London UNISON Regional Council: 31 October 2012

The meeting was not quorate but we heard our speakers. The first guest speaker was Nick Raynsford MP, Greenwich and Woolwich who spoke about proposed cuts and mergers to South London Healthcare.

The Tories are playing politics with local NHS services regardless of clinical merit. 

Head of UNISON local government Heather Wakefield spoke next on pay. We are opposing the 1% public sector pay limit, regional pay and attacks on facility time. We need to restore pay. Aim to have a Living Wage for everyone who works in public services. Outside London this is £7.20 per hour. Currently the lowest pay band in Local Government is £6.30 per hour. Which is barely over the minimum wage. Need to encourage our members to take up any benefits that they are entitled to claim.

There will in real terms have been a 15% pay cut in local authority pay by April 2013 due to the rising prices and the pay freeze. Heather went through the campaigning issues on pay, terms & conditions.

220,000 workers in Local Government and 50,000 in the National Health Service have so far lost their jobs. Members in work are obviously worried about their jobs. 

Then Roisin Wood from "Kick it Out" which use to be an anti racist but is now a "pro-equality" in all aspects of football campaigning group. There is only 7 of them and they are campaigners are not the regulator, the football players union nor the employer. The recent controversy involving the wearing of tee-shirts by some players has been "challenging" but not of their making. They hope this has now been sorted out!

Our Parliamentary report was from Jeremy Corbyn MP. Who spoke about changes to housing benefit forcing the social cleansing of poor people out of Islington and inner London. He had a 6 hour surgery last Friday mostly made up of private tenants who are being forced out of their homes. His belief that there will have to be caps and controls of private sector housing rents.  He reported on the the "media assassination" of London Metropolitan University over foreign students which has damaged the entire UK reputation for further education. 

I am supporting the Breast Cancer Campaign ...

I am supporting the Breast Cancer Campaign, aiming to raise awareness into the matter of breast cancer screening. The Breast Cancer Action Month is reaching a close and I also want to let you know about a recent survey conducted by ICM for Breast Cancer Campaign on breast cancer awareness and screening related issues:

Independent Breast Screening Review

Breast Cancer Campaign supported the

Before Halle, There Was Vanessa

Most readers would readily acknowledge that Halle Berry is the prettiest African American woman around. But before there was Halle, there was Vanessa Williams. I think Vanessa's story and career are so much more exciting and eventful. Plus she got talent.



Born in March 1963, she made headlines as the first African American woman to be crowned Miss America back in 1983. Fairytale right?! Wrong, she was later forced to renounce her title after Penthouse bought and published naked photos of Vanessa. To me that is a sham. Its like giving the Nobel Prize for physics to Einstein for E=mc2, and then taking it away from him cause he posed naked for Men's Health prostrate cancer issue.


Yes, such titles may have some sort of decorum for behaviour but naked pics are not such a big thing. Its not illegal, even  if you did something illegal like kill somebody ... I doubt they would take away her title. Killing somebody is OK but nude pics are a no-no. What a pretentious Puritanical society we like to think we have - and we like to impose those stupid rules on others instead of trying to live our own lives well.

Never mind, most people in Vanessa's position would have shrivelled into a cave and hid. Not her. In 5-8 years after that she morphed into a wonderful singer with multiple number ONES.


Then she went into acting in movies such as Eraser and Dance With Me. B grade type of movies that did not really let her shine. But its television that caused her star to rise again ... After multiple lack lustre movie roles, she then captured everybody's attention as the self absorbed megalomaniac ex-supermodel Wilhelmina Slater with absolute conviction and aplomb in Ugly Betty. She got 3 Emmy nominations for that.


What a lady, what a woman!

Only worry about your pension if there is another Russian Revolution...

I recently went to an "off the record" Chatham House rules debate on whether closed defined benefit pension schemes should invest in equities (shares) or not?

Now, I doubt very much that all that many people will share my keen interest in such matters, but if you currently contribute to a funded defined benefit pension scheme or if you have a frozen one from a previous employer then you should. 

This is your money, your "deferred pay" and unless you at least try and take an interest in it then who will you blame if it all goes horribly wrong? 

