Staring into the face of Armageddon

On 16 December 2014 Barnet Council voted for the second wave of mass outsourcing which if implemented would result on the Council workforce reduce to less than 300 staff.

At the same time Northampton County Council announced that they would do the same.

Our branch had by this time been fighting Barnet Councils mass outsourcing ideology for over six years.

Our branch was exhausted, our reps who fought in the first wave of outsourcing simply had enough.

Our branch took a decision that we would try to rally our members build more reps and give it a go.

What was there to lose?

2015 was a critical moment in our history.

The Council came for the trade union facility time, they wanted to reduce it to zero.

Then the outsourcing projects began to gather pace.

We made a simple decision to organise and fightback.

Barnet Unison Picket lines in July 2015.

Two things happened that happened that shaped our future.

Jeremy Corbyn turned up at our picket line outside NLBP, after this Jeremy never looked back and later became the Leader of the Labour Party.

Lastly, Mill Hill depot workers joined UNISON en masse.

It was a proud moment watching workers refuse to cross our picket line and sign up to join UNISON.

The rest as they say is history, more strikes, protests followed.

In May 2017, Street Scene the last service at risk of outsourcing was kept in-house.

Back in December 2014 we were facing an impossible fight, but after much hard work our members and services are still in-house.

As Bob Crow used to say

“If you fight you won’t always win. But if you don’t fight you will always lose.”

2018 promises to be another test for our members and our union, whatever happens I know we have the team, the members to take on whatever is coming our way.

Solidarity greeting to all of our Barnet UNISON members and a Happy New Year.