Barnet UNISON are organising a conference on Tuesday 27th October for all our
members working in Schools.
We have a speaker from UNISON national coming to talk about the proposed new national agreement. There will be opportunities for staff to talk about ‘rarely cover, pay, life long learning and heath safety.
View programme click here
UNISON have announced that after joint trade union consultation the members of all the main trade unions have voted to accept 1% National pay offer.
It is clear from the media circus that politicians across the mainstream parties are queuing up to show how they would cut public sector spending if they were elected to run the government. The vote to accept 1% is a critical moment for public sector trade unions. They need to quickly develop a coordinated, joined up strategy to defend public services in a way that members can feel confident that their leaders really means business.
Our members and members of other trade unions need strong leadership, it needs to go beyond rhetoric and sound bites. Members need to be inspired, they need to believe that they can make a difference.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said to President Obama to ‘never let a good crisis go to waste.’
I believe the same applies to the trade union movement. We need change. The change has got to come from our members and our stewards, they are the key to the future of trade unionism in the next decade.
The government is committed to breaking up public services. Easy Council is not a Barnet only concept, it is government policy to encourage the move from a provider to a commissioner. This change will gather momentum if we don’t stand up and fight. There are those who prefer appeasement on the basis that people are not prepared to fight.
I point to positive reaction of the British public to the attacks on our NHS from right wing fundamentalists in the
Next week sees the start of TUC conference. In my day it marked the beginning of televised politics, the mainstream party conferences would follow and we would watch and listen to the speeches. Nowadays it hardly raises a mention in the media.
This non engagement is a ‘wake up call’ for the trade union movement. Potential members of trade unions need to be convinced of the need to belong to a trade union. The hard won terms & conditions that people take for granted were not handed over willingly. They were hard fought, there were casualties. We need to show these potential members why we need to fight and why they need to be part of the fight.
I would ask members to note Motion 49 entitled ‘Defending public services’ going to TUC conference from the PCS which I am hoping will be adopted. It opens with
“Congress rejects the notion that the solution to the economic crisis, and the resulting national debt, must be found in public spending cuts which damage services, freeze public sector pay, increase privatisation, or cut pensions and benefits. Congress rejects the divisions that are being encouraged by the media and politicians between private and public sector workers in order to justify cuts…..”
Rank & file members understand unity, they understand the need to stand together, they have an expectation of the leaders of the public sector unions to work together for the survival of public services and their members.
We don’t want members put on the dole, we don’t need ALMS we don’t want benefits
We need jobs, wages, we need dignity and self respect in the work place.
Links
UNISON National Pay Award Press release
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=1563
TUC Conference
http://www.tuc.org.uk/congress/tuc-16887-f0.pdf
Total Place
http://www.localleadership.gov.uk/docs/TotalPlaceWeb.pdf
Barnet UNISON response to Easy Council
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/02/response-barnet-council-budget-airline
Don’t waste a crisis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow
Public spending cuts
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2009/09/national-pay-bargaining-must-go.html
You can play a part in making sure debate on the future of the Local Government Pension Scheme is based on Fact not ‘Myths’ and Envy.
The LGPS is under attack
Public Service Pension Schemes are under almost daily attack in the press. Statements like pensions ‘Black Hole’, pension apartheid, unsustainable perk, crop up with familiar regularity. Both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats want major reform and some politicians have called for the immediate closure of the schemes to new entrants and replacing them with cheap money purchase schemes for future service. Despite the virulence and regularity of the attacks there does not appear to be a consensus let alone a firm policy from either of those parties. So the next year is crucial if we are going to refute the attacks and stop the politics of envy firming up a policy of poverty for all.
Myth Busting
The LGPS is not a ‘perk’ it allows nearly 2 million workers to save for their retirement.
The LGPS is affordable. Funds can pay back any deficits over more than 20 years. The Trade Unions and employers are developing a fair basis for monitoring future changes in costs
Other workers do not subsidise it. Over 50% of the cost is met by employee contributions and investment returns. Only around 5.4% of the total income generated for Local Government including Council Tax goes to the Pension Scheme.
Cheap money purchase schemes that sadly are being introduced in the private sector are not the answer. All the risk is with the member and there is no guarantee that benefits will even be above the poverty line when they retire.
Fighting Envy
The LGPS Normal Retirement Age for most is now 65. The average LGPS pension in payment is still only around £4000pa and the average for women is around £2000pa.
