The strikers and the protestors
The strikers
Brighton and Hove Councillors grab the cash
More than 40 schools across the city of Brighton and Hove were closed on Thursday and Friday as an estimated 700 teaching assistants from the Unison and GMB unions took part in a 48-hour strike over low pay. Refuse workers from the GMB threatened wildcat strikes in solidarity.
In the first-ever strike by teaching assistants, 700 people (according to police estimates) marched through the city, before returning to lobby a council meeting in the afternoon where the council was busy awarding itself £800k in bonuses and expenses. The council had claimed it would cost £700k to meet the pay claim.
Denise, a teaching assistant for ten years, explained that seven years' of negotiations about re-grading teaching assistants had concluded with Brighton and Hove City Council announcing that the mostly female, middle-aged workforce would only be paid for 44 weeks out of the year in future. They can no longer claim benefits during holiday periods, either. This would make any pay increase through regarding virtually non-existent, leaving annual average take-home earnings of just £9k. 'This is no longer a Labour Council - those no longer exist,' Denise said.
Support amongst parents has been very strong, despite a letter to parents from David Hawker, the council's Director of Schools. The letter was distributed to children in schools, and tried to pass the dispute off as the work of union officials.
Denis, 55, said 'I have a ten-year-old daughter and it's disgusting the council can't give them [teaching assistants] the money they deserve for what is very important work.'' He added ''I've had to wait four-and-a-half years for an operation. I've been a Labour voter all my life, but never again.
Without teaching assistants all the schools would close. He said that he was willing to take time off to care for his daughter if it was to support teaching assistants.
Marcus Boal, 30, asked 'Why are we treated differently from teachers who work the same hours?' Council leader Ken Bodfish's reply was to claim that TAs are paid less as they are not qualified. TAs, who, it was pointed out, have not only qualifications but also years of experience, greeted Mr Bodfish with angry jeers when he arrived for the council meeting in the afternoon.
Both Dave Prentis, who addressed TAs on Monday 22nd, and his GMB counterpart, Kevin Curran, who addressed a rally of 400 TAs on Friday, pledged their full support for continued strike action, with UNISON South-East Region committing £10k in hardship funds. Solidarity greetings were received from a conference of TAs in Birmingham, and NUT branches as far afield as Leeds.
Messages of support flooded in to Brighton from unionists around the country. More strike action is planned, and other union members are threatening wildcat strikes to support the Brighton and Hove teaching assistants.
November 2004
Care UK launches Islington destruction
A packed Islington staff meeting heard this week that a private company had been awarded a 25-year contract to run mental health care services for older people with mental health care needs.
The packed staff meeting listened as Care UK representatives tried to alleviate their concerns about the service and their futures under Care UK management.
The company was awarded the 25-year contract by Islington Council to run the two homes and two day centres at Highbury New Park, Lennox House, and Carniegie Street. 'The company told staff that they would be subject to an ETO to enable the company to bring in their policies and procedures.
The meeting was attended by UNISON reps, and the company faced a large number of questions.
December 2004
A short bitch
Warming up for a blogging restart with fantasies for 2008: We @ hangbitch like to think that 2008 will be the year that furious trade union members finally put a fatal gumboot into the traitorous Labour party. We want this to be the year that the majestically hopeless Gordon Brown pays for privatising public services and jobs, and fragging the standards of both for the forseeable future.
We also like to think that this will be the year that trade union members go after the Labour party butt-kissers who run the big public sector unions. Just a fantasy at this stage, but one we're spending a lot of time on. We're getting sick of hearing that left-leaning union branch secretaries are being disciplined on trumped-up charges by their very own unions, etc. We're particularly keen for 2008 to be the year that the career of Linda Perks, the evil New Labourite witch who doubles as Unison London regional secretary, meets a globby end after gross, and very public, hostilties. Slag.
But anyway... here we are, at an unofficial meeting of a large group of union branch secretaries and reps in a cold Houses of Parliament committee room, talking about the malignant environment that branch-level union reps are having to operate in. We won't be naming the meeting attendees on this occasion, in case that crone Perks decides to discipline union members for showing their faces at an unofficial union meeting. That would totally be her style. Attendees aren't in the most festive of tenors as it is: Fighting for the lowest-paid workers and the public services they provide isn't a picnic and this has been a difficult year. It ain't ending on a high note, either.
