Owen TudorThe TUC is, as usual, marking World AIDS Day on 1 December with a seminar, and this year it’s especially relevant to union organisers. This year the ILO adopted a recommendation on HIV/AIDS at the workplace. Stewart Brown, the FBU Executive member who represented the TUC in the negotiations, will be speaking at our seminar. In large parts of the developing world, AIDS is an organising issue, and it can be in LGBT communities in the UK too. The ILO Recommendation demonstrates just how important the issue is in workplaces: nine tenths of the 33 million people worldwide with HIV/AIDS are of working age (most of the 3 million others are children), and many more have caring responsibilities for a family member with HIV/AIDS. Unison’s Polly Jones will be speaking about the impact of HIV/AIDS on Unison’s partner unions in Southern Africa. There will be other speakers from international unions, NGOs and the world of politics, so please register and come along.
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The TUC has joined an international campaign in defence of trade unions in South Korea. When Korea joined the OECD in 1996 it made a commitment to reform its labour laws and meet international standards on workers’ rights. Fourteen years later, Korean laws still do not comply with international standards on protecting workers’ rights and Korea is one of the worst countries in the world for the repression of its workers, trade unions and people. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has called on unions around the world to take action in their workplaces, streets, cyberspace and airways and visiting Korean embassies in solidarity with Korean workers as part of the campaign. To support this action, the ITUC and Global Union Federations have released a series of campaign resources, including posters, stickers, leaflets and a government briefing note. The action is aimed at the 11-12 November G20 summit in Seoul, when the eyes of the world will be on South Korea.
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Just received this press release from Chesterfield and District Trades Union Council – an excellent idea I thought I would share with you. Could go nationwide?
“BEGGING BANKERS ON STREETS OF CHESTERFIELD
Begging Bankers will be out in force on Chesterfield Market Place this Saturday 30th October at 11.00am. A group of campaigners from ‘Coalition Against the Cuts’ will be staging a protest against the Government’s decision to cut public spending by slashing jobs and taking money from the poor. The campaigners, backed by Chesterfield & District TUC, will be dressed as fat cat bankers with cigars and bottles of champagne.
‘They will not be begging for your spare change’ said James Eaden President of Chesterfield TUC, ‘They have already had that and much, much more. Our fat cat bankers will now be asking for your jobs and services’
The Coalition Against the Cuts is linking together local trade unions with community groups and the many who will be affected by service cuts and changers to higher education funding.
‘Our bit of street theatre has a serious message’ James Eaden went on to say, ‘the budget deficit was caused by the bailing out of the banks and now they want me and you to pay for their binge’.
After Chesterfield the begging bankers will be appearing in towns throughout north Derbyshire. ”
You can contact James Eaden at jeaden@tesco.net
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A lunchtime share for you. We’ve been humming along to this new tune from Captain Ska, a very catchy song in which the band let us know in no uncertain terms their views about the coalition government’s plan of public spending cuts.
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Hang ‘em and flog ‘em new MP Priti Patel has returned to her favourite theme of union-bashing in the Daily Telegraph today, attacking union representatives in the public sector for using facility time to oppose the cuts that would see their members’ jobs cut, wages frozen and pensions slashed (apparently that’s ’political’ activity, as opposed to rpresenting their members’ direct economic interests); as well as the money that DFID provides my department to combat poverty in developing countries. Her views are way out on the right of the Conservative Party – she was originally in charge of the press office at the Referendum Party - and don’t reflect the views of the coalition government. But they are still poisonous attempts to attack any commitment to social dialogue, fairness towards trade unions. Her views are strangely contradictory: as well as the fact that she thinks representing the interests of ordinary workers who belong to trade unions, her attacks on trade unions are precisely what is likely to convince unions to be tribally anti-Tory.
