Dundee SSP

As decided at Dundee TUC‘s November 2nd meeting

Assemble 12noon, West gate of Dudhope Park (postcode DD1 5RE for satnav / GoogleMap). March off at 12:30pm. Route; Lochee Road, Marketgait, West Marketgait, Nethergate to rally in City Square (postcode DD1 3BA) commencing at approx 1pm. Provisionally, feeder marches are being investigated from Dundee University (via Hawkhill to join up at Marketgait Circle) and Abertay University (via Bell Street to join up at Marketgait).

TUs are asked to check & advise on speakers (Dundee or national officers). STUC speaker has been requested.

Further details; dundeetuc@ymail.com, 07951 443656.

by Richie Venton, SSP national trade union organiser

Low paid canteen and cleaning staff at Glasgow’s STOW college are staging a series of strikes.
These UNISON members are winning massive support from teaching staff (EIS members) and students, as well as the wider public. Queues form daily to buy their sizzling solidarity sausages, at the elaborately decorated ‘tent’ the pickets have mounted outside the college gates!

In a petty act of intimidation – which entirely backfired and only served to harden the strikers’ resolve – college top management called out the police and then council environmental services, to check if the food was up to hygiene standards! Of course it is; these are catering staff, who know what they’re doing – and are collecting generous donations to sustain their strike, which is what management really object to.
At the heart of the dispute is the struggle for the extremely modest Scottish Living Wage (£7.20 an hour) and against privatisation of cleaning and catering.

As one of the pickets told me, We are taking the selective strike action because the union can afford to pay us on strike days – which goes to show just how low paid we are!

I spoke to a steward about the issues behind the strike, and what fellow-trade unionists can do to help them win a speedy victory.

The context of this is last year’s Budget announcement by John Swinney that low paid workers, as a minimum, should be protected against the worst excesses of the recession. He asked for this to be done by the unions showing pay restraint but with workers employed by public bodies earning under £21,000 being given £250, and the Scottish Living Wage being guarateed, which is now £7.20 an hour.

We have at least 20 members on about £6.63.

Last year STOW college management said they would give the Scottish Living Wage this year and in return we took another below-inflation wage settlement.

UNISON and the EIS jointly proposed a package of savings for the college, including the £80,000 hospitality budget; overseas travel not linked to income (including Board meetings and management taking their families abroad for awards events); bringing the graduation in-house instead of sumptuous affairs at the Royal Concert Hall; contractors and consultants being replaced by our own workers doing the jobs; and an end to Board of management events, with overnight stays, at expensive hotels.

Management’s reply was ‘No’ to all that.

STOW is a college that lost significant numbers of staff. We have faced cuts to courses, carried out under the radar, such as Special Needs Provision being cut by half; fewer part-time student places for people seeking asylum; an end to the part-time photography course.

In this year’s pay round we asked for three things: the Scottish Living Wage immediately; a pay rise for the rest of our members; and guarantees against privatisation of any areas of the service.
‘No’ was the management reply!

They said they don’t have the money now to implement the Scottish Living Wage – which we calculate would cost only £7,000 to £8,000. They also imposed a pay freeze and privatisation of the remainder of cleaning and the canteen.

We showed that this is a nonsense, that it would cost the college money as private companies would take money out of the college, rather than make savings.

For two years UNISON led the Hands Off STOW campaign, to save the college from potential closure, saving the necks of senior management in the process. This is our reward: pay cuts, low pay and privatisation of the people who helped save the place.

So we balloted for industrial action in June, with an overwhelming vote to strike. Management did nothing over the whole summer to find a settlement, so here we are taking strike action.

Last week, after the first day of strike action, management promised a meeting this week to discuss our alternatives to out-sourcing and to seek a resolution to the dispute. But instead of meeting with us, they hit us with the announcement that the cleaners will be out-sourced on 1st November and Catering on 1st January.

Their reasons are cynical. They want to out-source jobs to avoid paying the Scottish Living Wage, as private companies are under no obligation to pay it, and to downgrade and slim down the workforce in preparation for the future. And that is something other colleges will probably try to repeat, with worsened services, terms and conditions eroded … your starter for ten!

We have written an open letter to John Swinney and Mike Russell to intervene.

We have full strike action on 25th and 26th October where we hope supporters will call at our picket lines.
Write to MSPs, MPs and councillors backing our claim, against management who are neither consulting nor negotiating with us, just informing us of their decisions – because nobody is putting the brakes on them.

