA spokesperson said: “It is our intention to build on the conference in November to seek to organise a region-wide demonstration in defence of our NHS. “NIPSA has pointed out that we should be innovative and imaginative in order to encourage the widest possible participation from workplaces and local communities across Northern Ireland. If possible, a cavalcade and march should be organised to travel to each Trust area over a week (in a ‘battle bus’) in defence of our NHS. “It is NIPSA’s intention to bring forward such initiatives as part of developing a [wider] trade union strategy.”

Some thoughts on the ‘new’ Education Authority QUESTION: How many Education Bills does it take for politicians to transform education?

ANSWER: None of the politicians currently employed in Stormont actually know, except that it is clearly more than three. As the third Education Bill is rushed through Stormont’s legislative process by accelerated passage (given its urgency, you might think – but you’d be wrong), it will be passed into law in time for April 1, 2015 or the collapse of the Assembly, whichever comes sooner.

“One thing you can be sure of,” Assistant Secretary Paddy Mackel told NIPSA News, “is that this third Bill for ‘ESA light’ will not transform education provision.

“We will still in the main educate our children separately. We will now have two sectoral support bodies to oversee that separation of education.

“Of course, it is true that if it actually happens next April, we will no longer have five Chief Executives for the five Education and Library Boards. Rather we will have one Chief Executive for the new Education Authority, along with five Deputy Chief Executives.

“We will no longer have five Education and Library Board Headquarters. Rather we will have one new HQ, probably based in Belfast and five regional offices, based precisely where the five Headquarters are currently located.

Life is not like Narnia where everything stays the same “We will continue to have 89 grammar and integrated schools which will sit outside the control of the new Education Authority – elitist in nature and oblivious to the educational needs of the majority of young people.”

You may be forgiven for thinking that there was a crisis in Stormont in terms of political disagreement and inadequate funding provision.

However, in the alternative World of Narnia

or Tír na nÓg, the real world seldom penetrates.

Unfortunately – unlike Tír na nÓg where noone ever aged – children and young people will indeed age as they continue to go through this segregated education system, which hasn’t changed in generations.

Hopefully, however, unlike Narnia, change will eventually come long before 2555.

That’s a lot of Education Bills between now and then. And in the meantime…

VOICE

Wonga forced to write off 330,000 loans Trade unionist, MLAs

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Welfare Cuts

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express anger at wel

INFAMOUS pay-day lender Wonga has been forced to write off the debts of 330,000 customers after it admitted it has made loans to people who could not afford to repay them.

The move follows an agreement with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that requires it to make significant changes to its business immediately.

The review means that approximately 330,000 customers who are currently over 30 days in arrears will have the balance of their loan written off.

Around 45,000 customers who are up to 29 days in arrears will be asked to repay their debt without interest and charges and have the option of paying off their debt over an extended period of four months.

FCA director of supervision Clive Adamson said: “We are determined to drive up standards in the consumer credit market and it is disappointing that some firms still have a way to go to meet our expectations.

“This should put the rest of the industry on notice — they need to lend affordably and responsibly. It is absolutely right that Wonga’s new management team has acted quickly to put things right for their customers after these issues were raised by the FCA.” But Labour MP Pat McFadden, a member of the Treasury committee, said the response by Wonga was “not good enough” and said bosses should be face questions on their business model and lending practices.

“By not doing proper credit checks, Wonga looks to have built a business on rolling over loans and building up debt for many people who could never afford to repay in the first place,” he said.

“The effect on consumers has been to build up debts at astronomical rates of interest.”

A SENIOR trade unionist has warned that Welfare Reform – unless it is scrapped – will “devastate the working poor and marginalised communities” in Northern Ireland.

ICTU Assistant General Secretary Peter Bunting made the comment as he joined nearly 200 trade union and civic society activists, an MP and MLAs to debate the issue at a special half-day seminar in the Wellington Park Hotel, Belfast, on October 1.

Those who attended were told the Welfare State was under unprecedented attack. Guest speakers from England and Scotland reported on how the implementation of cuts had impacted on the marginalised and working poor across the UK. In Northern Ireland, a coalition of trade unions and civil society organisations are campaigning to have the Welfare Reform Bill either scrapped or heavily watered down.

The Scrap Welfare Reform seminar heard from a number of speakers – including an MP, MLAs and disabled rights campaigners – who outlined the impact welfare reform was having on their constituencies.

Peter Bunting explained that the seminar’s purpose was to warn of the impact the welfare cuts would have on civic society in Northern Ireland.

He said: “It is also about keeping up people’s enthusiasm in opposing the welfare cuts which are really contradictory in many terms. We are trying to build an inclusive and equal society here in Northern Ireland and the results of these particular cuts will devastate the working poor and our marginalised communities.”

He suggested that those willing to implement the Welfare Reform Bill will launch an attack on trade union opponents to the cuts with the threat of job losses in the public sector.

Dave Anderson, Labour MP for Blaydon, told the seminar of the devastation being wrought on

THOUSANDS of disabled people across THE UK, with more than 600 in Northern Ireland, are in financial crisis and unable to pay for essential living costs due to “severe delays” in receiving a new disability benefit, research has shown.

Disabled people have been waiting an average of six months between claiming for the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and receiving the money, with some waiting more than a year, according to debt charity Citizens

Advice. As part of its welfare reforms, the government ditched the Disability Living Allowance (DLA), cutting the benefit altogether for disabled people until they prove they are eligible for its replacement PIP. DLA and PIP are specifically designed to help disabled people in or out of work meet their basic living costs.

But the Citizens Advice research showed that delays are forcing most to do without any benefit with some reporting waits of up to 15 months

Tory plans leave fami A TUC analysis of Tory tax and benefit plans revealed that they would leave working families hundreds of pounds worse off every year.

Prime Minister David Cameron launched a tax giveaway in his Tory conference speech to cheer-up beleaguered activists.

“With us, if you work 30 hours a week on minimum wage, you will pay no income tax at all. Nothing. Zero. Zilch,” he said.

But TUC research shows that a couplefamily with two children and 30 hours’ work

his community by the cuts programme.

“We are seeing in Northern Ireland the chance of saying no to something that is devastating to the lives of ordinary people. It’s making the poorest pay for the mistakes and failures of the banks.”

He added: “We are seeing the increase in food banks. In my own village we have had to set one up and are encouraging people take at least one high-end, quality item... amazingly it appears that toilet rolls are seen as high quality goods.

What sort of life is this that we are forcing people to live?

“Politicians are saying there is no choice but to accept these cuts. There is another choice... it’s opposition to the dismantling of the Welfare State and I support the trade union campaign in Northern Ireland in its bid to save this public service.”

NIPSA and ICTU rep Maria Morgan said the seminar was set up to reinforce the trade union’s campaign to build with civic organisations and politicians an effective opposition to the cuts in welfare.

“There has been a lot of effort by the media, the Tory and other parties to create a divide between those currently in work and those out of

Thousands in financial crisis putting thousands of disabled people in “severe hardship.”