Certainly, senior people in the union movement have taken some worrying hits. Karen Reissman, a Manchester community psychiatric nurse and Unison rep of many years experience and integrity, has just lost her appeal against her sacking by the Manchester Mental Health Trust earlier this year. The trust admired Ms Reissman's work as a nurse - indeed, in true New Labourite arse-about form, it promoted her to a senior nursing role on the very day that it suspended her - but it didn't care for her committment to unions and Manchester's grassroots fight for decent, public community psychiatric services. The trust sacked her for sharing - in her capacity as a union spokesperson - the union's concerns about the effect of NHS funding cuts in mental health care with a newspaper.
Meanwhile, down the line in Newham in East London, longstanding Newham Unison chair Michael Gavan has been sacked for organising a protest against the plans of cretinous Newham New Labourite mayor Sir Robin Wales to privatise cleaning and refuse services in his increasingly ridiculous Olympic borough. Gavan has one of the highest profiles on the trade union circuit, especially now.
'We know what that [privatising] means,' Gavan has said many times. He's right. Plenty of people at this unofficial meeting have firsthand experience of exactly the sort of failed privatisation programme that the likes of the dire Sir Robin drools for (God knows why - privatisation has been such a disaster for New Labour that even halfwits in outlying boroughs ought to be keen enough on self-preservation to avoid it). Careworkers who have the dubious pleasure of being employed by Barnet borough's Fremantle Trust know exactly what privatising means for staff and services, and have repeatedly taken strike action throughout 2007 in response to it.
'My members say that we've got this thing called the Labour Link,' one branch secretary sniggers. 'They say 'I've got this nice shiny magazine (the Unison-Labour party link magazine that yaps on about the myriad benefits of Unison's supposed influence with New Labour politicians) that comes through (the door).' Well, I want to see something from that, for Manchester and for Newham and Fremantle. 'That link has got to start to work. Now... before my head explodes, I'll sit down.'
'Newham used to be an old Labour council,' somebody else says. 'Many people there stand for public service... our mayor doesn't want to see it continue like that. The mayor in Newham says the union is the biggest obstacle.'
Somebody else insinuates that Unison's London regional officers have been obstacles as well in Newham - not for Robin Wales, but for their very own union members.
'We're going on strike [in support of Gavan], but we've had four [Unison} regional officers around the table at every stage [standing in the way of our strike]. They would say No, [we have to ballot again] that's not the [union] rule.'
Somebody else worries that they might be disciplined by their union for attending this unofficial meeting at all. This person says that it's bad enough trying to deal with the problems managers at Newham have caused by confusing the message about the strike to support Gavan.
'On Monday [just gone], every council worker who opened their computer got a message from the council saying they couldn't strike and that if you did, it would be illegal and you would be sacked. It's a problem when what you've heard from your own [regional] union officials appears as the council's message by Monday morning. It's a worry when you wonder if you will be in trouble with your union as well as with your management and police and everyone else in the world... It is absolutely vital that we continue the debate with the union officials in our region, that yes, we have to fight, and we need help from our officials to do that.'
Other union members reveal that they have asked for the Labour Link to be mobilised - for their union to use its 'special relationship' with the Labour party to pressure the party into toning its privatisation obsession down. 'One of the answers I've been given is that it would be too embarassing to the unions in not being able to effectively use that link' - ie, even union hierarchies know their influence with the Labour party adds to up about five-eighths of bugger-all.
'This is a question about the politics inside the Labour [party] unions,' someone else observes. 'We are constantly blocked by the total embarassment [that is this] Labour government and Labour councils.'
'Now is the time for our union to come together at every level,' fumes somebody else, ' right from [Unison general secretary] Dave Prentis down to every regional grouping. [They need to be] standing up in solidarity, saying that's enough, we've had enough. We need a big explanation about why we have to keep facing this [privatising of public services]. We need a political explanation as well.'
An explanation from the Labour party about its attacks on public services? Can't WAIT to hear it.
Aborting religion
Rational human beings plan a pro-abortion rally on 3 March 2007, to slap back the world's advancing army of anti-abortion religious loons.
Everyone with a brain respects the fact that free and legal abortion is a service that will always be provided in a civilised society. Or so we girls like to believe. Sadly for us, the political stage as we presently have it is cluttered with an apparently endless cast of religious zealots and/or Christian and Muslim toadies, all of whom have far too much to contribute on subjects with which they have no sympathy whatsoever - ie, women, normal sexual relationships, entirely human contraceptive oversights, and the madness that is having a crazy, impromptu shag with your bloke on the couch, then realising you're full of live sperm.
In other words, your average God/Allah-botherer does not know much about life on earth.