The argument goes something like this. Pension funds which are "closed" (for some reason it wasn't made clear in the debate but I assume it was funds that were closed to new members and future accrual of pension benefits by existing members) are concerned about the long term not the short term and that the strength of the employer "promise" to the scheme to fund it until it pays out all its obligations is more important than anything else. Such schemes can afford to hold illiquid assets which have attractive tax efficient returns with a low probability of risk. So why invest in risky, liquid and unstable equities? 

The alternative argument was that equities should be part of a mix of investments. Admittedly returns in equities in recent years have been appalling but "No means Never" and you should not throw the baby out with the bath water. UK Pensions PLC have massive pension shortfalls in funding liabilities and the only way to close this gap is the long term historic out performance from equity investments. Past performance is not guarantee of the future but the long term equity premium over bonds is an accepted market compensation for risk. 

Why this is important is that if the trustees of your pension scheme gets this equities and/or bonds decision wrong, then your scheme may end up in the tender mercies of the Government Pension Protecting Fund (PPF).  The PPF is a very good thing but most people would lose out financially if their pension had to be rescued by it. 

So the lesson is if you are in such a scheme then take an active interest in it and in the trustees that run it on your behalf. Read the stuff they send out to you, ask questions, take part in elections of member nominated trustees, turn up to any meetings and even consider standing yourself to be a trustee. Make sure that your scheme is run in the interests of the beneficiaries and not by any vested interests (and there are many). 

Apparently there is an argument that the only real danger to equities not out performing bonds is if the economy suffered from something completely dramatic as the Russian revolution of 1917. 

I hesitate to point out that next week is in fact the 95th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Storming of the Winter Places. I hope they will keep "Pleb Gate" locked up for this anniversary.

Update: I have just been reminded that the number one issue with closed schemes is that they cost far, far more to run when closed than if they were kept open. Pension funds need new blood, new contributors to stop them becoming mature and cash deficit. Millions of workers are simply being cheated and conned out of a decent retirement while employers are often being mislead and badly advised. While many DB schemes and Government regulations need to be updated they do not have to be closed. If they are closed then it is in the real long term interests of the workers and employers that they should be reopened. 

Update - Murasaki ts

Some readers must be wondering why my blog has not been updated with the normal frequency. Yes, been busy with Murasaki ts. Since this is my blog, I think I should also chart the journey of starting up a company.



Since the soft launch two weeks back, we have been inundated with a surge in trial users, much more than we anticipated. I was hoping for 200 but we had more than 800 and counting. As for paid subscribers, I was hoping to hit 30-40 by now and the actual figure is doubled that, so I am cautiously optimistic. For all that and my office is still being renovated which is why we are having to hold the Masterclass at cafes.

To have over 800 trial users, I would expect at least a 10% conversion ratio to paid subscribers. We discovered that it is imperative for users to at least attend one Masterclass before deciding whether to sign up for the deal. It appears that the user guide may not be able to provide sufficient grounding on how to use the system more effectively. The classes have been highly successful, in fact some even attend multiple classes as I also share with them how to use the system and naturally the top picks.

Some of you may have had issues with the system. If its response time and user friendliness, it is probably due to the computer you are using. As Murasaki requires quite a bit of CPU and memory, it is imperative that the notebook or PC be less than 3 years old and have at least 2M in memory. It is also critical that you have High Speed Broadband or Unifi to fully tap our system effectively.

While the user guide is a start, most will not be able to appreciate how to use the data effectively without attending a live Masterclass (which are free to all paid and trial users). All our Masterclasses are full (max 10-12 per session). The interesting thing is that more than half will immediately sign up as paid subscribers after the Masterclass. Hence it is our strong belief that one has to attend a Masterclass to fully appreciate how it works.

People who have attended our Masterclass all go away with a strong foundation and ability to interpret and read the data and signals. For the last two weeks, the system has been turning out the following strong signals in stocks such as:

Tiger Synergy (16-17 sen)

TH Heavy (56-56.5 sen)

Mieco Chipboard (43 sen)

Sealink (41.5 sen)

As some of you have mentioned that the location for the Masterclass was a bit out of the way, we have decided to add new locations for Masterclass this coming week. The venues are as follow:

5th Nov 2012, Monday 12:30pm- Starbucks Coffee Cheras Leisure Mall

6th Nov 2012, Tuesday 12:30pm- Starbucks Coffee Empire Shopping Gallery, Subang Jaya

7th Nov 2012 Wednesday 12:30pm- Starbucks Coffee Setia City Mall, Klang

10th Nov 2012 Saturday 12.30pm- Dr. Cafe Solaris Mont Kiara

 

           Please contact us at our toll free number 1800 88 3788 to reserve your seat as we can only take about 10 pax for each session, first come first serve.