PIP is also a passport to other benefits too, such as for loved ones who want to claim the carer’s allowance, therefore the delays mean that some claimants are also missing out on other financial support, the research found.

“The basic cost of living is generally higher for sick and disabled people than for the average citizen,” said Citizens Advice head of policy Susan McPhee.

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against austerity Welfare cuts

s and MP lfare cuts lies even worse off

at the national minimum wage would suffer a net loss of £320 a year.

Most families on a single minimum wage will still need to claim in-work benefits.

Means-testing will therefore reduce the net gain from the income tax cut to just £60 a year instead of £400.

“The Conservative plans will make the lowest paid families foot the bill for tax cuts for the rich,” said TUC leader Frances O’Grady.

work by saying they are subsidising tax credits and trying to demonise the unemployed and the low paid. We are trying to dispel the myths.”

John McInally, National Vice-President of the PCS union, told the seminar: “Evidence from England, Scotland and Wales, has shown that the welfare cuts programme has been shown to be an unmitigated disaster for workers.

“It’s not only an attack on people claiming benefits and the unemployed but it’s an attack on the disabled and those employed, especially the low paid, as well.”

He continued: “If you want to measure the impact, then look at the rise in food banks, increase in inequality and marginalisation. You can also measure it in the terms of suicides of people who have had benefits stopped.

“It is a cruel regime that seeks to blame the poor by saying they had made a lifestyle choice.

This of course is nonsense. People want jobs, people want a decent life, but welfare cuts are about driving them into the dust, it’s about privatising public services, it’s about cutting staff and it’s about the disintegration and the destruction of the Welfare State.”

Ellen Clifford, of Inclusion London & Disabled People Against Cuts, claimed the cuts pro-

Maria Morgan ‘dispelling myths’

gramme was a regressive step.

“It’s taking disabled people’s rights back to 30 years ago. People are being left with literally nothing to live on. We are seeing huge levels of destitution. Suicides are increasing and one telling statistic reports that there is now a suicide each day on the UK railway system,” she added.

Lynn Carvill, Empty Purse Campaign, also shared her organisation’s opposition to the cuts.

Three MLAs – Sinn Fein’s Alex Maskey, UUP’s Michael Copeland and Simon Ross for the Greens – also spoke opposing the cuts programme.

Alex Maskey congratulated the unions for organising the seminar and giving a platform to all groups opposed to welfare cuts.

He said: “It has proven that there is deep anger in society against the cuts. The trade unions have been highlighting the problems over a number of years on what will happen when these cuts are implemented.

“The seminar gives a broader voice to all those who are opposed to the cuts and that is to be welcomed.”

over benefits delay “This is because of the additional costs of special food, medicines or equipment they might need, extra heating and lighting costs for those who need to stay at home longer, or transport costs for those who are less mobile.

“These extra costs are not luxuries. They are essential to leading a basic life of dignity.”

She added that “too many disabled people are not getting that support and many are falling into poverty as a result.”

Disabled People Against Cuts co-founder

l Where does Working Tax Credit go? – see page 12.

Linda Burnip said that part of the reason for the severe delays is that assessors Atos and Capita are “such toxic brands” that nobody wants to work for them.

“Appointments for PIP have been cancelled time and time again. Disabled people are also losing as tens of thousands of pounds, although successful claimants should receive backtracked payments many are not or are receiving less than they should.”

Minimum wage to rise by 3%

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LOW-WAGED workers benefitted from their first above-inflation pay rise since the Tories took power.

Adults aged 21 and above will benefit from a 3 per cent boost to the national minimum wage in October, which will rise from £6.31 to £6.50.

But the TUC pointed out low earners would have 50p-an-hour more in their pocket if wages had kept pace with inflation.

General secretary Frances O’Grady said: “It is good news to see the worst-paid adult workers receiving a pay release above inflation for the first time for four years.

“But it’s a muted celebration because the minimum wage would be worth at least £7 today had it kept up with rising prices.”

Her message came as the TUC finalised its preparations for its huge Britain Needs a Pay Rise march and rally in London on October 18.

Apprentices and workers aged under 20 were robbed once again of an above-inflation top-up — receiving just 2 per cent.

And the TUC believes around 60 per cent of Britain’s minimum wage workers are women.

The Resolution Foundation revealed that the number of workers stuck on the rate has hit an all-time high.

Its research found 1.2 million people are stuck on poverty pay — twice as many compared with when the rate was introduced in April 1999.

Chief economist Matthew Whittaker said: “The increased ‘stickiness’ of jobs on the minimum wage points to a wider problem of low pay in the UK.”

What a difference £1.50 would make

AN INCREASE in the minimum wage of just £1.50 would boost the UK’s economy and create tens of thousands of new jobs, according to a new independent report.

The increase would benefit 4.6 million of Britain’s lowest-paid workers by an average of £1,400 per year, add £2.1 billion to public finances and potentially generate at least 30,000 new jobs, says the report.

The current hourly minimum wage is £6.31 for people over 21, £5.03 for those aged 18-21, £3.72 for under-18s and £2.68 for apprentices.

From October 1 there will be a paltry increase lifting the minimum to £6.50, £5.13, £3.79 and £2.73 respectively.

The report, commissioned by Unite and prepared by economist Howard Reed, formerly of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, will form the basis of the union’s submission to the government’s low-pay commission.

The report states that the increase would help poorest families the most, with the biggest gainers in the bottom 60 per cent of income distribution.

The biggest group of beneficiaries would be retail workers — more than 900,000 would benefit — and workers in the hospitality industry, in which 750,000 would benefit. In addition, 190,000 cleaners would see a boost to their incomes.

Wages have fallen £50 a week since 2008, says TUC

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AVERAGE wages have fallen by £50 a week in real terms since 2008, according to new analysis.

The analysis shows that even using the government’s preferred inflation measure (the consumer prices index), which excludes housing costs, workers are on average £2,500 a year worse off in terms of their spending power than they were before the crash.

Last month Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said that average weekly earnings have fallen by around 10 per cent in real terms since the financial crisis.

The TUC analysis shows the cost of this fall for working people and how pay has failed to pick up during the recent economic recovery.

This is the seventh year that average weekly earnings have been falling – the longest period since records began in the 1850s, says the TUC. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Workers would be over £2,500 a year better off had wage growth kept pace with even the most modest measure of inflation.

“Instead, pay has fallen off a cliff and shows little sign of recovering any time soon. Ordinary households are not sharing in the recovery and are facing their seventh consecutive year of real wage cuts.

“People are increasingly being forced to use their credit cards and dwindling savings to make ends meet, and unless Britain gets a pay rise soon the UK’s personal debt problem will get even worse.

Child maintenance £20 charge worring

THE new £20 charge to use the government's child maintenance service could leave separated parents without any support arrangements in place for their children, MPs have warned.

The Public Accounts Committee said there was worrying uncertainty about the impact of the £20 fee hitting low-income families who use the service to assess, collect and make payments.

Chairwoman Margaret Hodge said: "There is a risk that some parents end up reaching no arrangement at all, to the detriment of the children involved.”