Fortunately, not everybody is a religious fanatic, or trying to climb into bed with one. The good people at Feminist Fightback, for example, are trying to operate in the real world of real women's issues. Feminist Fightback is a relatively new group of concerned citizens that formed at the end of 2006 to talk about, and try to change, various aspects of the modern world that prevent so many women from leading agreeable lives.
More than 200 people attended the inaugural Feminist Fightback meeting in October 2006 and the momentum for more appears to be growing. 'There does seem to be some kind of upsurge in interest in women's issues,' says Laura Schwartz. Schwartz is 25, a Phd student, and a member of the Feminist Fightback organising team. 'We have a lot of issues that women want to fight on - like, we are still in a very bad position in terms of equal pay, a living wage for working-class women, and benefits that single mothers can live on.'
Protecting and relaxing criteria for abortion is a 'very important part of the agenda,' says Schwartz. 'We wanted to do something that was more orientated towards direct action, where normal women could get involved and counter the pro-life brigade.' Religion, Schwartz says, is definitely a spanner in feminism's works at this point in time. 'It's not just Christian and Muslim groups - religious groupings [in general] are being given room to flex their muscles. They're being more pushy about their politics. We need to wake up a lot about this subject - this [the right to abortion] is something that needs to be fought for again.'
They plan to up the ante while they're at it, too. One of the ideas behind organising the 3 March rally (the near-40th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act) is get enough support and names to pressure MPs into an early-day motion which further relaxes criteria for an abortion.
Demands include the right to abortion on demand (ie - an end to the present requirement for consent from two doctors) up to the legal time-limit, no reduction in the 24-week time-limit for access to abortion (Conservative nonentity Nadine Dorries was the Tory who most recently tried to attack that one and cut the limit to 18 weeks), and extending abortion rights to women in Northern Ireland. Other laudable aims include having abortion integrated into the NHS as an ordinary medical service, and getting better public funding so that free and equal access to abortion is guaranteed.
To recap:
National Torchlight March For Abortion Rights
Meet 6.30pm outside ULU, Malet Street
Saturday 3 March 2007
Men and women welcome.
Feminist Fightback
All the best people are pro-choicers
Had an abortion?
Like the idea of being able to get one if you need one?
Fight the pro-life religious loonies and add your name to the pro-choice majority.
Camden market
The economics of the madhouse come to Camden Council. Why are all councils crazy?
Do you live in Camden? Are you poor, or not so well-off, maybe? Do you, or members of your family, use council services and facilities like housing, home care, after-school care, play schemes, special-education services, or any of Camden council's social services?
Tough.
The Liberal Democrat-Conservative administration at Camden Council is about to launch the biggest attack on services and jobs that Camden has seen since the early 1980s. Several hundred Unison members turned up to a Camden branch meeting this week to hear about this - the council chamber, where the meeting was held, was packed, as you might expect. The council plans to cut £23m from the council budget in 2007 to 2008. Some 350 jobs are also expected to go.
As usual, the services that vulnerable people need most will be chopped. The council wants to take £3m out of children's services, and close play schemes and cut care services for vulnerable children. So much for the next generation. Some £9.8m in cuts are planned in housing and adult social servics. The council's interpreting and translation service is also in the firing-line, as is the welfare rights team.
Quite why the council wants to take its service-users, housing tenants and unionised staff on in this way isn't terribly clear: after all, this is the council where unions, service users, housing tenants and a wide variety of community groups have worked very successfully over the years to beat back government privatisation initiatives like Arms Length Management of housing stock, and housing stock transfers. The Camden grassroots is quite legendary in activist - and indeed government - circles, precisely because of the talent it has shown for taking privatisation initiatives and shoving them up the relevant authority's arse.
'This [cuts programme] is not necessary, financially,' Camden Unison branch secretary Dave Eggmore told his members through gritted teeth at this week's branch meeting. 'The council got one of the biggest annual settlements of any council in London this year.'
The council also has more than £33m in reserves, and it managed to find up to £750,000 to pay KPMG consultants for the review and report that found that services should be cut. The council also managed to find more than £30m for agency staff last year - £6m of which was paid in agency fees. Why, said branch vice-chair Barry Walden, do councils keep trying to argue that there isn't enough money around to pay for public services and the staff who are trying to provide them? Why is it more important to help pay KPMG's huge bonuses than it is to help the homeless into houses?
'The council keeps telling us that they can do things better and cheaper,' Walden said. 'And how do they know that? KPMG told them. We should refuse to do any work to cover the vacant posts. We have to support members who do this. We may need to take sustained strike action.'