Everyone should read this account of Firefighters being run down by scabs.

Utterly despicable.

What are the chances these events will get the same level of coverage as the whining about the fire-fighters striking to defend services?

By Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser

The Scottish Socialist Party is in full support of the thousands of postal workers who are staging strike action and other protests on Friday 17th July, in anger at arbitrary cuts to staffing levels and service levels to the public.

These cuts are being imposed by Royal Mail bosses in flagrant breach of the 2007 Pay and Modernisation Agreement, signed after strike action that year.

Delivery Ofices and Mail Centres in Edinburgh and East/Central Scotland will walk out, as will Irvine posties the next day. This is part of a growing groundswell of strikes across the UK , with 400 other offices requesting ballots for strike action.

High-and-mighty Royal Mail bosses are imposing cuts to staff and services; managers are using bully-boy tactics to impose the cuts, and ever-increasing workloads are being heaped on the shoulders of a shrinking workforce. Pressure and stress is at breaking point for postal workers, who are hitting back with escalating strike action.

John Brown, Scottish Regional Secretary of the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) told me what lies behind the rolling anger and action by posties.

Royal Mail is trying to impose cuts way beyond levels acceptable to either staff or the public who rely on the service we deliver. They are totally intransigent, refusing to negotiate and abide by the 2007 Pay and Modernisation Agreement, which stated that the union would be fully involved at all levels at all stages of modernization.

They want 10 per cent savings across the board and insist that this must mean 10 per cuts to duties. There are not compulsory job losses as such, but they are sneaking through job losses. For instance, Royal Mail are forcing people to leave the industry; alongside their ‘savings’, a redundancy package is on offer, so when people who are fed up and want to get out of the job leave, they are not being replaced.

The press is trying to play up the idea this strike action is about pay. Well, in reducing the numbers in Delivery Offices, Royal Mail is offering full-time workers part-time jobs – which obviously involve big pay cuts.

But this is primarily strike action against the attack on the public service provided through arbitrary reductions in staffing levels.

And these are not cuts due to the introduction of new machinery. The national Agreement means any new technology can only be introduced with the full agreement of the union and its members. So far only 4 or 5 pilot offices have had the new machinery tried out, and as we expected, they have not led to the savings Royal Mail predicted.

But the cuts members are striking against are before the job cuts that new machinery will involve. By striking, members are effectively saying we cannot provide the level of service to the public expected of us because of the arbitrary cuts being imposed through executive action by the employers.

There have been little or no local negotiations. Senior management of Royal Mail has failed to even turn up to the previous talks with the national union. Today (15th July), they are supposed to meet the union in London . Maybe the strike action in London will have concentrated the minds of the Neanderthal men in senior management and force them to make concessions!

With the Royal Mail making £900,000 a day in profits, there is even less excuse for these cuts to jobs and services.

The New Labour government has been dealt a bloody nose on their plans to part-privatise Royal Mail. Now is the time for this wounded beast to be pursued through united, national strike action against their cuts.

These attacks are partly motivated by a desire for revenge for the defeat of privatisation on the part of Royal Mail bosses and Lord Mandelson, the Prince of Darkness and Dirty Deeds, who has announced his desire to accustom workers to a full decade of austerity, so as to enrich his friends in industry and the banks.

The growing revolt, through spreading strikes, could now be escalated into national strikes – accompanied by withdrawal of funding of New Labour by the CWU – which is an increasingly abusive relationship, akin to voluntary payouts to an arsonist to buy the fuel to torch your home!

The SSP stands unashamedly on the side of workers striking to preserve a vital public service.

The staff of Travel Dundee have voted 3 weeks of work to rule action, followed by a one day strike on 24th April.

The reasons for the strike are a pitiful pay offer and the workers bearing the brunt of commuters anger and frustration of cuts and changes to the services. This anger should of course be directed towards Travel Dundee management.

The line from the company and the media is of course appalling. Part of the work to rule action is that drivers, mechanics and others will no longer work through breaks to make up delays caused by faults and poor traffic due to the huge number of roadworks going on in the city recently. Their line is that this will bring disruption to customers and services are set to suffer.

The flip side of this is that the services are returning to their normal state. If not for drivers sacrificing break times to catch up we would see the real state of the services being provided – and that is what is set to happen from Friday April.