Childcare costs rising

The average cost of raising a child to secondary school age is almost £84,000, according to a survey for the Halifax bank.

The bulk of the total £83,627 bill comes from childcare before children reach school age, which stands at around £41,139.

Parents were on average found to be spending £633.54 a month on their children, adding up to £7,602.50 a year.

News

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News

Pensions Bill puts security in old age at risk

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Responding to the publication of the government’s Taxation of Pensions Bill in midOctober, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Re-announcing his plans to allow the over-55s to dip into their pension pots does not make George Osborne's hastily cobbled-together policy any less rash.

“The suggestion that savers could treat their pension savings as a bank account is irresponsible.

“We need further pension reform to ensure that people have adequate incomes in their old age. But this should be considered and consensual, not rushed out through a bill published on the back of an envelope with an eye on next year’s election.”

Police staff to be balloted for pay strikes

CIVILIAN police staff in England and Wales will be balloted for industrial action in protest at a “miserly” 1 per cent pay offer.

Unions said staff were angry at the realterms pay cuts imposed across the public sector.

They are demanding a 3% pay increase in allowances.

In an informal ballot earlier this year, staff overwhelmingly rejected the sub-inflationary offer.

A yes vote in the upcoming ballot could see industrial action before Christmas.

Staff involved in the dispute include community support officers, 999 operators, fingerprint experts, criminal justice unit clerks, custody and detention officers, and a wide range of operational and organisational support roles.

Child poverty targets ‘will let kids down’

CAMPAIGNERS said that Iain Duncan Smith’s new targets to reduce child poverty lack ambition and will "let a lot of children down".

The Work and Pensions Secretary set a target of less than 7 per cent of children living in persistent poverty by 2020 for the Con-Dem government.

He said the target showed the Government recognised that "persistent poverty can be particularly harmful to children's life chances.”

But the Child Poverty Action Group chief executive Alison Garnham said: "This is a target that will let a lot of children down.

"We hope the 7 per cent will be a starting point from which we can move to a more ambitious target as favoured by two-thirds of respondents to the Government 's consultation."

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Protesters oppose ‘Ministry of Thirst’ water charges

MORE than 50,000 people packed Dublin’s streets to oppose a government plan for a new water tax, on October 12.

The anti-austerity protest came on the same day as a shock by-election victory for an anti-water charges campaigner, and was Ireland’s largest demo in years.

Until now, the Republic’s citizens paid for their water services through general taxation. However this year, the country’s centre-right coalition decided to charge households several hundred euro a year for the service, from the start of 2015. The move immediately became unpopular among the country’s population, and has sparked a mass non-payment movement.

The Right2Water Campaign calling for the water bills to be abolished was organized by trade unions, antiausterity groups and opposition parties. The organisers of the event estimated up to 100,000 of people took part in the anti-austerity march on Saturday, while the Irish Times put the figure at around 50,000.

On the same day as the rally, the results were announced in two parliamentary by-elections. In one, Dublin South West, a leading campaigner against the water charges, Paul Murphy, of the Anti-Austerity Alliance, won a surprise victory ahead of the favourite, Sinn Fein candidate Cathal King.

Both the Anti-Austerity Alliance, led by the Socialist Party, and Sinn Fein oppose the water charges, and together they got more than 60 percent of the votes. Pro-government and pro-water charges candidates saw their share of the vote slashed.

Library provision under attack again News

WHILE members may have followed some of the spats between politicians in recent weeks – a few almost comical in their jousting – the real impact of the cuts has started to hit home.

In Libraries NI, the Chief Executive notified staff that cuts of 4.4% were being imposed on the organisation for the period up to March 2015.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Department has also referred to potential further cuts of up to 10% being contemplated from April 1, 2015.

Assistant Secretary Paddy Mackel told NIPSA News: “Members are devastated by this announcement. They are facing the removal of cover for up to 10% of all posts through the release of Agency staff.

“Members have also been told that sick leave, annual leave or even planned maternity leave may no longer be covered. While this clearly will impact directly on our members, it is also a serious blow to the service being provided by small libraries in those communities.

“Having gone through a review of library provision in Greater Belfast, followed by the

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review of rural libraries followed by a review of opening hours, this is a kick in the teeth to staff who have provided a firstclass service to customers throughout all those changes.”

He added: “Our members have had enough.”

NIPSA has arranged meetings with the Chief Executive of Libraries NI and with the DCAL Minister to discuss the impact such a drastic cut will have on resources.

Paddy Mackel also confirmed that the NIPSA Libraries Committee will reconvene following the meeting with the Minister to discuss how members intend to react to this further attack on the service they provide.

He added: “This is further evidence of the anti-people, anti-worker, anti-public service agenda of the Westminster government.

Members here need local Ministers to stand up against these cuts, rather than meekly roll over and accept them as somehow inevitable.

“These cuts affect real people, both those in work and those who use the service. It’s time the Assembly Executive got real.”

FE Sector cuts – time to stand up and be counted!

IF MEMBERS thought that things may get better next year and beyond, recent announcements in the FE Sector will have corrected that view.

The Department of Employment and Learning have instructed colleges across the FE Sector to prepare for cuts to their budget of 15% from next August.

Assistant Secretary Paddy Mackel, reflecting the outrage of members at the announcements, told NIPSA News: “No service can sustain cuts of this magnitude. This attack on young people and their education and training sends out a clear message that everyone is expendable.

“A 15% cut in resources equates to more than £40m in the budget. This will result in many, many hundreds of job cuts. It will result in thousands of young people – upwards of 50% coming from areas of multiple deprivation and social exclusion – being left out in the cold, failed by an education system which would apparently rather that they were unemployed, with no job, no prospects, no training and no future.”

Paddy Mackel pointed out that the blame lay with the Westminster government but insisted that a “light must be shone” on local parties in

the Assembly “who seem incapable of affecting change or they are indifferent to the impact these cuts will have on ordinary people”.

He said: “The FE Sector provides a first-class service to young people and it acts as an important bridge between the traditional school method of education and the options of Higher Education or training, apprenticeships and paid employment.”

NIPSA has arranged meetings will all employers and has called an urgent meeting of the NIPSA FE Panel.

Discussions are also continuing with other support staff and lecturers’ unions to develop a joint response to this crisis, which is likely to include a joint meeting with the Minister and the Assembly Committee.

Paddy Mackel added: “The response to these cuts will involve meeting with employers, the Departments, politicians and others. However, members must realise that they are now fighting for their employment survival, for their right to work and for the right of young people to have access to education and training. There is no alternative. It is time to stand up and be counted.”

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New dog attack laws protects posties

LAWS to protect postal and telecommunication workers from dog attacks come into force on Monday, October 20.

There are about 3,000 dog attacks on postal and telecom workers every year in Britain, with 75 per cent occurring on private property.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has produced a manual offering practical advice to the police and local authorities about what they are now legally allowed to demand from reckless dog owners.

“The practitioner’s manual is welcome as it clearly sets out what powers those in authority have and what demands they can make of irresponsible dog owners,” said CWU general secretary Billy Hayes.