Worsen future benefits and many will end up on the State. Worsening pensions so people no longer save for their retirement is the real time bomb for the Taxpayer. The minimum income for the means tested Pensions Credit is now around £130 per week.
It is not that public Service Pension Schemes are getting more generous it is private sector schemes getting worse. Employers who switch to inadequate money purchase schemes are throwing many workers on to the State.
Doing the same for the LGPS would mean that a high proportion of the nearly 2 million workforce would stop saving and become reliant on the taxpayer. The real pension ‘apartheid’ is not between public and private sector workers, but between the fat cats in the board room who secure outrageously generous pensions for themselves with low retirement ages, and their workforce who at the same time are suffering cuts to their future pensions.
What can you do?
• Raise awareness of the issue with your colleagues
• Keep up with UNISON’s Campaign to defend the LGPS.
• Check the UNISON Pension website.
• Contact your local politicians and candidates running up to the next election
More headlines in the newspapers and airwaves about our supposed “gold plated” public sector pensions. Over the next 8 months we are going to see an increase in scaremongering from the media about our pension scheme.
The latest UNISON report states “The average LGPS pension in payment is still only around £4000pa and the average for women is around £2000pa that’s hardly gold plated!
If members [not just in Barnet] working in public services want to keep their pensions then they need to start defending them now. The government are making plans now, hence the press releases which will increase the nearer we get to the general election.
In the past the union has provided pro forma letters for members to send to their MPs, if members want to stop this attack on your future then you need to approach you MP now. If you can’t make it to one of your MP’s surgeries, email your MP with your letter. Ask the question:
“Will they vote to dismantle our pension scheme?”
Don’t be fooled by the alternatives, they are not acceptable and if implemented will not be sustainable for the future. Younger workers will see no benefit in joining such a scheme.
You might feel you are living quite comfortably now, but if the pension scheme is dismantled it will push millions of families into poverty and increase the burden on the state. How crazy is that?
Unfortunately, until we can have a grown up conversation about pensions we are going to have to deal with ‘headline grabbing sound bites’ from politicians seeking votes at the next general election.
What you can do
Contact your MP
Become a UNISON rep in your team
Start discussing the pension scheme in your work place
Our response to this years pay ballot has not been great, but having a ballot in the middle of the summer doesn’t help. There are two ways pay can improve, nationally and locally for example in a restructure your grade may increase.
National Pay ballot is looking at 1%, according to UNISON report most councils budgeted between 2- 2.5%. Our council budgeted for 2%. Amongst the London Councils there appears to be strong feeling that there should have been no increase except for the lower grades (no details). There were reports that London councils were considering pulling out of the national pay talks machinery.
“Merrick Cockell (Con), chairman of London Councils, said the decision, worth 1% to most staff and 1.25% to the lowest paid, was likely to prompt the capital bloc to consider joining the 40 or so other authorities which set their own pay and conditions.”
Whilst this is unlikely to happen this time, it is something for ALL members to note as there is clear government policy for more local negotiation thus undermining national bargaining.
Local Pay
The average council worker goes through a restructure almost on an annual basis in which case there is an opportunity for an increase in pay. The LBB procedure for all restructures is covered in Managing Change. Staff should be consulted at the beginning of the process and given opportunity to comment on the content of role profiles. It is only after agreement on the RP’s will HR grade the posts, afterwards the Trade Unions grade the posts and compare with the HR scores. It is becoming increasingly the case that the trade unions grading scores are different to HR scores. In such cases we sometimes have to carry out a consultative ballot of the members concern to see how strongly members feel about what could be an increase of one or two increments. In these harsh economic times who can afford to lose a possible small increase in pay?
Accept it or you will be privatised!
This is not something new, but it is something that all public sector workers will have heard before but I predict something similar will be heard across public sector workplaces across the UK. I believe that the 2010 version may read “accept it & be privatised”, despite the fact that it is generally accepted privatisation does not save the public purse!
What about Barnet?
Despite media headlines which were simply quite mad, the future is still very uncertain, the sooner we have something concrete for staff to consult on the better.
I expect something much more transparent than in Phase 2 which saw a chosen few discuss the future for public services, whilst in the background, consultants were busy providing the financial case. By that I mean the efficiency savings, it is clear from looking at the contributions on the intranet that the groups were not party to the figures given for the Cabinet report in July this year. The Trade Union concern still remains that these figures were crude estimates with little or no substance.
