Inside
Ending Check-off: another attack on unions
Medication & School Staff
Pension Funds: could they go green?
City and County of Swansea
Review 100,000 demonstrate: No to austerity
KILL the BILL Manchester’s
streets were filled with protesters on September 4th as tens of thousands marched on the Tory party conference. Up to 100,000 people joined the TUC demonstration. Its size and anger showed a mood to take on the government. Movement Huge union blocs from Unison and Unite were very prominent in the demonstration, which included a coach from Swansea branch of Unison. The size of the event shows a growing movement and huge anger against austerity. Protesters came to protest against cuts to
the NHS and public services, long working hours, benefit cuts, racism and the lack of opportunity for millions due to the impact of Tory policies. Anger In particular many people came to defend workers' rights and the right to strike because of the Trade Union Bill. The Tories want to ram the Bill through before Christmas, with the second reading of the Trade Union Bill recently passing through parliament by 317 votes to 284. The third reading is scheduled as this newsletter goes to press.
The Bill severely attacks the rights of all trade union members to resist the savage cuts planned in the future. It plans to introduce a 50 percent turnout for strike ballots in “important public sector services”. It demands that at least 40 percent of eligible members vote to support any action. It removes a ban on using agency staff to scab on strikers. Blacklist It also requires unions to inform police and employers of strike plans 14 days in advance. They are supposed to include details such as if they will use placards or loudspeakers. It even demands to know
➥ p2
Public Service Not Private Profit
September 2015
continued from front page what they will put on social media. Picket lines are to have a “lead person” identified by an armband, who has given their details to police and employers.Trade unionists have pointed out that this could effectively create a new blacklist. Tory MPs who have bothered to turn up for the Commons debates on the bill have denounced trade union “thugs” and “bullies”. Tory business secretary Sajid Javid has hypocritically insisted that it is “all about democracy”. But it is nothing of the sort. It is about halting resistance to austerity. Mandate The Tories claim to have a mandate because 24 percent of the electorate voted for them at the general election. Yet if their new rules were applied to their own election 270 of them would not be MPs—including Javid. The Tories have been attacked by MPs from Labour, the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Greens for their assault on human rights. But reasoned discussion on using electronic ballots to boost turnouts, or saying that the average British worker only strikes once in 15 years is not effective opposition. The Tories are ideologically driven and want our public services privatised. They are not interested in helping unions meet the new requirements or being more democratic. They want to pressure union leaders to further police their own members. Hoops Unions are to be forced to jump through more hoops to fight for their members’ interests. And the bosses are to be handed more legislation to challenge democratic votes in the courts to stop strikes. Given the scale of the attack we need to see more than words, petitions or legal action. It’s good that some Labour-run councils are opposing the bill or, better still, threatening to refuse to implement elements of the new anti-union laws. This is a demand we should be putting to every Labour (and SNP) council across the UK. But it is not enough to only oppose bits of the bill. Unison’s and Unite’s leadership have both talked about defying and breaking the new law to defend our jobs and services. This is also good but words need to be backed by action. To kill the bill we need to launch a wave of strikes, whether or not we abide by the new laws.
Rally shows strength of feeling over trade union bill UNISON members from all over the country, including representatives from Swansea, attended a rally and a mass lobby of MPs in Westminster this week, campaigning to put a stop to the anti-trade union bill. “This hard-line trade union bill attacks every worker in this country, union member or not. It’s a bill that is stuck in the past, outdated and not fit for purpose,” said UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis, speaking at a rally against the bill today in London. But, he said, UNISON will continue to fight it. “We’ll fight for the underdog, the poor, those who can’t stand up for themselves,” against a bill he described as “cruel, wrong, immoral.” He followed speakers from across the union and civil liberties movement, including TUC general secretary Francis O’Grady who condemned the “shambles of a bill” and Shami Chakrabarti of human rights group Liberty, who reminded the rally: “Dissent is not disloyalty, and the oldest trick in the book is divide and rule. “The government is dividing the public and trade unionists.” But, she asked, “Who are trade unionists if not the public?”