Alternatively, you can go to www.murasaki.co to get a free 5 day trial to use the system. Again, it is imperative that you attend one of our Masterclass to get the full benefits. We will be uploading videos of past Masterclass (by 6pm today). We are confident of our product and know that its a real game changer, there are dates and times of the videos so you can counter check on the previous readings to see if they perform as well as expected.

Starbucks the Tax Thieves and Ripped-Off Britain

Check out the web site "Ripped-Off Britons". 

Re-elect Obama Video #Forward

Austerity: What next after #Oct20?

A rather intense (to be polite) picture of me speaking at Saturday's SERTUC Council meeting at Congress House. The New TUC GS Frances O'Grady had just made a cracking speech.

I was supporting the GLATUC motion on "Austerity".

"President, Council, John Gray UNISON speaking in favour of Motion 1. I will try and keep this short since much of what I wish to say has already been said. But "What next" after Oct 20 is the key issue for the Labour Movement. We must firstly continue to educate and inform our members in the Great Battle of Ideas over the Economic Alternative to Austerity.

Despite the magnificent march of last weekend, I am reminded of past reports by our own Regional secretary, Megan, to this Council and the comments you have just heard from Frances, that a majority of trade union members still think that "Austerity" is necessary, the "Cuts" are necessary and there is "No Alternative".  

While we can turn out many of our activists and their families on a Saturday to protest unless we can also persuade our rank and file members, their families and their friends that there is a different way to run our country, then we are simply not going to be able bring about change.

Council, the truth of the matter is that we have a huge job of work to do. We need to not only educate but to  organise and unionise. Especially in the private sector where 85% of the workforce are not only not in any union but many of them have simply no comprehension or understanding of unions. They are Thatchers Grandchildren.

Perhaps Council, one other practical way forward is to bring to peoples attention that there are already examples of successful countries such as Sweden or Norway which are run differently. Frances mentioned "The Spirit Level" research that everyone is better off in more equal societies. Where there is greater income equality, greater trade union density and greater worker involvement in the wider economy.

Arguably Council, there is already out there A Future That Works; and it is only a ferry ride across the North Sea. Council, please support this motion. 

Ash Tree's - The local impact of Ash disease?

The government is presiding over another shambles - #ashambles


I have written to Hyndburn and Rossendale borough council's for an update on the impact the disease in Hyndburn and Rossendale and what information they had received from DEFRA officials.



I have specifically asked;


What assessment has been made of the impact of Ash disease locally?


How many Ash trees are there locally?

I'm backing the Electrical Safety Council's private rented sector proposals

I am backing the Electrical Safety Council's campaign for better regulations to protect tenants from bad landlords in the private rented sector.

I was horrified to read about the young mother electrocuted t death in her bath in front of her young children. The Thirza Whittle case from 2009 is an example - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1198470/

Dan Hodges at West Ham CLP

West Ham Labour Party like many active CLPs prides itself on its political debates. We regularly invite controveral guest speakers to our General Management Committee meetings (GC) which are open to all members to attend.

At GC last week, our Political Education officer had arranged for Labour Blogger and Daily Telegraph columnist, Dan Hodges, to be our guest speaker. See Dan speaking in picture next to the "tweeting" minutes secretary Terry Paul and our Chair, Charlene McLean.

Dan, is let me say, quite a "controversial figure" in the Labour Movement. His mum is former Labour MP and Hollywood actress, Glenda Jackson. He has worked in the past for the Labour Party and the GMB. But he is widely derided as the "Blairite Cuckoo in the Miliband camp". He has been a ferocious critic of the Labour leader, Ed Miliband and a strong supporter of his brother David.

You can check out my twitter comments here (25 October) on his speech and the Q&A. Afterwards the usual suspects took Dan off to "The Goose" in Stratford Broadway to continue the debate.

Dan had made a number of valid points about how fragile the Labour lead in the polls and that we should not at all take victory for granted in any future election (he thinks that unless we change, and change our leader, we will lose). He was willing to take the mick out of himself and be polite and measured in his responses to fairly direct questions and comments.

