Rochdale Future Direction Striking Workers March and Rally

Good luck to the march and rally tomorrow (12:00 Thursday 29 August) by striking Future Direction workers and supporters. Speakers at rally include Maureen Le Marinel UNISON President and Heather Wakefield national secretary for local government.

UNISON Press release "More than 100 workers have begun five days of strike action in order to send their employer Future Directions a clear message that the fight against the substantial cuts to their pay and terms and conditions has not gone away.

The strike began at 8am on Sunday 25 August 2013 and follows 14 days of strike action already taken in recent months.

Future Directions CIC which is a company owned by Calderstones NHS Trust, bid for the contract to provide supportive living services from Rochdale Council, knowing that to make the contract viable they would need to make financial cuts as soon as they were awarded the contract. Future Directions is looking to expand its business and bid for more contracts at the expense of the workers who continue to deliver care to vulnerable adults, taking advantage of the fact that these workers care about the work they do and the people they work with.

A march and rally has been organised for Thursday, 29 August 2013 at 12 noon on 'the Butts' in Rochdale town centre in support of the strikers and their campaign to continue the fight against imposed cuts on their pay, terms and conditions. Many workers are losing more than £500 per month and having to use savings to subsidise their wages to make ends meet.

UNISON is asking branches to help support the strike action by giving donations to the hardship fund and help these workers to continue with their fight for a fair deal for Future Directions staff in Rochdale. For any messages of support or donations please contact the Rochdale UNISON Local Government Branch, 46 Richard Street, Rochdale, Lancashire, OL11 1DU, email address: Unison@Rochdale.Gov.UK telephone number: 01706 925952, branch secretary: Helen Harrison.
UNISON is continuing to call on Future Directions CIC to enter into meaningful negotiations with a view to resolving this ongoing dispute".

Hat tip picture UNISONActive

"An Economy for One Nation: How Progressive can a Future Labour Government be"?

Picture of East Ham MP Stephen Timms and UNISON Head of Local Government Heather Wakefield (Chair Christopher Owens on right) at the Newham Compass & Fabians debate on how radical the next Labour Government should be.  This was held last month at West Ham FC supporter’s club.

Stephen spoke first on the central policy of the next Labour Government must be to cut unemployment. The Tory cuts had failed and resulted in no growth. Many people now beginning to realise that the cuts are not working.

The deficit had not been caused by overspending but by the collapse in the economy due to the financial crisis. He enjoyed seeing even Tories criticising government policies. If Labour are elected then there are limits to what we can do. Employment is key to fighting poverty. Labour will offer a guaranteed job for 6 months.

Heather introduced herself as a Chelsea FC season ticket holder who was pleased to be at West Ham! She was going to be more idealistic and talk about values. Privatisation of public services had led to reduced wages and badly run, inefficient services and greater income inequality.

We need gender equality as well as satisfying and socially useful work. Real workplace democracy. We need a partnership at work, a new deal with unions.

There needs to be a new attitude to taxes, ask what the economy is for and who benefits from it? A Green investment bank to make Government offices and homes energy efficient. Deal with tax havens. Raise a Robin Hood (or rather Maid Marian) Tobin Tax. Reform Council tax. Make sure that there is a minimum income for all.

We have the most expensive child care in Europe apart from Switzerland. Women suffer the most in terms of jobs and pay from Austerity. There has to be a Keynesian economic programme, we could invest in new homes. Ask should we have low pay or a living wage. Why do we subsidise Tesco with tax credits?

Worse privatisation was in social care. Dominated by big companies making massive profits out of poor quality care and also schools meals.

In the Q&A I asked the question that in line with Heather’s remarks about rethinking our attitude to taxes, we ought to be pointing out that getting the unemployed into work will cost money and that we have to accept that all of us will have to pay more tax in return for quality public services. 

Heather was very positive in her reply while Stephen was a little more circumspect.

An Economy for One Nation: How Progressive can the next Labour Government be?

This post is late but tomorrow Thursday 14 March East Ham MP and shadow minister for Employment, Stephen Timms and UNISON Head of Local Government, Heather Wakefield will be debating how progressive (or radical) the next Labour Government can be?

This event is bring arranged by Newham Compass and Fabians. It is being held at the West Ham supporters club starting at 7.30pm.

Click on flyer to bring up further details.

"An Economy for One Nation": Stephen Timms MP & Heather Wakefield (UNISON)

This should be good. East Ham MP Stephen Timms (Shadow Minister for Employment) and UNISON, Head of Local Government Heather Wakefield debate "An Economy for One Nation" and how progressive can the next Labour Government be?

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.