Ending checkJust as it seemed theTrade Union Bill couldn’t get any worse, the government is pushing ahead with its last minute amendment to the bill –bringing in new plans to scrap check-off arrangements across the public sector. Check-off is the system through which employers make deductions for union membership via the payroll – taking the cash out before it goes to the employee’s bank account. Millions of workers from many unions pay their subscriptions like this. Worked well It’s the easiest way for the union members themselves, their union and their employer – a system that’s worked well for decades in both the public and private sectors. This new measure seems to be designed solely to cause disruption for unions like UNISON, but it also runs the risk of damaging partnership working and morale in health, schools, and local government. Blanket ending In all, over 7,200 public sector employers operate check-off systems with UNISON. Not one of them has said anything in relation to this Bill that would lead us to believe they want this blanket ending of check-off arrangements. In fact, it doesn’t seem like they were even asked for their thoughts when the
Bill was being put together. NHS Employers weren’t asked. The local government employers weren’t asked. Individual employers weren’t. Disruption Little wonder many of them are now speaking out against a disruption they weren’t consulted on. It also undermines the government’s attempts to promote localism – by removing employers’ choice as to whether they work with unions or not, and whether they can reach local agreements if they wish to. Draconian Instead it brings in draconian central planning, flying in the face of devolution, not just to the nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but to English regions and the combined authorities. Many big private sector employers have check-off arrangements, but the government isn’t setting out to interfere in those. It seems completely inconsistent – as though ministers are deliberately setting out to set employers in other sectors a bad example in how to manage their industrial relations. Diktat Central government shouldn’t be issuing diktats. It shouldn’t be saying t
that som agre ded esp othe hap see
Bike
Chil sea list agre
The unio can sho law
Inde off Cou prob
It's bec that diffe
Ove
But ove mak daft UNI agre
More information here: https://www.unison.org.uk/our-campaigns/trade-union
Could our pension-funds go Green? Council pension funds would like to go green, but doing so now would cost them dear, says UNISON Calls from campaigners that the UK’s 101 local government pension funds should stop investing in fossil fuels are admirable, but over-simplify the huge task that disinvestment would mean, said UNISON in a recent statement. Simple Option? UNISON would like to see Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) funds no longer investing in firms with big carbon footprints and instead opting for greener investments. But the reality is not so simple.
-off makes no sense
t local employers are doing mething unlawful in reaching an eement with their local unions to duct subscriptions at source – pecially when there are so many er different areas where this is ppening, and where there doesn’t em to be a problem at all.
not something that’s taxpayer anything.
costing
the
Charging Fife Council charges UNISON 5% of subs (£39,575) for collecting members’ subscriptions. It doesn’t cost anything like to process the payments.
e-loan
ldcare vouchers, bike loan fees, ason ticket loans, social clubs – the of things that can be paid for with eements like this is long.
e Tories have deliberately targeted ons. At the moment, any employer already withdraw check-off – if they ould want to. There’s nothing in the to prevent them from doing so.
eed some employers have taken us check-off before. Wandsworth uncil did. One of the new private bation companies might.
been treating it as a local issue, cause it’s an issue between us and t employer – something totally erent to a blanket ban.
erlooked
there’s one thing that’s being erlooked completely, and which kes this amendment look even ter. ISON pays for its check-off eements. They’re not a gift, and it’s
Bradford City Council charges all unions a collective £38,000 a year in check-off processing fees. That’s the cost of one and a half social workers. If the government ends check-off, that’s the equivalent of one and a half posts taken away from Bradford. Is that really what ministers really want? Some employers take a payment instead by simply hanging onto the money for three months, putting it in the bank and keeping the interest to cover their costs. Harder All in all this is a bad addition to an already very bad Bill. We believe any government that values its public sector workforce should be looking to work positively with employees and their representatives, not dreaming up new ways to make their lives harder. However the truth is that the government doesn't value us and is intent on savage attacks on us. However logical our arguments only a real fight will stop them.
n-bill-2015 & https://www.tuc.org.uk/tubill
Commenting on research published by global climate campaigners 350.org, UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis said: “We all want to live in a greener, cleaner world, but pulling local government pensions fund investments from firms with big carbon footprints, and putting them into environmentally-friendly investments instead, is no mean feat. Carbon footprint “Relocating the funds containing the pensions of millions of current and retired workers would take many years, and incur the funds considerable expense. “The first duty of the LGPS is to pay the staff their pension benefits when they retire. This includes anyone who works, or once worked, in town halls, schools, colleges, charities and private companies running public sector contracts. “Divesting of carbon assets without having found adequate alternative renewable investment returns would create huge economic uncertainty. This would be at a time when austerity is already wreaking havoc and causing financial difficulties for local government pension funds and their cash flows. It’s these cash flows that pay public sector workers their pensions. High Fees “The opportunities to invest in low-carbon infrastructure remain limited in the UK. Where such funds exist, they are small scale, and investing in them means high fees and huge transaction costs. “Public sector workers have already taken a huge hit in their pensions, thanks to changes introduced under the coalition government. It would be irresponsible to begin any programme of disinvestment in fossil fuels that threatened in any way the ability of the funds to pay people’s pensions. We hope the campaigners will meet with us soon to discuss the issues involved.”