Yet I think that most people felt he is just plain wrong in his views. I must admit that he reminded me of personable figures on the "ultra left" who you listen to while quietly thinking "Yes, but, no but, but this is nonsense". I don't think the right wing of our Party (and of course we have a right wing and there is nothing per se to be scared of that) understand that the world has changed since 2008 and that we will not achieve what we frankly all want in our society without radically changing the way we run our economy.

Update: apologies but of course Glenda is still a MP (thank you Alex Sobel) and Dan has tweeted that "nice blog" but he didn't say that unless we changed our Party leader we would lose. 

Plunge Protection Team - Urban Legend?

Some may be wondering if they even exist. Well, they do. The Plunge Protection Team is officially known as the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets – was created after the 1987 crash.

It appears to have powers to support the markets in a crisis with a host of instruments, mostly through buying futures contracts on the stock indexes (Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell) and key credit levers. And it has the means to fry “short” traders in the hottest of oils. The team is led by Treasury chief Hank Paulson, ex-Goldman Sachs, a man with a nose for market psychology, and includes Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and the key exchange regulators.

PPT was created by Ronald Reagan to prevent a repeat of the Wall Street meltdown of October 1987. Its members include the Secretary of the Treasury, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the chairman of the SEC and the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Modus Operandi Of PPT

According to John Crudele of the New York Post, the PPT modus operandi was revealed by a former member of the Federal Reserve Board, Robert Heller. Heller said that disasters could be mitigated by “buying market averages in the futures market, thus stabilising the market as a whole.”

This appears to be the strategy that has been used. Former-Clinton advisor, George Stephanopoulos, verified the existence of The Plunge Protection Team (as well as its methods) in an appearance on Good Morning America on Sept 17, 2000. 

Stephanopoulos said: 

“Well, what I wanted to talk about for a few minutes is the various efforts that are going on in public and behind the scenes by the Fed and other government officials to guard against a free-fall in the markets ... perhaps the most important the Fed in 1989 created what is called the Plunge Protection Team, which is the Federal Reserve, big major banks, representatives of the New York Stock Exchange and the other exchanges, and they have been meeting informally so far, and they have a kind of an informal agreement among major banks to come in and start to buy stock if there appears to be a problem.

They have in the past acted more formally. I don’t know if you remember but in 1998, there was a crisis called the Long Term Capital Crisis. It was a major currency trader and there was a global currency crisis. And they, with the guidance of the Fed, all of the banks got together when it started to collapse and propped up the currency markets. And, they have plans in place to consider that if the markets start to fall.” 

Stephanopoulos’ comments have never been officially denied.

Robert McHugh, PhD, has provided a description of how it works, which seems consistent with the comments of Robert Heller. “The PPT decides markets need intervention, a decline needs to be stopped, or the risks associated with political events that could be perceived by markets as highly negative and cause a decline; need to be prevented by a rally already in flight. To get that rally, the PPT’s key component – the Fed – lends money to surrogates who will take that fresh electronically printed cash and buy markets through some large unknown buyer’s account. That buying comes out of the blue at a time when short interest is high.”

Critics of PPT

If a secret team is interfering in the stock market, it presents serious practical and moral issues. For one thing, it disrupts natural “corrections” which are a normal part of the business cycle and which help to maintain a healthy and competitive slate of equities. More importantly, outside intervention punishes the people who see the weaknesses in the stock market and have invested accordingly. Clearly, these people are being ripped off by the PPT’s manipulations. They deserve to be fairly compensated for the risks they have taken. Moreover, artificially propping up the market only encourages the over-leveraged to continue to believe that the grossly-inflated market will continue to rise. Rewarding foolishness only stimulates greater speculation. The tinkering of the PPT is sure to erode confidence in the unimpeded activity of capital markets.

Where is the “free market”? The “free market” is merely a public relations myth with no basis in reality. Saving the system will always take precedent over ideology. Trust in the free market is wavering. Whatever happened to the idea of completing the “market cycle” and allowing markets to self-correct, whether that meant belt-tightening or not? What about the ethical question of whether government manipulation should be allowed in a “free market”? Also, by what authority do the government and the banks interfere in the futures’ markets and shift momentum from the prevailing trend?