The councillors, said Eggmore, are liars. KPMG's proposals are based on seriously flawed information about payroll costs and the balance between frontline and support services. 'Some of the housing benefits staff were described as back-office staff for the purposes of this report.' Housing benefits officers are not back-office staff, he said - they're the ones who deal with people who need help with their housing benefits. The council is trying to say that they're not needed, because they don't work in the frontline, although they do. 'Its just one way that the council is seeking to mislead you and the public.'
'Camden's financial position doesn't warrant this,' John McDonnell told the union. 'They got one of the biggest grants from the government this year. They're just doing what the government has done across service after service around the country. This is privatisation [for the sake of privatisation]. We need to work with the branch to expose what's going on.' McDonnell said that there was no point trying to negotiate with the government. 'New Labour sees a willingness to negotiate as a weakness.'
Care UK tears it up in Islington
Superb piece here by Islington Unison Deputy Branch Secretary Andrew Berry on Care UK's simultaneous cutting of staff wages and increasing of returns to its already-overpaid shareholders.
Anybody who wants to/presently fails to understand why the privatisation of public services has led only to staff getting poorer and rich shareholders getting even richer should take a look at the above-linked article.
Catholics
Crawled out of bed at about lunchtime today.
Wasn't expecting Jesus H Christ to play much of a role in the rest of the day, but find he has Come, anyway.
Gordon Brown's cabinet, as most of you will probably know, contains a number of career Jesus freaks - Ruth Kelly and Des Browne are the main offenders, and there are a couple of others whose names and point in life escape me for the moment... anyway, Ruthie and her fellow holy-rollers want Gordon to make it right for Catholics in parliament who are planning to vote against aspects of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is dear to our hearts here, not least because we're trying to stop followers of the Lord amend the Abortion Act through it. Now Ruthie and pals are taking issue with the aspect of the bill that will allow children to be born by IVF without a father's involvement - ie, that will permit lesbians to produce a child, indoctrinate it in their strange and hairy ways, bring it up without a father, and turn it into a Gay.
Ruthie is concerned - or, at least, she is concerned that the handful of voting-age, middle-English dingalings who still listen to her are concerned - that letting dykes in on the reproductive act will spell the end of the traditional nuclear family unit - the traditional family unit being (I guess):
1x overworked mother out of her box on SSRIs
1x aspirational wanker Dad
2x pubescent Ritalin fiends
all climbing the walls together in an overpriced two-bedroom closet in Croydon.
The traditional nuclear family is another of the western world's great failed social experiments (read The Women's Room or the Feminine Mystique for a couple of detailed probes into this particular car-crash) and the sooner it comes to an end, the better. Why lesbians want to get in on the act is beyond me, but who is Ruth Kelly to try and exclude them from breeding and fucking up their lives like the rest of us?
The moral of today's story - God plays no part in family life, and if he does, he isn't too bloody good at it.
Going to piss off now & watch the footy - or watch Drogba play it, I probably should say. Droggers is a beautiful, beautiful man.
Discounting Dave
Sacked JJB Sports union steward Chris Riley talks about taking on Wigan Athletic's very own Dave Whelan.
A richly-deserved crappy Christmas is heading the way of one Dave Whelan, owner of Wigan Athletic and executive director of the JJB Sports chain.
Staff at the JJB Sports distribution depot in Wigan have voted to strike for three days between Christmas and New Year, in protest against the sacking of GMB steward Chris Riley. Riley played an instrumental role in organising strike action in November this year - a strike which led to union members at the depot winning their fight for better pay and conditions (workers like Riley were only getting £180 in the hand a week at that point). As soon as the new deal was sorted, Riley - an effective and popular union organiser - was sacked from JJB Sports on the usual trumped-up gross misconduct charge.
It was all terribly predictable, Riley says. 'The department manager investigated me for gross misconduct for a remark I made to a non-union member. We had the appeal hearing on Wednesday [13 December] and management's decision was upheld, which wasn't exactly a surprise.'
What did he say to the non-union member? 'Well, yeah, okay, I did say something to him, but it was just taken completely out of proportion. Everyone knows [the sacking] was because I'm a steward.' Things had been pretty heated at the JJB Sport depot for a while anyway, what with the unrest on the shop floor, the strike action and the fight to get as many people as possible to take part in it. Many things were said, but not everybody was sacked for saying them. 'This other union member told this guy that he was going to hit him with a bat.'
And anyway, Riley says, part of the back-to-work agreement with management was that all grievances against people like himself would be dropped (Riley was suspended from work pending the investigation for gross misconduct at about the time that the November strikes were being organised). '(JJB Sports Chief Executive) Tom Knight gave me a personal assurance that the grievances would be dropped.' A grievance against John Stewart, another union convenor, is also being followed through by management.
