Barnet UNISON Press Release: OVER ONE MILLION PEOPLE TO BE CONTACTED ABOUT BARNET STRIKE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: OVER ONE MILLION PEOPLE TO BE CONTACTED ABOUT BARNET STRIKE
On Friday Barnet UNISON informed our members that we were using an online social media tool called Thunderclap.
Over the weekend the results have been incredible, with the latest figures showing 1,041,021 are about to read the reasons we are taking strike action on Wednesday 8 July.
You can read the update here.
Barnet UNISON members who still work for Barnet Council (excluding community schools) begin a 24 hour strike action on Wednesday 8 July
The dispute involves coach escorts, drivers, social workers, occupational therapists, schools catering staff, education welfare officers, library workers, children centre workers, street cleaning & refuse workers, all of whom have made it clear they want to remain employees of the Barnet Council.
UNISON Picket Lines will be at the following workplaces:
· North London Business Park—Start 7 am onwards.
· Mill Hill Depot—Starts 6 am onwards.
· East Finchley Library—Start 9 am onwards.
On Wednesday 8 July the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is expected to announce further devastating cuts to local authority budgets during the emergency budget. The Local Government Association (LGA) has warned that councils in England could face a £3.3 billion reduction in central government funding for local services in 2016/17. This will mean councils will need to make big savings next year, equivalent to 12 per cent of their total budgets.
· “The LGA also predicted that the upcoming Spending Review would see Whitehall funding reduced by a further 11% in 2017/18 and 4% in 2018/19, before increasing by 7% the following year.
· This means councils face a funding gap of £9.5bn by the end of the decade, the outlook claims.”
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2015/06/councils-face-%C2%A333bn-funding-cut-lga-warns
UNISON Branch Secretary John Burgess said: “Our members want to work for the Council, they want to be directly accountable to the residents of Barnet. They can see for themselves that cuts to local government are being driven by an ideological obsession with outsourcing services. Our members can see that the outsourcing of council services does lead to an attack on members’ Pay,Terms & Conditions and the establishment of a divisive and unfair two tier workforce. I am pleased to see that despite all the odds the Greek people have rejected the politics of Austerity and provided a message of hope for all of us facing the Austerity endgame. I am therefore pleased to report that Jeremy Corbyn (Labour Leadership candidate) will be standing shoulder to shoulder with UNISON members on our picket lines this week. Barnet UNISON will be later joining other trade unions and disability rights campaigners on a lobby of Parliament in defence of Public Services and Trade Union rights on 8 July, at 1 pm in Parliament Square, (opposite Westminster Abbey).”
End.
Notes to Editors.
Contact details: John Burgess Barnet UNISON on 07738389569 or 0208 359 2088 or email: john.burgess@barnetunison.org.uk
Background:
1. Six years ago Barnet Council introduced a policy known as Future Shape which morphed into ‘easyCouncil’*.This imposed a series of tariffs on residents wishing to access a range of services. A basic service would be offered to residents at a fixed price, but ‘fast track’ services might be available if you paid extra.
This approach was quickly abandoned by the consultant driven One Barnet Programme, which led to the following Council Services being outsourced/privatised in the space of three years:
1. Social Care for Adults with disabilities to Your Choice Barnet
2. Housing Options to Barnet Homes
3. Parking Services to NSL
4. Revenues & Benefits, IT, HR & Payroll, Pensions, Health & Safety, Finance, Estates, Property Services, Procurement, Projects all now part of Capita CSG
5. Environmental Health, Planning, Building Control, Hendon Cemetery & Crematorium, Highways, Trading Standards & Licensing all now Capita RE
6. Legal Services
7. Registrars & Nationality Services
8. CCTV
9. Music Trust
10. Public Health
11. Mortuary Services.
Over the past three years our members have seen hundreds of colleagues transferred to other employers. This has often meant redundancy as the new employer has moved jobs out of the borough and Greater London to places as far afield as Belfast, Carlisle, Coventry, Southampton and Darlington.
Barnet has branded this final phase as the ‘Commissioning Council’.
On 3 March 2015 Barnet Council agreed its next Five Commissioning Plans all of which are looking at ‘Alternative Delivery Models’, jargon for working for a different employer.
The Council Services now at risk of outsourcing are:
1. Early Years – 13 Children’s Centres
2. Library Services
3. Adults & Communities services
4. Street Scene Services e.g. Waste & Recycling, Street Cleansing, Parks and Transport
5. Education & Skills and School Meals services.
2. Disappearing Council – short animation https://youtu.be/YQ5t63fSu-s
3. “The easyCouncil Loco-motion” https://youtu.be/Wi0bdgofsmM