Pragmatism vs Idealogy

The argument is based on the fact that free markets should be allowed to exist. Why? Why is that necessary? Different times in history and financial markets have different roles to play. Fifty years ago a financial collapse is likely to be a localised event, not now. What used to be a self-contained localised event has now gone on to have major global repercussion. Over the last 20 years, markets have not really decoupled but rather in crisis, we have witnessed stronger inter-connectedness and collateral damage.

As a politician, bureaucrat and/or steward of good governance, nobody in those positions would want a total collapse of financial markets, as the rebuilding process may take decades. Maybe there is too much leveraged instruments out there – but that’s a separate issue altogether. It is easy to be critical – to call for total free market movement when there are so many inherent faults within the financial system is simply highly irresponsible. Maybe there is too much leverage now and to allow for unmanaged falls could lead to catastrophes that many economies may not be able to recover from.

We have to acknowledge that there is a herd mentality among certain fund managers and hedge funds even, and collectively they can take huge advantage over the rest of the markets by playing the trends together – who is to say that they are not acting in cahoots sometimes? Hence we do need a power player, to bring sanity back, and not allow any big domination or excessive manipulation by the one group of funds. The existence of PPT also signals as a threat to diminish any potential plans to corner or misguide the markets with criminal intent.

We need PPT

Targeting the Americans for having PPT is very silly. The US has military and global economic leadership, I would expect them to have some sort of PPT. Capitalism yes, but free markets have to be redefined according to the times. The ones who call for total free markets need to broaden the bigger picture. It’s idealogical but not practical. Just like most things in life, who practises pure communism or pure planned economy anymore?

Capitalism, free markets, planned economy are all models based on theories, not absolutes based on religious fervour.

Not many people know that Malaysia has one of the highest GDP percentages being listed, it’s in the high 80s. Other developed countries range from 50% to 70%.

What that means is that many countries’ economic performance have a moderate to very high correlation to financial markets. Say, we have totally free markets and let’s go back to the LTCM 98 debacle. Nobody would have stepped in as the KLSE was languishing in the 500-700 range after the 97 implosion. Now you get another round of financial free markets correction. It would have decimated demand and assets globally. That would caused many stuttering companies and even whole industries to completely be wiped out. The KLSE might even have collapsed to 300, who knows. So we need to think of repercussions, because unguarded corrections could kill off more than we could rebuild.

Yes, the shorts might be dealt a bad deal but its a “lesser evil” kind of scenario here. It’s not just in saving major correctional phases, the PPT could also come in to deflate excessive liquidity by exhorting various central banks to tighten policies or soak liquidity. What we want is to lessen the pendulum swings on both extremes.

Sometimes things are not as bad as they seem.

What About The Subprime Crisis?

Well, the subprime crisis was way too big to even contemplate a PPT operation. Because you were dealing with confidence and the credit markets as we know was seizing up. Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were falling like bricks. The Fed was trying to ask any bank to buy them out, but all were knee deep in trouble as well, they couldn't just save one. They tried with Bear Stearns but they had to let Lehman Brothers go, there was no one else willing to buy unless they had a strong guarantee from the government. There was only so much the Fed and Paulson could do. Mind you, there was also implosion with AIG and Fannie and Freddie, it was just too big to save everyone.

It looks like we have reached the zenith for PPT to be workable. It also looks likely that any future crises will also be "too big" for PPT to be effective. Call it what you may but the derivatives side of things have grown so large and cumbersome that the real "exposure" carried on any banks or investment banks have gotton so way out of hand.

To roll back the regulations on "capital requirements" and trading positions now are a must, and stricter regulations, but there are always new fangled instruments and off balance sheet agreements that people are so ingenious to side step the rules.

Thus, the financial markets are not going to get any safer despite more regulations, because we never remember our mistakes. The next bubble or rally comes along and everybody is so well paid in the system that we are not going to be bothered with it (again).

Malaysia

Over the last 10 years, our indexed stocks have been increasingly "owned" by local funds. To a large extent it gets easier to "manage" the index. You and I know that when that happens, we may be tempted to "manage" any untoward events. Not being allowed to correct properly will only mean that we will not be addressing the "gaps in valuations properly", it will also mean we will sweep the "inefficiencies and mistakes" under the guise of a managed index. Beware.