Nationally one of the biggest criticisms of councils going into strategic partnerships has been the poor analysis of actual savings. Exaggerated claims are made to councillors quite understandably worried about the next poor financial settlement from central government. A consultant comes in and promises them the ‘Golden Fleece’. Is it no wonder that they agree to these sort of poorly conceived remedies to the increasingly poor state of public sector finances.
The only winners are the consultants, KPMG, Deloittes, PwC who grow fat on fees from the public sector organisations desperately looking for the magic pill to solve all ills.
When are public bodies going to learn? When are we going to tap the experience & expertise within our own organisations? When we use consultants, we should do so using robust performance monitoring of their contributions to the project.
I thought it would be a good idea if Barnet UNISON members had the opportunity to hear about what is going on in other London councils. It is important for members to get an understanding about what is happening and how the branches are responding. Over the next few months UNISON branch secretary’s from across London will be answering a few questions from me.
What is your name?
Matthew Waterfall
What UNISON branch?
Hackney Local Government
What is your branch officer position?
Branch Secretary
Have any of your services been privatised? Please explain?
A few have been privatised but others have come back in house. Hackney was burnt around the turn of the century when it let massive sections like Waste and Benefits which were privatised out to Service Team and IT Net respectively. These contracts worked so badly that the council was later forced to bring them back in. What we do find is that smaller contracts are often let out without much consultation etc with the unions. On the plus side though we were recently successful in campaigning for the majority of the estate cleansing service to be brought back in house. The major down side is that education in Hackney is run by a private firm called the Learning Trust who have done nothing to improve the lot of our mainly female membership in the 7 years since they took the contract on. As of today support staff in schools are still to go through single status and the result of that is low pay and poor treatment. Hackney Unison will continue to campaign to get education back in house, run by elected councillors rather than unaccountable board members.
Do you know if there are any plans to share services with other public sector organisations in your borough?
Not heard of any plans thus far but always on the look out
Do you have any privatisation proposals in your borough?
Nothing major at the moment
What do you think will be the big challenges for public Services over the next four years? The next four years pose the biggest challenge that our members in local govt have ever seen. The Tories are likely to win the next election and that can only be bad for public services. Our chief executive is talking of cuts as big as 20% which will devastate the workforce. This is why it is so important for members to stand strong together and for the national and regional union officers to provide us with the support we need now so that we are better placed to fight the cuts when they do come.
What is your message to Barnet UNISON members
Barnet and Hackney have a long history of working together in educations and we will always stand shoulder to shoulder with our comrades to the north. We realise what members in Barnet are having to put up with dealing with future shape and ludicrous headline grabbing schemes like ‘Easy Council’ and we share your distain. Having worked personally with your branch over the past couple of years it is great to see a branch with such a strong sense of solidarity and comradeship and as long as members in the borough can keep this going then I believe that although the times ahead may not be easy you will be strong enough to reject the worst aspects of what the Council is trying to do there.
Dear members
I have just finished a month on placement with social work teams across Adults & Children’s services. I was planning on jetting off for a holiday, and try and take things easy when this happened last Friday. I was suddenly bombarded by numerous text messages & emails asking if I had seen the Guardian article. I am not a regular reader, so had to go out and purchase a copy, and what did I find but a Four Page article in a National newspaper. There was also the online version which was quickly spreading to other links to other political commentators.
The “Easy Council” quip alongside comparisions with Easy Jet & Ryan Air have proved eye catching and have whipped up a media frenzy and comments from the public.
The political commentators are already saying that Barnet is the test ground for a future Cameron government, interesting to note a quote from a senior conservative figure on Friday
Not that this says anything, it could be that they are simply waiting to see what happens in Barnet.
For staff working hard in Barnet it must be confusing & disturbing to feel part of an experiment without having any say. If this is an experiment then we should have been told.
One of the more alarming quotes was from a councillor who when I last checked does not have a brief for adult services but is quoted as saying
“With council tenants, and I’ll admit I am putting it crudely it has been a lot of ‘my arse needs wiping, and somebody from the council can come and do it for me.’ That attitude is dying out now.”
When I read that statement after picking myself off the floor, I went to have a look at Fair Access to Care Services (FACS) to check the criteria yourself.
Public Sector wasting money
What…..we have been making year on year savings (in Barnet almost £80 million in last six years!). Let’s get this right, we are in a recession, not because of public sector failure but because of private sector failure and what is worse our government sat by and let it happen for fear of making an enemy of the City!