“We have fought hard to get the law tightened because of the disproportionate number of postal workers who are attacked by dogs.

Around 6,300 postal workers have been attacked by dogs since 2012 for simply doing their jobs.”

No reassurance over AfC pay following Wells meeting News

ON October 23, NIPSA, as part of a Staff Side delegation, met with new Health Minister Jim Wells.

The meeting concerned the Minister’s failure to implement the NHS Pay Review Body (NHSPRB) recommendation of a 1% increase on all rates of pay plus incremental pay progression, which of course is a contractual element of Agenda for Change pay.

Since March, NIPSA has been pressing for members to receive the NHSPRB pay recommendation in full.

Deputy General Secretary Alison Millar told NIPSA News: “Unfortunately I have to report Minister Wells said or did nothing to reassure us that he was going to implement the 1% increase on all rates of pay.

“What he did say was that he was taking the matter to the Northern Ireland Executive so that he and his ministerial colleagues could make a joint decision over the pay of 200,000 public sector workers.”

She continued: “It is clear the Health Minister is not doing what he could do [which is] implement the Pay Review Body recommendation in its totality.

“NIPSA pressed the Minister on whether he would argue with his ministerial colleagues for the recommen-

dation to be implemented and for staff to receive the 1% increase. He refused to confirm this and instead continually stated a decision would be taken by the Executive on public sector pay as a whole.

“Given there was no commitment from the Minister on Agenda for Change pay, NIPSA believes, following engagement with members over the last two months that we have no alternative but to put in place arrangements to move to a statutory industrial action ballot.

“The details of this will be worked out shortly and communicated to members.”

It is understood NIPSA is also working with other health unions to co-ordinate any industrial action to ensure its maximum impact.

Ms Millar added: “Members are being treated disgracefully over pay and if this Minister and the Northern Ireland Assembly get away with refusing to implement the NHSPRB recommendation, they will try to make further in-roads into attacking members’ terms and conditions of employment.

“NIPSA is therefore calling on all members to defend their pay, terms and conditions and cuts to health service provision.”

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NIC-ICTU to hold healthcare crisis conference

NIC-ICTU is to hold a special conference on the healthcare crisis with a view to developing a cross-trade union campaign to defend the public health system in Northern Ireland.

The conference, titled ‘Health, Safety and the Well Being of our People – Developing a Trade Union Response to the Crisis in Health Care’, takes place on Wednesday, November 12 at UNISON headquarters in Belfast from 9.30am to 3.30pm.

Speakers include Prof. Wendy Savage (Keep Our NHS Public), Dr Philippa Whitford (Consultant surgeon and NHS campaigner), Una Lynch (Health Education, Policy and Research), Patricia McKeown (NICICTU), John McVey (NIPSA), and Jonathan Swallow (UNISON).

Deputy General Secretary Alison Millar told NIPSA News: “The crisis in our health care system is obvious.

However, the myths and spin propagated in the media obscure the true picture of reforms imposed without accountability that will lead to further cuts and privatisation. If we do not act now there will no longer be a universal, comprehensive and free health care service.

“As well as raising awareness of the importance of this issue for all trade union members and their families, the conference will look at developing a strategy for a NIC-ICTU-led, crosstrade union campaign in defence of a public health service.”

She added: “It is important therefore that NIPSA is well represented at this conference.”

Branches interested in representatives should email Karen Barrett at karen.barrett@nipsa.org.uk Delegates must be registered in advance of the conference.

Asbestos victims win legal costs battle

ASBESTOS campaigners won a landmark High Court victory on Thursday, October 2, against the government’s decision forcing victims to use their damages to pay for their legal costs.

The judgement, which follows a two-day hearing in July, is a “humiliating” defeat for Justice Secretary Chris Grayling.

On April 1 last year the government introduced reforms under the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO), which included a requirement that members of the public bringing personal injury claims use part of their damages to meet the costs of their claims.

But due to concerns about the adverse effects this could have on mesothelioma sufferers, such cases were exempted by Parliament until a review had taken place. Mesothelioma is a cancer

of the pleural lining of the lungs caused by exposure to asbestos. It resulted in more than 2,500 deaths in 2012.

The review was carried out in 2013 but in a damning report earlier this year the Commons justice committee described it as “maladroit and unsatisfactory” and called on the government to start again.

Mr Justice William Davis concluded that Mr Grayling “did not conduct a proper review of the likely effects of the LASPO reforms on mesothelioma claims.”

He said legal charges could not be imposed under LASPO “until a section 48 review has been carried out.”

Leigh Day solicitor Richard Stein who represented the asbestos sufferers said the judgement should send a clear message to the government that “it has to conform with the laws

of the land and cannot ride roughshod over the interests of mesothelioma sufferers and their families to benefit the insurance industry.”

The committee also found that the government had struck a secret deal with insurers and that this was not “conducive to the creation of trust among victims’ representatives, claimant lawyers and others that an opposing viewpoint will be heard.”

Asbestos Victims Support Groups Forum UK spokesman Doug Jewell said: “This truly is a landmark victory for mesothelioma sufferers. For too long the government has been striking secret deals with the insurance industry to take away their rights.

“For once the court has sided with the victims and said that the government cannot just draw up deals in the dark with insurers.”

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OUR DEMAND IS FAIR PAY FOR ALL

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NIPSA members took to the streets of Belfast to protest with other trade unionists backing the call for ‘A Pay Rise for All!’ More than 1,500 heard speaker after speaker make the demand that getting money back into people's pockets is essential to a strong recovery.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) organised the rally in Northern Ireland while the TUC backed demos in London and Glasgow.

Trade unions are campaigning for action that will start to move the economy in the right direction.

Organising

The Belfast rally heard that Northern Ireland has the highest number of low paid workers of any UK region.

Almost a quarter of NI workers in the public and private sector earn below the Living Wage, and that number is increasing.

Why we marched

l Wages have not kept pace with prices since the 1970's l Falling wages and growing inequality and poverty hits businesses as well as households

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l The worst attack on the living standards of workers for nearly a century l The super-rich continue to see their incomes soar

Our demands

l An enforced minimum wage l Commitment to the living wage l A crackdown on excessive executive pay and bonuses l A crackdown on tax dodging, evasion and avoidance PICTURES: KEVIN COOPER

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Organising

Fighting for a pay rise

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PROTESTS against Con-Dem pay cuts climaxed on Saturday, October 18, in a spirited 100,000-strong show of force by people working harder than ever under poverty wages.

Nurses, midwives, carers and civil servants marched through central London with thousands more workers days after taking to the picket lines to demand their first real-terms pay rise since the Tories took power.

While more than 7,000 trade unionists and anti-poverty activists took to the streets of Glasgow on Saturday under the banner “Decent Work, Dignified Lives.”

Speaking at the vast Britain Needs a Pay Rise rally in Hyde Park, TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady praised their determination and said: “This is what solidarity feels like.”

“Our message is that, after the longest and deepest pay squeeze in recorded history, it’s time to end the lockout that has kept the vast majority from sharing in the economic recovery.”