The fact that the grievance against Riley was not dropped, but rammed home with feeling, may yet be Whelan's undoing. The depot's 270 or so fired-up uion members have just balloted in favour of strike action on 27, 28 and 29 December to protest against JJB Sport's treatment of Riley and demand union recognition and rights - a strike that is very likely to affect post-Christmas sales at JJB Sports. The anti-sweatshop campaigning group No Sweat has been organising protests outside JJB Sports stores across the country.
Riley believes the committment to further strike action says a great deal for the feeling about Whelan among union members. The other members, after all, got their improved pay and conditions after the last round of strikes. They weren't sacked. They didn't have to vote strike again, just to help Riley. They're prepared to do it though, says Riley, because they know now how effective a united action can be. 'The members understand what kind of guy this [Whelan] is,' Riley says. 'He says all this... about being a man of working people, but he's not.'
Riley will take a complaint about his victimisation as a trade union steward to industrial tribunal, and is putting his case together now. In the meantime, he will continue to turn out at the protests and leafletting sessions at JJB Sports stores, and help co-ordinate demonstrations.
The protestors will be on the case of Wigan Athletic as well. Wigan's got games coming up against Chelsea, Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers - the team that none other than Dirty Dave Whelan played for way back when, before he buggered his leg. The protestors will be handing out red cards - it's time to send JJB Sports off, Riley says.
And does Riley think it's been worth it? Yes, Riley says. It's been hard, but 'the support that's coming from outside is fabulous.' He says people keep telling him helpful tales, too. 'Someone was telling me that they heard this girl who was working in a bar when she had finished for the night. She said 'I've done 70 hours this week, and what have I got? Then she said 'we need a union like they've got at JJB.''
And the future? 'I'm really interested in union work,' Riley says.
Driving tests
More on why poorer people rot at home and rich people drive: private cab drivers fight for equal access
Hackney private minicab driver Victor Hume is known, apparently, as the Robin Hood of the private-hire vehicle industry - a modern-day folk hero and mahatma of customer service who has clocked up a Hackney record in parking and stopping fines (no small achievement) for stopping his cab on red routes and in bus lanes to drop his passengers home.
Hume, who will be 71 in March, says that he feels he's good for at least another decade of torturing parking wardens. 'I am fit,' he reports, strutting about the stage at Conway Hall in London's Red Lion Square and flexing his large arm muscles. 'I am very fit.' His audience - perhaps 200 or so private-hire drivers from around London - nods appreciatively and applauds. People here are liking Victor. Everybody here drives a private minicab, or van, for a living, and everybody believes that private-hire drivers should have the same rights as black cabs and buses when it comes to using bus lanes and setting passengers down on red routes.
The private-hire industry is properly regulated now, says Door-to-Door Justice Campaign Organising Committee member Steve Hackworth. The industry co-operated with government to achieve that regulation. Private-hire drivers are a vital part of the public transport system, Hackworth says. They provide an affordable transport option for people who can't afford black cabs. A lot of people who have disabilities use them. They're used by people who are too drunk to to drive their own cars home. And okay, says Hackworth, they're not exactly publicly-owned public transport, but what the hell is these days? The buses are private. Black cabs are private. Private-hire drivers have as much right as other cabbies to make a quid and drop their passengers where they want to go, Hackworth says. Why should their passengers miss out on the transport others enjoy, just because they're disabled, or poor?
Hear, hear says Simon Hughes, MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey.
Last seen championing hypocrisy in the Lib Dem leadership race, Hughes' presence near a campaign doesn't necessarily say a great deal for it. He certainly has to lay it on to get past the doubts of this crowd. 'It's a tribute to the (private minicab) industry that it's now seen as a respectable voice [and that it accepted regulation]... it's a very easy thing to say that the private-hire vehicle industry is a private sector thing, but this is no longer the case. You are entitled to recognition in the same way [as black cabs and buses] that have the same status...' Hughes reveals that he's been known to climb into a private hire himself, late at night in Westminster when all the black cabs have been bagged. Simon may say the right thing: unfortunately, nobody wants to hear it from him.