The reality of it is the services have only not been suffering because of workers sacrificing their own time. Managements contempt for workers both through their wages and time are the reason there will be disruption and why services suffer.

The power of workers collective action is shown in the statement by Travel Dundee boss Lawrence Davie when acknowledging that there would be no buses running on the strike day.

As the business is fully unionised, the proposed strike action on April 24 will result in a complete suspension of services for our customers he conceded.

We wish the workers every success in their struggle and would urge all those affected during the next three weeks to review the SSP policy on public transport.

Whether you are on strike, or the strike has affected you by showing how much the staff sacrifice to ensure your bus home arrives on time you should find it illuminating.

We have sent the following message through translators to the Algerian Strikers.

Dundee, the 8th of February 2008,
We, members of the Dundee SSP branch, fight for freedom, in particular union freedom, justice, dignity, decent housing and work conditions and for the equitable sharing of the product of this work.

As we have been fighting and keep on fighting with the women and men of Dundee in their fight for their rights, we assure our fellows from the Intersyndicale Autonome de la Fonction Publique algérienne of our solidarity and full support in their legitimate action and in particular in their actions during this month of February.

We join their movement, their demands and denounce with them the injustices suffered by the Algerian people. We commit ourselves to spread the information regarding their fight and to support it by actions in Scotland.

Fraternally
The SSP Dundee branch

From the Socialist Unity blog

After several months of suspension, fourteen days of strike action and a six day disciplinary Karen Reissmann, chair of the Manchester Mental Health Unison branch has been sacked for the ‘crime’ of opposing mental health cuts.

The 700 strong branch has voted to go on indefinite strike. Urgent financial and other solidarity is needed.

Unison’s national industrial action committee has sanctioned the community mental health team comprising some 160 workers to go on indefinite official strike action from this Thursday. This is a strike Unison must win. Donations need to flood in, with messages of support, invitations for speakers, national publicity and demands of Unison officials that they respect the demand of the branch and that the official strike is spread to cover the whole branch.

Rush donations and messages of support to the Manchester Community and Mental Health Unison branch, 70 Manchester Road, Manchester, M21 9UN. Phone 07972 120 451 or email unison@zen.co.uk

Cheques can be made out to UNISON Manchester Community & Mental Health

Visit the support website at reinstate karen site .

The petition can be downloaded here and printed off to use at work or union meetings.

More background here and here

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UNISON STATEMENT ON KAREN REISSMAN

On Monday November 5th Karen Reissmann, CPN and UNISON branch chair was sacked on 4 counts. Firstly that, when she was interviewed in December 2006 criticising the transfer of NHS work to the voluntary sector, she brought the Trust into disrepute. Secondly, for telling people that she was suspended and what for. Thirdly, for protesting her innocence. Fourthly, for allowing the press to print information, some misleading about her case. The fifth charge of misusing time was dropped. All the charges were gross misconduct and all sackable offences.

UNISON believes this is an absolute disgrace. Union reps must have the right to campaign against cuts and victimisation of our trade union reps. The Human Rights Act brought in by the Labour government allows for freedom of expression. Karen works in the NHS, in 2007, in Britain not Burma – she must have the right to speak out without fear of persecution. If she remains sacked it will make all NHS staff and all trade union reps feel much more cautious about saying anything.

UNISON is determined to fight for Karen’s reinstatement. 150 members of her branch who work in community mental health teams and crisis resolution teams will start an indefinite strike from Thursday 8th November as part of that fight. There will be picket lines from 8am to 11am at North Manchester General Hospital, MRI Hathersage Rd, and Chorlton House. On Thursday strikers will then meet at 12noon to organise their next activities and march to the strategic Health Authority at Piccadilly.

In 2 weeks we will have a branch wide one-day strike.

We also hope to have a solidarity rally on Wednesday 14th November in Manchester in the early evening, details to follow.

We also plan a Saturday demonstration in Manchester, probably 24th Nov.

We expect to be able to pay very substantial hardship pay to all strikers and will be sending delegations of strikers around the country to speak to other trade unionists and raise money. Already we have had significant promises of money from a number of branches eg Pennine have promised £2000 a month.

If you want to make a donation please send to “Manchester Community and Mental Health branch UNISON” c/o union office, Chorlton House, 70 Manchester Rd, Manchester M21 9UN. If you want a speaker at your next union meeting please contact us on unison@zen.co.uk or 07972 120 451.