Ulting Walk along the River Chelmer then Boreham hills

Off message but before it gets too wet, cold, dark and miserable I thought I would post on a wonderful 8 mile walk last month.

The walk started near the 12th pilgrimage church, All Saints in Ulting.  Walk along farmland then alongside the River Chelmer and back through the village of Nousley. Stopping off at the "Sportsman Arms" for a little light refreshment.

Walk from the free site Essex Walks. I've posted more pictures on Facebook here. Click on picture to bring up detail.

Frances O'Grady at SERTUC Council

This morning I went to the Trade Union Congress Southern & Eastern Regional Council (SERTUC) as an UNISON delegate at Congress House.

Our keynote speaker was Frances O'Grady, the General Secretary (elect) of the TUC. This was the first time in living memory that any TUC GS had addressed our Council.

Despite being under the weather with a cold, Frances gave a cracking speech. Wide ranging, thought provoking, honest, passionate, but pragmatic.

I base this post on my tweets made during her speech with the usual disclaimer for thumb fumbling haste and any mistakes or omissions are my responsibility.

She firstly greeted us as "sisters, brothers and fellow plebs! SERTUC region is important since 26% of all trade union members live here. We need to act smart and inspire people. Work with different community groups. Even the Women's Institute. Our job is to turn opposition to Austerity into a mass movement and in the long term achieve a better, fairer society.

We must tackle growing income inequality. The top 10% are 500 times richer than the bottom 10%. While the City Spivs get massive bonuses the lowest paid have food banks. This in the 7th richest society in the world.

The "Spirit Level" book proves that such inequality is bad for everyone. We want tax justice. We want Starbucks, Amazon to pay their taxes.

We need a change in economic policy. Even the IMF, which is not known for being a left wing organisation, recognises that workers need to have money in order to buy things to create demand and jobs.

What we want is not only a transfer of wealth but a transfer of power. Why can't we have employee representatives on Company remuneration committees?

It is understandable, but we must be careful about the big danger from a decline in trust in politics. If people lose hope, it could be very bad for us and progressive politics. We have to be very careful about our language.

Any further mobilisation must be a demonstration of strength not weakness. We have to be clever and not burn out our members.

There are arguments that a general strike could be legal but this depends on European law and anyone with any experience of this, knows it takes years for these cases to be decided. Firstly we have to ask our affiliates if there is an appetite for action.  Also, if we have a general strike without a ballot, we have to be honest with people, that they could be dismissed if they take part. Union funds could also be sequested by Courts.  Any general strike cannot just be a public sector strike. It must be supported in the private sector.

Frances finished by making it clear that this is a weak coalition government and that there is widespread fear even in the middle classes, about such things as youth unemployment, housing shortage and the sharks such as Virgin, circling our NHS. If we go about it in the right way we can and will give this government a good kicking.  

(Check out my twitter account for 27th October for a fuller report of Council. I did speak on the Austerity motion which I will post upon separately) 

Corporate Tax-Dodging Causes Austerity #Boycott Starbucks

Companies such as Starbucks, Amazon.CON and Vodaphone seem to think that only the little people should pay taxes. Bite back little people. 

Council Pensions, Mergers & the Infrastructure Cacophony

This morning I was surprised to hear Sir Merrick Cockell, Chair of the Local Government Association (and Leader of Kensington and Chelsea) say on the Today radio programme that he (personally) supports the merger of the £150 billion Local Authority Pension Scheme (LGPS) into 5 or so funds only. There are currently 101 different and separate LGPS funds.

He was being interviewed about a report from The Future Homes Commission  about the need for investment in residential property. He argued that to invest in such infrastructure you need massive scale. There are claims that this merger and investment could result in 300,000 more homes being built every year.

His comments are likely to be more than a little controversial in our sedate world of Council pensions. I am reminded of the bun fight in City Hall here between "merger-ists" and "merger deniers" and the epic battle earlier this month here between the "Wandsworth" Council bulldog and "Gentleman Jim" LPFA.

One side argues that if the schemes merge they will be big enough to invest in such infrastructure funds that will not only provide homes, a much needed boost to the economy but also increase returns and slash costs. The other says "rubbish", bigger doesn't mean better and small is often beautiful (and more democratic and responsive).