Union leaders warned millionnaire Tory Chancellor George Osborne their members are ready to break his pay freeze with sustained action right up until the general election.

But they also told shadow chancellor Ed Balls to brace himself for a rebellion from working people if Labour wins in May unless the party offers an alternative to austerity.

PCS Civil Service union leader Mark Serwotka said: “We have to be clear that George Osborne’s pay freeze is unacceptable.

“But if Ed Balls wants a pay freeze, that is absolutely as unacceptable — and we should tell our Labour politicians that we will not accept it.”

More than 100,000 people from across England and Wales filled the streets as they marched through London behind bright union banners to the sound of brass and samba bands.

A sea of people stretched across Hyde Park at the TUC rally, which included lively sets by Musicians Union members and Equity stand-up star Andy Parsons.

And they raised a huge cheer when Mr Serwotka ended his rousing speech with a call for unions to “strike together.”

“If we don’t do that, we’ll be back in this park in a year’s time, still knowing we’re right, still knowing that it’s unjust, but still on the receiving end of unacceptable cuts,” he told the crowds.

Hyde Park also heard from 91-year-old Harry Smith, who recalled how he visited the picket lines of the 1926 General Strike on the shoulders of his coalminer dad.

And he said: “I stand before you as an old man to say that we can return our country to its rightful owners — the people.”

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Food banks 'inevitable' in Cameron's UK

FOOD banks have become an “inevitable” feature of the coalition government’s austerity Britain, experts have warned.

New research reveals the number of people using them is soaring with “large numbers of people thought to be at risk of malnutrition in the UK.” Dr Kingsley Purdam led the research by Manchester University’s school of social science.

Dr Purdam said: “In political and media debates food bank users have been variously described as being ‘opportunists,’ ‘not able to cook or budget’ and ‘living like animals.’

“Yet evidence from the Citizens Advice Bureau suggests that the main reported reason for referring a person to a food bank was a delay in benefit payments.”

His survey included investigating the extent of the growth of food banks, and interviews with people about what drove them there.”

Clinical negligence

THERE is a huge amount of law in relation to clinical negligence and vast differences of issues from case to case. This article will focus on some of the main issues.

Who can bring a claim?

If you, your spouse or child have been injured as a result of medical treatment you may be able to bring a claim, if the treatment was negligent.

This also applies if you are the dependant or child of a patient who has died as a result of medical treatment.

Treatment can be from a hospital, General Practitioner, dentist or Consultant you have instructed on a private basis among others.

Medical treatment can include surgery, misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, dentistry, childbirth and also failing to properly warn about risks associated with the proposed treatment.

Bringing a claim for medical negligence and/or making a complaint to the hospital

If you have been injured as a result of medical treatment, you are entitled to an explanation and this can be done by way of writing a letter of complaint to the relevant Hospital Trust.

The Trust should formally respond to your complaint, or in the case of a GP or dentist the General Medical Council or General Dental Council respectively, or they may have internal complaints procedures.

You may, of course, write a letter of complaint and still take a case for clinical negligence.

Working Tax Credit ...where does it go?

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News

Working tax credit (WTC) is a benefit paid to workers with a low family income.

The aim of this report is to calculate the amount of WTC that can be attributed to different parts of the economy.

For instance, how many workers in the retail sector benefit from working tax credit? How much money does this add up to?

This research, based on official survey data for 2010/11 and 2011/12, is the first attempt to quantify these amounts.

Results are broken down both by industrial sector and organisation type.

We found that l The two employment sectors with the largest attribution of WTC were retail (£1.3bn) and human health and social work (£1.2bn).

Together they represent 38% of the total attributed WTC spend (£6.5bn per year). l The three sectors with the next largest attribution – each around half of that for the top two – were accommodation and food services (hospital-

ity), education and administrative and support activities. l Attributed amounts per recipient worker vary little by sector; high attributions therefore reflect large workforce sizes and/or a high proportion of the workforce benefitting. l High recipient numbers in retail and health and social work reflect both high employment in those sectors and a high proportion benefitting. The sector with the highest proportion benefitting is accommodation and food services. l 80% of WTC is attributable to workers who work in the private sector, 10% to those in the local government and 5% to those employed by a Health Authority or NHS Trust. Only 1% is attributable to those workers employed in central government. The rest is attributed to charitable organisations, universities, and other organisations such as the armed forces.

See more at: http://npi.org.uk/publications/social-security-and-welfare-reform/where-doesworking-tax-credit-go/#sthash.XsYoapt8.dpuf They may refer to medical protocols and guidelines. If you were a privately paying patient, there may also be a breach of contract.

Establishing causation

Chancery House, 88 Victoria Street, Belfast BT1 3GN Tel: 028 9032 9801 www.mtb-law.co.uk

If you wish to take a claim for clinical negligence then you should instruct a solicitor to do this for you.

McCartan Turkington Breen is a leading firm in relation to clinical negligence and we have solicitors who specialise in this field of law.

The only outcome to a successful claim for clinical negligence is an award of damages. A Court does not have the power to force a hospital to change its working practices and it cannot discipline a health professional or get them “struck off”.

Elements of clinical negligence

In order to be successful in a clinical negligence case there are certain elements that must be established: 1. That a duty of care was owed to the claimant by the hospital or health care provider; a legal duty exists whenever a hospital or healthcare provider undertakes care or treatment of a patient.

2. That there was a breach of the duty of care i.e. that the hospital or healthcare provider failed to provide a reasonable standard of care or they acted in a manner contrary to a generally accepted standard.

3. That the breach of duty of care has caused harm to the claimant and that the breach of duty was a direct

By Tanya Waterworth

cause of the injury.

4. That damage or other losses have resulted from the injury. Without damage (losses which may be physical, emotional or pecuniary), there is no basis for a claim, irrespective of whether the medical provider was negligent. Likewise, damage can occur without the treatment being provided negligently.

Establishing negligence

It is essential to show that what the medical professional did, or did not, fall below the standard of a reasonably competent doctor in the particular field of medicine. This is called the Bolam Test which arose from the case of Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee (1957) 1WLR 582.

The first step required in establishing whether there is negligence is to obtain all the relevant medical records and to instruct a medical expert (usually outside Northern Ireland to ensure there is no conflict of interest) to prepare a report on liability.

This will be a “like for like” expert and they will determine whether the treatment fell below an acceptable standard and will provide reasoning and areas where the standard fell below that which would be expected.

The medical expert may also be able to advise whether the negligence caused the injuries or significantly contributed to them, although sometimes this requires the input of another medical expert.

Establishing damage

Once liability and causation have been established, we then turn to what damage has been caused by the negligent treatment. This can be physical, emotional and financial and each element will need to be investigated where appropriate and this will assist in quantifying the value of the claim.

Conclusion:

If you believe the above circumstances are applicable to you, then you should contact NIPSA to request a LS2 Form to allow an assessment of your case, which is free under the Legal Assistance Scheme for personal injuries.

Equally, this scheme covers all types of personal injury cases and is also open to family members of individuals with NIPSA membership.