Things improve considerably when Pat Murtagh, a Birmingham private-hire operator, takes the stage. Pat's been in the private-hire vehicle business for 37 years. She saw that there was a demand to be met and she set up a local private-hire cab service that the local people knew and trusted. She made a small fortune doing it. She says that she 'was first in the queue' when the government moved to regulate the industry. '[Regulation] definitely improved the image of the industry. It gives us negotiating power.' Murtagh says the private minicab industry is worth more than £2b a year, and she wants the industry to be part of any Olympics bonanza. 'The government can't afford for the industry not to be working properly. We need to be clearly identified with corporate signage and give the same service [as black cabs].'
Ken Livingstone, it appears, is behind the private-hire industry in its campaign for equal access rights. Mark Watts, the Mayor's Policy Advisor for Transport and Air Quality, speaks on the Mayor's behalf of 'the important role that private care hire can play in sustainable transport, and in helping the disabled and elderly.'
Dawn Butler, MP for Brent South, talks about 'the good service' that private-hire cabs provide for her constituents and people from deprived communities who can rely on the fixed fee private cabs charge and who you can ask for their favourite drivers.
Victor Hume, meanwhile, is planning to up the open combat with Hackney's parking wardens. 'I'm going to take my passengers where they want to go,' he says firmly. 'I'm giving those people a service.' He talks about the day he stopped in the street and helped a blind passenger into the health centre, so that the blind passenger could make his health appointment. Hume helped the passenger inside - and when he came out, there it was - the parking ticket for £100.
The passenger was so upset that he offered to pay the fine for Hume. Hume told him to forget that. 'I told him - Nobody's paying that,' he says. Hume strode off to Hackney Council for what turned out be a fairly short meeting. The Council told him that the fine stood and he'd have to pay it. He still hasn't, though, and he doesn't give the impression that he's planning to. 'I'm giving people a service,' he says. If you're well-off, you can drive your overpriced four-by-four through London and fill the air with its noxious exhaust (we all know how much sustainable transport means to that lot). You can get a black cab if you earn good money. You can live a nice distance from decent facilities if you can afford it. If you don't fit into any of those categories, you can get stuffed. Why is it, says Victor, that it always the people who can't afford access who are punished when they try for it?
God, abortion, and lesbian life
Police permission has been granted for the Abortion Rights protest at Parliament this coming week. It's shaping up as a memorable event. Details for the protest are:
Assemble outside Central Hall Westminster
Wednesday 6 February, 6.30pm
Nearest tube: Westminster.
You can find full details for the protest and a flyer to download at the Abortion Rights website.
There's been heated debate over at liberalconspiracy.org this week about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, the Christian right's attempts to amend the Abortion Act through this bill, the rights of lesbian couples to conceive using IVF, and the language some of us use to describe Christians.
Many interesting perspectives, although mine's the best.
Good union
Off to parliament for a good session on the fight for a Trade Union Freedom Bill:
It's 7pm on a nice autumn evening, and several hundred trade union activists are gathered at a lobby at the House of Commons, having a fabulous time taking the piss out of T&G general secretary Tony Woodley. As you do.
The lobby is part of an ambitious, united union campaign to interest our hopeless Labour government in the idea of repealing this nation's draconian anti-trade union laws and putting a slightly more humane Trade Union Freedom Act in their place (one that at least allows people to take solidarity strike action). The large audience (it spills over into several committee rooms in the House) is made of up of posties, firefighters, prison officers, union reps, nurses, local government people and tube and train-driving people.
They are all normal, everyday persons whose various attempts to fight for decent pay and conditions in the last ten years have largely been fragged by New Labour's refusal to get rid of the anti-union laws and restore some balance in favour of everyday punters who just want to make a living (as opposed to a killing, like New Labour's neocon and city-bonus mates). The truth is that low-paid people will have almost no means to fight attempts to drive their wages down further while laws preventing solidarity strike action stand.
Anyway... New Labour, whose ex-very own Tony Blair cheerfully bragged about overseeing the most oppressive anti-union laws in Europe and repeatedly ignored Labour conference's calls to get shot of those laws, ain't exactly the most popular gig on the grassroots union circuit. Nor is anyone who tries to argue that unions should keep financing the Labour party.
You don't have to follow life too closely to understand that these are sensitive times on the union front. The posties are none too thrilled about their pay, pensions and conditions, or the salaries that Royal Mail's senior management person pay themselves while crying poor, the Prison Officers' Association faces court and fine action for walking out in August, local government members are being balloted to strike over their latest pay offer, and the PCS is trying to deal with 100,000 civil service job cuts. The fallout on the ground, which is where it counts, is brutal. Very low-paid people (the ones trying to live on £200 or less a week) get sacked when they ask for a few extra quid. Behind closed doors, Labour-affiliated unions like Unison are busy targeting activists who are either leftwing embarassments, and/or who refuse to toe New Labour's various anti-poor-people lines.