By coincidence on Wednesday evening I went to the Parliamentary launch of the report by the Smith Institute "local authority pension funds: investing for growth".  It makes a number of recommendations but broadly supports the idea of a "clearing house" and "pooled" LGPS funds to invest in social housing and infrastructure. Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) Chair Ian Greenwood made it clear at the meeting that the forum was "neutral" with regard to merger of its funds.

In the Q&A I made the point that the report itself didn't appear to address any significant beneficiary concerns and a major reason why pension funds can't already invest in social housing is that property fund managers don't want anything to do with "plebs" and only want to invest in shiny new shopping centres and warehouses. Comrade Michael Johnson threw his usual hand grenade into the proceedings by stating that the LGPS is an Empire run in the interests of the Empire rather than its beneficiaries.

Following this mornings report UNISON has quite rightly reminded everyone that the absolute legal duty of pension schemes is to act in the interests of its beneficiaries (not to make property developers rich).  While I am pretty sure that this does not mean that UNISON is necessarily opposed to such investment, those who propose it need to be damn sure that these investments benefit our members.

Out of the hundreds of organisations that are cited as contributing to the Future Homes report there appears to be no input whatsoever from those whose money it is being proposed should be put at risk?

Check my twitter account @grayee for more details on the "epic battle" (10 October) and Smith report (24 October).

Woodnook Regeneration

Following the broken promises of a Conservative Council who for 8 years promised up to £35m for Woodnook but did nothing, the new Labour Council has stepped in despite being left no money for regeneration and are now on the verge of delivering a £10m public-private redevelopment. Place First, backed by a pension investment company are taking on the project.




In this video I talk about the

Metropolitan Housing: Poverty Pay, Pay Offs and Predistribution

NO PROGRESS IN METROPOLITAN CONSULTATION MEETINGS

A series of cost-cutting proposals presented to UNISON by Metropolitan housing association have been firmly rejected by the union’s members.

Metropolitan are conducting a 90 day consultation on changes to the terms and conditions of its 887 staff who are employed as Care and Support workers. The proposals include the reduction of staff salaries by up to 40%; reducing the number of job roles from 44 to 4, introducing flexible contracts and reducing management and administration posts.

Controversially, a private consultant’s report presented to the Metropolitan Board in December 2011 recommended employing more low-paid, part time staff “who could supplement their income by claiming working tax credits”.

If implemented, the proposed salary cuts will slash the wages of front line staff to below that of the GLA’s recommended London Living Wage. Metropolitan’s 2011/12 Financial Statement revealed that the former chief executive, Bill Payne, received a record payout of £412,000 in 2011.

UNISON’s Housing Associations’ Branch Secretary, John Gray, commented: “The hypocrisy of Metropolitan’s position is absolutely staggering. It pays £412,000 to honour the employment contracts of a departing chief executive yet wants to rip up the contracts of hundreds of frontline staff in order to impose wage cuts of up to 40%”.

UNISON Regional Organiser, Colin Inniss stated: “our members at Metropolitan are very angry about this and rightly so. Unless the Board sees sense and reconsiders its proposals we are heading for a serious dispute.

For Further information or comment please contact:

UNISON Housing Associations Branch Secretary, John Gray j.gray2@unison.co.uk
UNISON Regional Organiser, Colin Inniss or C.Inniss@unison.co.uk

Notes for Editors

1. Metropolitan manages 36,000 homes and provides housing and other services to 80,000 customers. In 2011/12 it made an operating surplus of £65.4M on a turnover of £244M.

2. Brian Johnson, formerly of Moat, has recently been appointed chief executive of Metropolitan.

3. UNISON’s Housing Association Branch represents 3,500 members in the Greater London Region and the South East.

The London Living Wage is designed to help people towards a minimum acceptable quality of life in our capital. It is calculated by the Greater London Authority and is currently £8.30

(This is from branch press release. I brought this matter up at our West Ham GC meeting last night with our MP Lyn Brown)

Wednesday's memorial mass to former MP, Ken Hargreaves

Wednesday's memorial mass to former MP, Ken Hargreaves at the crypt beneath Westminster Hall was well attended. Wonderfully led by Speaker John Bercow, David Amess MP and Ann Widecombe MP, a packed St Mary's undercroft off Westminster Hall paid tribute to Ken. Also in attendance where Greg Pope MP, myself and councillors Peter Britcliffe and Marlene Haworth and ex Conservative councillor

Personal Loan Calculator Help Gets Your Relation Build With The Bank Offering Loan At An Affordable Rate

There may appear a situation in life where in you will be requiring the help of a personal loan from the banks. That time, you would really need the assistance of a personal loan calculator that would provide you with the idea on which bank offers the loan at a lower interest rate. Based on every company website or the bank website, the calculator is very useful in deciding on the emi that you would be returning to the bank every month on the total amount of loan availed.