The above article does not purport to be a comprehensive statement of the law which would take considerably more space than this article allows but is my attempt to outline some of the main factors that are needed in order to take a claim for clinical negligence.

Mass mobilisation is our only hope

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Books

Page 17 NIPSA NEWS

if we are to win fight against lethal global warming

THE proposition that the world's political and economic institutions are preventing us from meeting the lethal challenge of global warming is hardly novel. But Naomi Klein in her new book articulates the case as forcefully and comprehensively as anyone has yet managed.

The Canadian journalist who made her name with the antiglobalisation tract, No Logo, 14 years ago, argues the globalised economy, underpinned by free-market conventional wisdom among politicians, has become a doomsday machine, pumping out ever increasing quantities of carbon and setting our civilisation up for a head-on collision with environmental disaster.

She advances her thesis through reportage, factual exposition and polemic. She covers the human poles of the battle, visiting a climate change denial conference and communities in Greece and Canada that have mobilised against fossil fuel extraction.

There's a forensic chapter on billionaires such as Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, who pay lip service to the need to reduce carbon emissions but when it comes to their commercial affairs practice business as usual. Richard Branson is exposed as a veritable geyser of this kind of corporate "greenwash". Klein also has astute insights into the motivations of the influential gang of charlatans and obsessives who reject the science of climate change.

Klein is a first-class sloganiser. Our dependence on de-

posits of coal and oil made from prehistoric vegetation and animal matter make us "a society of grave robbers".

We're treating nature like "a bottomless vending machine".

Yet despite lobbing in these occasional firecrackers Klein's a pretty pedestrian writer. She seems to fill pages with tedious acronyms and the names of obscure academics.

The descriptive passages of the natural world are soporific.

Nevertheless, Klein doesn't pretend that she is producing a dainty work of literature. This is a piece of political advocacy. And that's the light in which it really ought to be judged.

Klein's central argument is that if we are to prevent global warming laying waste to much of the planet over this century, we need a revolution; a revolution in our politics, our economy, our values. She says we must drop the delusion that the private sector will decarbonise itself. Yet it is also folly, she argues, to expect elected politicians to do what is necessary. That would require them to "unlearn" the "core tenets of the stifling free-market ideology that governed every stage of their rise to power".

One might quibble with the language but the alacrity with which climate change has slid down the agenda of Western politicians over the past decade, even as the science has grown more alarming, makes it difficult to push back against that basic conclusion.

The evolution of David Cameron from husky hugger to scourge of "green crap" legislation over the past eight years is a snapshot of the problem. Democracies seem incapable of dealing with a transnational, slowly unfolding, peril like global warming. The political impossibility of introducing a simple measure such as a carbon tax, something that even many economists on the right think would be sensible, is a testament to that dysfunction.

For Klein the only hope lies in popular mobilisation. Invocations of the economic necessity and even benefits of decarbonisation are a dead end, she tells us. Campaigners should, instead, be appealing to the public's sense of right and wrong, highlighting the horrendous cost that will inevitably be borne by the planet's poorest communities.

She characterises the fight as akin to other great moral struggles, such as the abolition of slavery, which required hitting very rich people in the pocket. But the intellect is pessimistic. That has been thoroughly tried by green groups in recent decades with no discernible success in shifting public opinion. If moral appeals were capable of waking us up over climate change, wouldn't they have done so by now?

Wallander returns...briefly

HENNING Mankell’s lugubriously lonely detective Kurt Wallander is back – briefly.

Originally written for a Dutch crime festival, the novella An Event in Autumn is set in 2002, just before Mankell’s final Wallander novel, The Troubled Man. Although the story was adapted by the BBC in 2012, starring Kenneth Branagh as the Swedish policeman, it has never been published in English before.

It sees Wallander living with his daughter, Linda, in central Ystad, dreaming of the countryside. As the book’s title tells us, it’s autumn, which naturally sets off the great detective’s gloom: “I shall never find a house, he thought. No house, no dog, no new woman either.

Everything will remain the same as it always has been”, and other such deliciously dejected Wallanderisms: “nothing could make him as depressed as the sight of old spectacles that nobody wanted any more”.

If it weren’t enough just to be back in Wallander’s company, there’s also a crime to solve.

Viewing a potential new house, he stumbles across human remains in the garden. It’s the clue to a decades-old mystery which Wallander is keen to get his teeth into; and no, he doesn’t buy the house.

This short tale is an absolute pleasure to read and worth luxuriating in. Mankell notes at the end: “There are no more stories about Kurt Wallander” and “I’m not the one who will miss him. It’s the reader.” Indeed.

An Event in Autumn is published by Harvill Secker (£9.99).

Correction

In the previous edition of NIPSA News we incorrectly reported that Mark Lunch’s book was titled “The Year of Zero-Sum” it should have read “The War of Zero-Sum”.

Page 18 NIPSA NEWS

Gaza rebuilding to cost £2.5bn

PAELSTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas will ask donor countries for $4 billion (£2.5bn) for Gaza reconstruction at a pledging conference in Cairo in mid October.

Israel’s ruthless assault on the territory this summer killed over 2,100 people, damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes and wrecked more than 5,000 businesses.

During the 50-day war, Israel launched several thousand air strikes and unleashed artillery barrages at what it claimed were Hamas-linked targets in Gaza, flattening entire neighbourhoods.

Israeli army chief Lt Gen Benny Gantz said that it would serve security interests to allow construction materials to enter blockaded Gaza.

He said that Israel can only secure long-term quiet on its border with Gaza if “an economic anchor backs up what was achieved in the fighting.”

Palestinian government officials said that security forces loyal to Mr Abbas would be deployed on the Gaza side of crossings with Israel after Eid al-Adha, which starts today.

EU: Republic's Apple tax rebate is illegal

THE European Commission published a letter to the Irish government today, suggesting that tax rebates granted by Dublin to iPhone-maker Apple appeared to be illegal.

It said that Apple’s tax treatment raised “doubts about the compatibility” with EU law, which forbids government aid on free market grounds.

Apple funnels the bulk of its international sales through subsidiaries in Ireland, where it benefits from low, negotiated tax deals.

The commission complained that tax deals struck with Apple in 1991 and then 2007 showed “several inconsistencies” and may not have complied with international taxation standards.

The EU first announced the probe in June and it is requesting further documents from Ireland now before making a decision, which is likely to take several months.

Cyprus warning over oil exploration

FOREIGN Minister Ioanis Kasoulides warned that Turkey’s stated intention to search for oil and gas in waters already leased by Nicosia to an Italian-South Korean consortium could upset Cypriot reunification talks.

Mr Kasoulides said that productive negotiations could not continue “under such conditions of provocation.”

Government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides called Turkey’s move a “serious breach” of Cypriot sovereign rights as well as those of the Eni and Kogas corporations.

Arming th World News

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Quiz question: who said that the west must “strengthen the Kurdish fighters, who are doing a good job of fighting Isil”? Was it: a) US senator John McCain, b) former prime minister Tony Blair, or c) Respect MP, George Galloway? Yep, you guessed right. It wasn’t the neocon McCain or the “liberal interventionist” Blair. It was the anti-war Galloway, in a House of Commons debate on Iraq in late September.