The ink is not even dry on the £Billions of public money being poured into the banks and already there are debates about whether there should be bonuses!
It really makes me quite angry at the hypocrisy coming out of the national media to public services, in particular the Pension issue. It is not our Pensions that created the recession and to call a £4,000 pension gold plated is diabolical.
There are around 4 million voters working in public sector, I wonder who they will be voting for because it seems all three mainstream parties are looking to cut their job, pensions and pay!
Why not rename the Refuse service to the Landfill Service ?
One of the comments in the article refers to the smaller bins, but most members of the public know this will see an escalation in fly tipping. The question is the right one i.e. how do we reduce the amount of landfill? The solution is not going to be easy as providing catchy sound bites. Residents need to hear the truth about the landfill tax which is hanging over the heads of Councils. In Barnet we are being told that if we continue collecting the same amount of refuse in 5 –10 years time we will be taxed so heavily that it could bankrupt the council. One of the implications could be that we would have to raise Council Tax, but this is politically impossible, instead the public attention is directed to scare stories about Ryan Air/Easy Jet.
Queue jumping!
Not popular in the
One of the three aims of future shape was “a different relationship with citizens”, it is hard to believe that creating two tier public services is what this aim was seeking to address.
BNP & Council Housing
This is the party that exploits the break up of public services. A good example is Council Housing. The break up of Council housing has been both financial madness but has not met the needs of communities. There was a time when we had well built council housing which gave working people access to quality, low cost housing. For our Future Shapists out there looking at disadvantaged families take a good look at the housing opportunities for those families and the services available to them. The break up of council housing has created ghettoes, housing stock has reduced due to right to buy that only those in most need are able to access this service. Councils are putting problems families alongside vulnerable adults & their families, no wonder our sheltered housing residents are petrified at the thought of their warden leaving the service.
It is well documented that the BNP does well where access to services is seen to be restricted to a few. Any policy that will increase disadvantage and deny access to public services must be opposed.
If the Future Shapist’s lobby within the Council are genuinely interesting in making early interventions and preventing dependency on public services then surely they need to start by looking at the environment we are creating for our residents.
Following on from the article in the Guardian last Friday in particular about the access to services.
To view criteria for access to care services in Barnet
click here
Dear Editor
I write in response to your four page coverage on Barnet Council entitled “Tories adopt budget airline service model”. As Branch Secretary for UNISON members working for Barnet Council I want to register my concern about the view that Council Services can learn from the likes of Ryan Air and Easy Jet.
I understand that this project has been dubbed by a spokesman for the council as ‘Easy Council’ catchy, good newspaper headlines but sending out the wrong message for the thousands of hard working staff trying to deliver efficient, quality services across the borough. Comparisons with Easy Jet and Ryan Air I believe are dangerous & unhelpful in that they play to residents & staff fears that services are going to be sold off to the lowest bidder. Using a low cost airline as benchmark for public services does not feel right when you are talking about public services.
Twenty years ago it there may have been some truth in ‘jobs for life’ for those staff working in Council services. Today’s Council worker is facing redundancy every year, below inflation pay awards for the last 8 years and increasing pressure to do more for less. The Council worker is the butt of attacks from politicians of all mainstream parties, yet they still manage to keep the streets clean, support and protect the vulnerable and deliver excellent educational opportunities for children.
The idea that those who can afford to pay more for a service will get services first is worrying especially at this time when unemployment is reaching record levels, in Barnet unemployment figures have risen by 80%. It is also add odds with the Audit Commission encouraging Councils to play a greater role in tackling the recession in their communities. The last thing we need is two tier services for residents in Barnet.
It is because of the fantastic work of our members that I am saddened to see council services become caught up in the political pantomime about who will win the next General Election.
I will be interested to hear the Government response to what Barnet are proposing after all it is their policy that is pushing councils to move away from delivering services to commissioning.
As to what is really happening in Barnet. We have had no decisions about the future of council services. The report on the front page which claims “council plans to save up to £15m a year by outsourcing services and reducing the size of the workforce” does not reflect what we have been told. However if this is the launch of the plan to run services on an Easy Council model I predict serious unrest amongst the workforce who are already feeling over burdened with work, and angry that their hard work is going to be rewarded by cuts to jobs, pensions and pay whilst bankers received billions of public funds for failure.
John Burgess
Branch Secretary Barnet UNISON
To view click here