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Now, more than ever, the trade union movement needs somewhere for a forensic examination of industrial relations and the role of trade unions in British society generally, and around the world. Union Ideas Network is the forum which brings together leading academics in industrial relations, business and political and social sciences in to contact and dialogue with the trade union movement.
The new Union Ideas Network, www.unionetwork.org.uk/, launched today, will not only be a forum for trade unionists and academics to exchange and debate ideas and responses to today’s challenges but also to look to the future and anticipate what awaits society if the expansion of global capital continues, undermining democratic structures and local communities. What do unions need to do to meet the concerns of workers and their families and how can unions change to ensure their place in a changing society?
The ideologically driven Comprehensive Spending Review raises questions about how trade unions respond not only to the attacks on their members in the public sector but how they are seen as leading figures in the defence of living standards in the UK.
In our first Discussion Forum Steve Davies, Senior Research Fellow, Cardiff School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, argues that the CSR offers opportunities for the unions to rebuild in the workplace, reach out to the wider community and lead a debate on the future of the country, as much as opportunities for the Tories to reconfigure the state.
Read Steve’s paper and make your response at the Union Ideas Network website www.unionetwork.org.uk/.
Joining the network is free.
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Lots of activity being organised by trades union councils around the country, co-ordinating with their Regional TUC campaigns. Thought I would bring to your attention the work of Chelmsford TUC in Essex who sent me this report today.
“We held a good public meeting on 22 September after which we formed a Chelmsford Against the Cuts group. We have established a website at http://chelmsfordagainstcuts.wordpress.com/ and progress is in hand for a Facebook group. We have been leafletting against the cuts every Saturday and collecting signatures and have bought a banner. A photo is on the Chelmsford TUC web site of our demonstration in the town after the Chancellor made his announcement. We also published a leaflet attacking his statement and distributed to commuters on their way home.
The group is very positive and made up of different political views from the left and we all work well together. We have produced a number of leaflets which we intend to update regularly. We keep in touch constantly and Unison has been very supportive. We have received money from the Co-op Party, Labour Party and union branches.
We participated in a local newspaper “soapbox” event and had a lot of positive publicity although one self-employed worker objected to our position on public service pensions. Oh dear! We have been sending, and getting published, regular reports of our meetings. Petitioning and leafletting will continue again this Saturday from 11am to 1pm and we will also use PCS and CWU leaflets opposing the sale of Royal Mail.
Thanks to those who have sent in donations to pay for our banner, leaflets and other expenses. We have had £25 from the Co-operative Party, £100 from CWU (Telecoms) South East Anglia Political Fund, and £50 from Chelmsford Labour Party. We know that other trade union branches are also progressing donations.
We have also developed a strategy for action over the coming months. This will include engaging with shop stewards and reps in as many key sectors as possible. Arrangements have been made to visit a number of workplaces including the bus station, fire station, Anglia Ruskin, Benefit Office, County Hall, Chelmsford Borough Council, mail depots and FE Colleges. Chelmsford TUC will also assist in this regard but if you have any contacts do let us know; more importantly, try to get them involved in our activities. The objective being to hold an Essex-wide meeting in the middle of December to co-ordinate activity and to maximise support for the TUC demonstration in March. We also agreed to give support to other cuts groups in Essex when they hold meetings.
We will be targetting Essex County Councillors in the coming weeks and we will be developing ten questions for them to answer. Let us have your ideas on this so that we can circulate everyone; the email avalanche can then begin.We will also be attending the meeting of ECC’s Cabinet on the evening of 16 November (time to be advised) and the full meeting of the Council on 14 December at 10am.
The next meeting (we plan to make them every second and fourth Wednesday in the month) is on 10 November and then 24th November in the Red Lion at 7.30pm.”
Local union branches wanting to get involved in this activity should contact and affiliate to Chelmsford Trades Union Council through its website, www.chelmsford-tuc.org.uk/, or its secretary Malcolm Wallace on maljan@blueyonder.co.uk
Tom Mellish
StrongerUnions