Personal loan calculator assists in coming out the figures and statistics that would make the decision of yours easy as to which bank should you build relation with in terms of loan availed from them. Personal loan interest rates are varying in the range of 11% to 1*% and when you want to avail the same for the purposes such a your daughter marriages, invest in your business to expand the same or to plan a trip or holiday for your family, you would not bother much on the comparison from different banks to avail the loan. But this would provide to very costly to you when you will start repaying loans to the bank.

In order to come out with the plan to efficiently decide on how much personal loan you should avail and from which of the banks, the personal loan calculator is designed and put on every bank; website. You would not need to visit the bank personally and know about the policies and processing fees they are going to charge to avail the loan. The device in itself is a integrated tool to provide you with very such information. Hence the need of the same cannot be ignored when you are thinking to avail the personal loan from any of the banks available in India.

Summary: Personal loan calculator help would offer you to choose a single standalone bank from the list of banks offering personal loan at an affordable rate.

Jack Dromey MP speaking to UNISON Housing Association Branch

Picture from Tuesday's meeting at the Palace of Westminster. Labour Shadow Housing Minster, Jack Dromey MP, entertained and educated, Housing Association trade union members at a UNISON branch Labour Link meeting.

Jack started off by talking about his early days as a trade union activist in the famous 1970's Grunwick dispute. Ironically he has recently worked with as a shadow minister one of the Police officers who arrested him on that picket line.

He made a firm commitment that a future Labour Government will make housing central stage. Previous Labour governments did good things but they did not build enough homes. In the 1930's construction helped get the country out of recession. 2 million people in this country depend on this industry for their livelihood. There is an alternative economic strategy to that of the Tory coalition. He wants Councils and Housing Associations to both build more.

Housing Associations must keep their social care function and not end up like most mutual building societies did in the 1990's. Need to not only build homes but communities.

There was a lively Q&A and Jack overstayed his slot by 40 minutes.  There were members from nearly 20 different Housing Associations from all over London and East England.  My Question was about the poor governance in many (not all) Housing Associations such as Metropolitan which while  cutting front line staff wages, is making huge pay offs for failure to its senior managers while at the same time planning to recruit part time not full time staff so the state will top up their wages. Jack came back that there was good and bad associations as there are good and bad Councils. Good governance is a key issue.

He asked everyone not to judge the Labour Party so much on what they say now but on what they will do when they are in power.

National UNISON Community & Voluntary Sector officers Simon Watson and Ravinder Gill (right of Jack) also spoke as did Greater London Regional officer for our sector, Colin Inniss (on left).

Photo from HAB Dancing Queen, Sarah Kilby

Update: Check my tweets of event @grayee and photos on Facebook here.

Giving Customers What They Want

The headline is seemingly an easily understood concept but one which is rarely practiced by most companies, even big ones. Was on a flight on AirAsia, did you know you can get Chatime on the plane? What a surprising yet decisive move ... To me it tells of the strategy and mindset of Tony and his crew, to continually get the customers what they want. Yes, we still bitch about many things about AirAsia, but overall its a bloody great way to fly cheap.

An example of a company that does not give customers what they want is 7-11 Malaysia, and only Malaysia. 7-11 franchises in Thailand and HK are amazing. You do not just go there because its late and nothing else is open. You go there cause they have things you want 24-7.

Its so obvious that 7-11 Malaysia mostly stocks stuffs that "they can get a very long credit period". Am I wrong here? They probably operate as a cash flow cow, rather than investing in "real products consumers want", we only get to choose stuff whose "manufacturers can tolerate long periods without payment because their products are not so in demand in the first place". Naturally some things they cannot do without such as top tier soft drinks.

Just look at other competing 7-24 operations, they go the extra mile, heck one of them even has vegetables.

 

 

 

 

White Ribbon Campaign against violence against women