It isn’t a contradiction to be anti-war and leftwing at the same time as being pro-Kurd and in favour of arming the Kurds. I have been a longstanding opponent of western military interventions in the Muslim-majority world, almost all of which – from Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 to Libya in 2011 – have resulted in civilian bloodshed and terrorist blowback. But I’m not a pacifist. And to pretend that the response to the beheaders, rapists and slave traders of the selfstyled “Islamic State” (or IS) need not involve an element of brute military force is either ludicrously naive or disgracefully disingenuous.

So, too, is the lazy obsession with air strikes.

“Wars, historically, have never been won by air power alone,” General David Richards, the former chief of the defence staff, told me in a recent interview, as he called for “boots on the ground”.

Another foreign military occupation of Iraq – or, for that matter, Syria – would be a disaster.

More bloodshed, more blowback. There are, however, secular and Sunni boots already on the ground that we should all be backing against the jihadists of IS – those of Kurdish fighters not just in northern Iraq, where the peshmerga (literally, “those who confront death”) have fended off IS attempts to bring Erbil and Kirkuk under its terror-inspired “caliphate”, but also in northern Syria, where the People’s Protection Units (YPG) of the Kurds’ Democratic Union Party (PYD) have been heroically holding off IS in the town of Kobane for more than a month now.

These Kurdish units, which include all-women

militias, have to all intents and purposes become the last line of defence against the genocidal fanatics of IS. They are, as even Galloway observed, doing a “good job”. But they can’t do it alone, especially against IS militants equipped with US-made tanks seized in Iraq.

Progressives in the west, especially of the antiwar variety, need to get behind the Kurds, loudly and publicly. First, we owe them. Kurds constitute the biggest stateless minority in the world, with a population of roughly 30 million, divided mainly between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. They have been bombed in Turkey, executed in Iran, gassed in Iraq and besieged in Syria. Oh, and betrayed by the west. Repeatedly.

Second, they are worth fighting for. Take northern Syria, where the three autonomous and Kurdish-majority provinces of Rojava have avoided the worst excesses of the civil war and engaged in what David Graeber, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, has described as a “remarkable democratic experiment”, ceding power to “popular assemblies” and “women’s and youth councils”. Why would any progressive want to allow the revolutionary Kurds of Kobane to fall to the theocratic maniacs of IS? Third, the Turks next door have sat on their hands. The crisis could have been an opportunity for Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to build a new long-term alliance with his country’s embittered Kurdish minority against extremism and sectarianism. The Kurds’ PYD in Syria, however, is an offshoot of Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been locked in a violent conflict with Ankara over Kurdish autonomy since 1984. Erdogan thus decided to seal Turkey’s border with Syria, in effect giving the green light to IS militants to seize Kobane and massacre its PKKaffiliated populace – and then to bomb PKK positions in southern Turkey for the first time since the group agreed to participate in a peace process in March 2013.

WOMEN’S rights groups celebrated after Californian Governor Jerry Brown signed a Bill making the state the first in the US to adopt a “Yes means Yes” policy on sexual consent.

The Bill, presented by Los Angeles Democrat Senator Kevin de Leon, adopts new requirements for universities to follow when investigating sexual assault.

Mr de Leon said the new rules will mean a sea change in preventing and investigating rape allegations — replacing a previous emphasis on “No means No” with a need for “affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.”

Under the law nobody who is drunk, drugged, unconscious or asleep can grant consent to sexual activity.

Critics say it could cause problems for univer-

sities over grey areas such as when two people under the influence of alcohol agree to sexual intercourse.

But advocates note consent does not have to be verbal and is an important challenge to the idea that victims should have actively resisted assault to have a valid complaint.

“The affirmative consent standard will help change the revictimising, insensitive reporting procedures, instead allowing students to seek help and hold perpetrators to account,” said University of California Associated Students Sexual Assault Commission chairwoman Meghan Warner.

It also mandates additional training for investigators to stop victims being asked inappropriate questions and insists that they are given access to counselling and appropriate healthcare.

Women's rights groups celebrate as rape trial emphasis shifts to explicit consent

he Kurds www.nipsa.org.uk

World News

Two female Kuridish fighters in northern Syria Shamelessly echoing the mantra of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, that “Hamas is Isis, Isis is Hamas”, Erdogan told reporters on 4 October: “For us, the PKK is the same as [IS].” The irony is that if it were the same as IS, Turkey would have done a lot more to help. The Turkish-Syrian border hasn’t been closed to IS fighters, only to PKK fighters. On 20 October, Turkey finally agreed to allow Kurdish fighters to cross the border into Syria, but only Kurds from Iraq and not from Turkey – and not with heavy weaponry, which is the main request of the YPG fighters in Kobane.

I asked a senior Turkish diplomat whether his country was prepared to take responsibility for the fall of the town to the jihadists. “We don’t care,” he replied defiantly. “We don’t care what the world thinks. We won’t be bullied by anyone.” He needn’t be worried. Western governments have never lifted a finger to help Turkey’s Kurds – or, by extension, Syria’s.

Mehdi Hasan is an New Statesman contributing writer. He works for Al Jazeera English and the Huffington Post

CATALONIA has called off a planned referendum for November and will instead hold an unofficial poll on secession on the same day, Catalan leader Artur Mas said.

“On November 9 there will be a consultation, there will be ballots and ballot boxes,” said Mas. The poll, he said, would give Catalans a legal way to express their opinion, after the country’s constitutional court suspended all campaigning and preparations for the planned November referendum two weeks ago.

The suspension was automatic after the court decided unanimously to hear the central government’s challenge to the referendum. Caught between defying a court order and pro-independence parties pushing for the vote to go ahead, Mas initially vowed to push forward. On Tuesday, he insisted that his position was not a step backwards. “Just the opposite. This government is committed to celebrating the referendum on November 9.”

A recent poll showed just 23% of Catalans surveyed thought the region should press ahead with an illegal referendum. The poll, done for Metroscopia and published in El País, showed 25% believed Catalonia should look for other ways to redefine its relationship with Spain.

Mas acknowledged that the non-binding poll would not be able to offer a definitive answer as to whether Catalans are seeking independence and hinted that early elections could later follow. “November 9 is a lead-up to the definitive answer,” he said. “It’s clear that the most logical, final response is elections. That is what they fear in Madrid.”

Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has repeatedly argued that the referendum would be illegal, as the country’s 1978 constitution prevents any region from unilaterally making decisions that affect all Spaniards.

They’re the wrong sort of Kurds, victims of a Nato ally, rather than a gang of jihadists. (“Kurds in Turkey are ‘terrorists’, but Kurds in Iraq are ‘freedom fighters’ and we’re not quite sure about the present status of the Iranian Kurds,” Tariq Ali once joked.)

So progressives need to get behind the Kurds, especially the brave Kurds of Kobane. Is there a danger that their struggle will be coopted by western governments, which often shape outcomes in the Middle East to suit their own interests? Yes. Is there an alternative stance open to progressives, given how squeezed the Kurds are between Bashar alAssad, Erdogan and IS? No. “Freedom,” in the words of an old Kurdish proverb, “is never given but taken.”