Which is all a very long way of saying that you have to pick your moment if you want to peddle the notion that the Labour Party is worth fighting for from a union perspective. This probably isn't the moment. Nonetheless, there's old Woodley up on the stage, yabbering on about the joys of intimacy between the unions and Labour, and predicting an ugly end for any unionist who dares to suggest cutting emotional and financial ties with Gordon Brown's New Labour.
This is taken - rightly - by the crowd to be a pointed commentary on the antics of the RMT and its majestically confrontational and popular general secretary Bob Crow. Crow sits very quietly behind Woodley during all this. He flicks his eyes up at Woodley's back every now and then, like he's measuring Woodley for a coffin.
Woodley is indifferent to danger. He launches himself upon an ode to the potential inherent in developing strong union links with Constituency Labour Party branches. The CLPS, Woodley says, can be encouraged to support union priorities. Sadly, he fails to mention that most CLPs couldn't support union priorities even if they wanted to. They can't even support themselves. That's because CLPS barely exist anymore. Most of them have next-to-no members, or have disappeared altogether, and that's because at least 200,000 Labour Party members have torn up their membership cards over the last ten years and departed the scene entirely.
All of which the crowd knows.
'Piss off.'
'Shut up.'
'They've had ten years to listen to us, Tony.'
'Where have you been.'
Crow sits admirably still. His own speech went down very well, not least because he politely avoided the subject of the Labour Party, and stuck to points like wages and terms and conditions. It's all very obvious to Bob, really. 'You have to have the right to take solidarity action. All the poverty is not going to go away if you don't sort this out,' he says.
Prevailing media and political preoccupations have him climbing the walls. 'I mean - inheritance tax. Who gives a stuff about inheritance tax? That affects six percent of the population. Why are we even talking about inheritance tax? ... We've got MPs who are not voting for the Trade Union Freedom Bill, but they're still taking TU money. It's unbelievable. UNBELIEVABLE. No wonder we can't get young people excited about [this movement]. Looking at the TUC conference this year, it was like the night of the living dead. The truth is that we're not roughing them up enough (the government and management). We've got to campaign for this at every election... '
Brian Caton, General Secretary of the Prison Officers' Association, is also on excellent form. He reveals that his union is facing crippling fines for walking out of prisons at the end of August this year. He remains no fan of the charming Secretary of Justice Jack Straw, either.
'The Secretary of Justice thinks we should be condemned [for taking the August strike action], but that's not the reaction we got when we put our reasons forward. It was about conditions and the way that we were being treated. [The prisons are] filthy, and we are looking after thousands of mentally-ill people that should be looked after by a properly-resourced NHS. In some of our prisons, about 90% of people have got mental health issues. They shouldn't be in there. Prison is not the right place for them to be.'
And as for 'the disgusting state of our prisons now... there are 81,000 people in the prisons. There are more black people in prisons than there are at university... we are professionals that work in these places and we believe that we have a responsibility. We do not want this government driving down wages and standards to the standards of the privateers who are obscenely profiting from prisoners. The government has to tackle offending in the right ways, rather than just competing [with other political parties] to just lock up more people.'
Too true, says PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka, who adds that a rescue fund should be set up if anybody tries to fine Caton's POA out of existence for striking. And as for the Trade Union Freedom Bill: 'how can any Labour MPs say that they don't support this? When they [Labour] were in opposition, they supported it [repealing Thatcher's anti-union laws]. Then, Tony Blair turned up and said that the UK had the most restrictive trade union laws in Europe - he said this as though it was a badge of honour. ..and it's okay for [city people to get] huge city bonuses, but apparently our workers have to be stopped from standing together to get small pay rises, because they're causing inflation.'
Perhaps the most useful point of the night comes from Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union. He rightly points out that the last thing working people want to do is take strike action. 'They lose pay, and it's frightening [for them] to take on management [in that way]. If they do [take strike action], it shows that there is great injustice in the workplace... Billions are handed out each year in city bonuses, while so many other people are living in poverty. We can only really fight poverty once the anti-union laws are broken. We don't want the huge hurdle that is anti-union laws [while we're] fighting for a more just society.'
Having an abortion debate at Harry's Place
Am having a good debate on the pros and cons of abortion at the moment with the guys over at Harry's Place.
Keep your rosaries off our ovaries
Photos from the pro-choice rally in London, Saturday 3 March 2007.
Keep your rosaries off our ovaries... liked that slogan a lot. Just say no to sex with pro-lifers was another goodie.