EWC registration: Unison has new schools organiser I am Sandra Davies-Perkes the new Schools Local Organiser, who will be working with Swansea branch to ensure all classroom-based school support staff are aware that they will need to be registered with the Education Workforce Council (EWC) by April 2016. This applies to all learning support staff employed by local authorities, maintained schools, FE colleges and supply agencies. Following consultation by the Welsh Government, the registration fee will be £15. Keep a look out for me as I will be organising visits to schools in Swansea over the next few months to talk to the classroom based support staff about the registration process and what Unison is doing to support you in the workplace. If you’d like me to come to your school then contact me on the details below. See you soon! Tel: 07961 475579 Email address s.daviesperkes@unison.co.uk
YOUR UNION
ps Cardiff Council has recently agreed to pay the registration fees of school staff for the first year - when will Swansea agree the same?
Contact us:
Administration of medicines by Schools Support Staff – Campaign Update This month the UNISON branch will submit a pay claim to the City and County of Swansea to get fair pay for school support staff who are administering medicines to children in our schools. We are seeking payments for those staff taking on these additional tasks as well as a robust training package of initial training and regular updates to learn, develop and refresh skills needed to carry out this role. Pressured A UNISON/RCN Survey in 2012 found that up to one in five school support staff feel pressurised into administering medication to pupils, but one in four don’t feel comfortable doing so. Their desire not to ‘let pupils down’ means they are taking on tasks that leave them feeling worried and vulnerable – and potentially with little or no training. The survey found that school support staff are being expected to provide health care support to pupils, ranging from administering prescribed medication through to toileting and dealing with soiling incidents. Some are expected to undertake complex
health care procedures including physiotherapy, tube feeding, tracheostomy care and catheterisation. The majority of these staff do not receive regular training from an appropriate registered health professional or an accredited training provider, and some do not receive any training at all. Tube feeding The majority of school support staff do not receive any remuneration for this additional work nor any recognition of the skills needed to provide health care support to pupils. A quarter of the support staff who assist pupils have not seen a copy of their school’s policy on the management of medicines and health care procedures. And 82.6% do not know if the tasks they are being asked to carry out are covered by their employer’s insurance policy. UNISON seeks to address this issue by calling upon the council to formalise this process, to recognise the additional responsibilities that some support staff have and to provide proper remuneration for it.
Unison Office, Rm 153-G, The Guildhall, Swansea 01792 635271
unison@swansea.gov.uk
Branch Secretary: Mike Davies / Asst. Secretary: Andrea Thomas Unison has over 100 trained union reps throughout the council, schools and FE colleges. We will advise, support and represent you collectively and individually on issues from sickness, disciplinaries to legal matters inside and outside the workplace. If you need advice or representation please contact the Senior Steward(s) or Contact for your department below or go to your workplace steward. Alternatively please contact the branch office. SENIOR STEWARD SOCIAL SERVICES ALISON DAVIES 01792 636351 / 07941757853 FINANCE CONTACT RHYDIAN PRISMICK 01792 635803 / 07835757517 SENIOR STEWARD REGENERATION (OUTDOOR LEISURE) JOHN LLEWELLYN 07920560208 SENIOR STEWARD REGENERATION (INDOOR LEISURE) ROGER OWEN 07847942458
Sports & Social website: www.suss.me.uk
SENIOR STEWARDS ENVIRONMENT IAN ALEXANDER 07584505793 PAUL WATKINS (CLYDACH) 07572153750 PAT LOPEZ (CAVE ST) 07557560097 EDUCATION CONTACT JOHN AUSTIN 07796275039 HOUSING CONTACTS SALLYANNE TAYLOR 07825401711 ALICE GREENLEES 01792 457025 / 07773509299
www.unison.co.uk
This newsletter is produced by the City and County of Swansea Unison Branch. Any letters, comments or suggestions for articles should be posted to the branch address or emailed to Unison@swansea.gov.uk. Correspondence is not guaranteed to be published and contents may not necessarily reflect Unison policy.