Catalonia to hold unofficial poll

Aid cuts 'may have helped Ebola spread'

Page 19 NIPSA NEWS

AID cuts for two of the world’s poorest countries could have contributed to the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, MPs have warned.

They told a London summit on the outbreak that Con-Dem ministers had “compromised the fight” to save lives.

The critical report came as experts warned that the outbreak in West Africa has developed at an unprecedented scale.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Development Secretary Justine Greening and Ernest Bai Koroma, the president of Sierra Leone, were among those taking part in the global event that took place at Lancaster House in central London.

Britain has pledged a further £20 million in aid to pay for vital medical supplies including chlorine, personal protection equipment and essential water and sanitation facilities.

The money will also be used to deploy clinicians, global health experts, epidemiologists and infection control advisers.

But the Commons international development committee said that while the move was welcome, significantly greater action was required to reverse a failure to prioritise Sierra Leone and Liberia.

In a damning report, the committee said that the crisis “demonstrates the dangers of ignoring the least developed countries in the world,” accusing ministers and aid agencies of switching focus to “higher-profile” places.

The report accused the Department for International Development (DfID) and the European Union of doing nothing to deal with the fact that tens of billions of pounds of EU-led health aid was not being passed on by Liberia’s finance ministry.

“Neither the EU nor DfID seemed to be doing anything to resolve the situation,” it said. “DfID has been working for the last five years on building up the Liberian health system and have spent £20 million doing so.

Cuba sends more health workers

CUBA is sending more than 160 health workers to British facilities in Africa to help in the battle against Ebola.

World Health Organization chief Dr Margaret Chan said the agency was extremely grateful for the help which is due to arrive in Sierra Leone.

Cuba Solidarity Campaign said the idea of Cuban medics using British facilities to provide first-class treatment for sufferers is a real sign of progress in delivering emergency treatments, with the experience of the former collaborating with the financial resources of the latter.

Union to consult over revised NJC pay

Page 20 NIPSA NEWS

FOLLOWING the suspension of the planned strike on October 14, NIPSA’s Public Officers’ Group Executive met to consider a set of revised proposals from the Employers’ Side.

The Employer’s Side offer is outlined below: l From January 1, 2015 for spinal column 5-10 as follows:-

SCP 5 6 7 8 9

News

l A 2.2% increase on spinal column point 11 and above from January 1, 2015. l Removal of SCP5 with effect from October 1, 2014. l £325 non-consolidated payment on scps 5, 6 and 7(*). l £150 non-consolidated payment on scps 8, 9 and 10(*). l £100 non-consolidated payment on scps 11 – 49(*).

From 01/01/15 £1,065

£1,000 £800

£550

£350

l 0.45% of proposed new salaries on scps 26-49 incl, of which £100 to be paid in December 2014 and the remaining balance to be paid in April 2015. (*)pro-rata for parttime workers.

NIPSA Deputy General Secretary Alison Millar told NIPSA News: “These proposals do nothing to make

% increase 8.56%

7.93%

6.19%

4.13%

2.55%

up the pay which members have lost since 2010. The union will put these proposals through a consultation process with members.

“However, NIPSA cannot ask members to accept something that leaves them 15% to 20% behind in real pay terms.

“NIPSA’s Public Officers’ Group Executive Committee are therefore asking members to reject these proposals through our branch consultation exercise.”

It is understood the consultation exercise opened on Monday October 20 and will run until November 12.

PCS members in pay strike 10

£325

CIVIL servants in the PCS union were out on strike in force on October 15, taking action as part of the rolling programme of pay strikes planned for that week that began with NHS workers on Monday, October 13.

Staff in courts, museums, driving test centres, jobcentres, ports and airports across the UK walked out for 24 hours in a longrunning dispute over job losses, pay cuts and pension increases.

Then, on Friday, October 17, the department that collects the taxes that fund all our other public services has announced it will close another 14 offices in the UK and cut more than 1,000 jobs, the Public and Commercial Services union says.

The HMRC office in Newry has been targeted for closure with the possible loss of 90 jobs.

The confirmation from HM Revenue and Customs, which comes on the same day it says £34 billion in tax was uncollected last year, follows a consultation in the summer in which the union raised the department’s inability to properly tackle tax avoidance and evasion.

The PCS, which last month published a new report on the extent of tax evasion, says £34 billion is a serious underestimation, but collecting even this would change the debate about the funding of public services overnight.

The closure of the 14 offices puts 450 jobs at risk and other announcements today threaten a further 690 low-paid administrative assistant jobs in the personal taxes di-

2.32%

PCS strikers in Belfast

vision. Continuing with its plan to cut thousands more jobs by 2016, HMRC is currently spending £4 million a month on overtime. It is closing scores of offices – including all 281 walk-in tax advice centres – as it moves towards a proposal to operate from just 14 large sites in the UK by 2025.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “It makes absolutely no economic sense to continue cutting in the department that collects the taxes that fund the public services we all rely on.

“This political and economic vandalism is even more stark and outrageous when, even by the department’s own modest estimate, tens of billions of pounds is lost to our public finances every year, largely through tax evasion and avoidance.”

www.nipsa.org.uk

Join the trade union campaign against TTIP

ONE million lost jobs.

Key public services under threat. Labour rights and food standards in danger. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) now being negotiated in secret between the European Union and the USA is set to be a disaster for working people, writes John Hilary.

TTIP is not a traditional trade agreement dealing with border tariffs, as these are already at their lowest levels in the EU and USA. Instead, the stated aim of this new set of negotiations is to remove regulatory ‘barriers’ which restrict the profits to be made by transnational corporations.

Yet these ‘barriers’ are in reality some of our most precious rights. Core labour standards, environmental regulations, food safety rules and digital privacy laws – all these and more are up for grabs in the TTIP negotiations.

Worse still, the official impact assessment commissioned at the start of the negotiations calculates that at least one million people will lose their jobs in the EU and USA as a direct result of TTIP. And it could well be more.

And it has now been confirmed that health, education and other public services are on the table to be traded away.

TTIP would also grant US companies a new power to bypass domestic courts and sue European countries in secret tribunals over any public policy decisions that could harm their bottom line.

Tobacco giant Philip Morris is already suing the Australian government under similar rules for requiring all cigarettes be sold in plain packaging.

Veolia is suing the Egyptian government as a result of the country’s decision to raise the minimum wage.

War on Want has joined forces with trade unions and campaigns groups across Europe and the USA to fight back against TTIP. The movement is growing fast, and the politicians are running scared that they will not be able to conclude the negotiations in 2015, as they had hoped.

TTIP would be the greatest transfer of power to transnational capital that we have seen in a generation. We cannot allow it to happen. We will fight and we will win! l John Hilary is Executive Director of War on Want. You can sign the pan-European campaign to stop TTIP here: http://waronwant.org/campaigns/trade-justice/more/action/18180-sign-up-to-say-no-tottip