You'll find photos from last night's pro-choice rally in London here. The interviews we did will follow shortly.
Amusing point for now - a number of people we talked to at the rally said they'd emailed Tory MP Nadine Dorries to ask questions about the Termination of Pregnancy Bill she plans to table in Parliament on 23 March 2007, and that she hadn't responded to them, either. (She has been ignoring us, as readers of this site will know).
Which is very bad manners. An MP must to respond to members of the public, even if that response is Get Bent.
Time to make a Freedom of Information request asking for all emails Nadine has received and ignored on this most important topic. After all, she started it by trying to table these opportunistic bills in the first place. The least she can do is explain why.
Hey - maybe she can't.
Nadine goes off on another one
Look: Nadine Dorries (a Tory MP, for those of you who may be struggling to put a face to the name) is planning to have ANOTHER go at abortion rights .
Nadine, it has to be said, is starting to get seriously on our tits (see this rant).
How about everybody sends Nadine an email at dorriesn@parliament.uk and asks her to take up another hobby.
We're going to write to her now and ask her to expand on her obsession with regression.
----
And we have written to her, as below. She has ten days to respond - ten days being the amount of time that Nadine wants women to be forced by law to spend reflecting on their decision to have an abortion after they've asked for one. We're not quite sure if they'll get ten working days, or just ten normal days, but maybe she can clear that up when she writes back.
Here's the letter:
Hello Nadine,
I'm a pro-abortion journalist who has been writing about a pro-abortion march that is due to take place in London in a few weeks' time.
A considerable number of readers of my website have been concerned to note that you plan to introduce another Termination of Pregnancy Bill in 23 March as per this story. I decided to ask you if you could tell us why you've decided to introduce this bill again, after it was defeated last year, and what effect you expect it to have on women's health if it is passed.
I was also wondering if you could tell me why you think it's appropriate to take this step, and why, by implication, you believe that women can't be trusted to utilise the existing legislation appropriately. The pro-abortion group I have been writing about wants existing criteria for abortion to be relaxed: quite a few people now believe women are sophisticated enough to operate within such an adult scenario.
You'll appreciate that this is an extremely important issue for women. Many of us are already concerned that our right to free and legal abortion is at risk in an era where neo-conservative and conservative religious thinkers play a bigger role in policymaking than most of us envisaged at this point in history.
Best regards,
Hangbitch
Nadine... Nadine
And so nearly THREE WEEKS have passed since we wrote to Tory MP Nadine Dorries at her parliament.uk email address and asked her to explain why she plans to table another Termination of Pregnancy Bill.
We wrote Nadine a very civilised letter on this topic, if we say so ourselves.
Have we had a civilised response?
Have we had any response at all?
We have not.
We have been ignored.
Well - we were directed by somebody other than Nadine to a little comments page on Nadine's site. She rants on about this site on that page for a bit. She also took the opportunity presented by the recent saving of a baby at 22 weeks' gestation to rattle on about God and Stevie Wonder (Nadine is - meaning no disrepect - no great ambassador for subtlety) and the joys of a pro-life perspective. No mention, alas, of providing decent wages or benefits for the women she wants to force to give birth.
Ah well.
It is beginning to occur to us that Nadine isn't one of your big strategic thinkers. We're starting to suspect that the reason she hasn't responded to our concerns is that she can't.
We'll try again. Bugger it.New revised pay offer to be put to GMB JJB Sports Wigan members on Monday
This statement was released by the GMB on Thursday 16 November
In talks between GMB and JJB Sports Chief Executive Mr Tom Knight, during yesterday's and today's strike at the warehouse, the company has tabled a revised pay offer. The new offer now in writing deals with the issue of the basic rate and access to bonus for all workers in the depot.
The revised offer will be put to 280 GMB members at a mass meeting in the warehouse at 11.00am Monday 20th November. It will then be put to members in a ballot vote after that meeting. GMB negotiators are recommending acceptance of the offer.
The first strike day next week on Tuesday 21 has been suspended. The strikes for Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 November 2006 are still on pending the outcome of the ballot vote. The work to rule and overtime ban are still ongoing.
The Employment Agencies Standards Inspectorate are today interviewing 3 local Wigan agencies. See Note 1 for names. GMB has supplied information to the Employment Agencies Standards Inspectorate regarding agency labour being used by JJB Sports during strike days and during the rest of the week to deal with the backlog as a result of the strike. The agencies are aware of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 2003 which makes it illegal for agencies to supply labour to companies during a trade dispute.
Graham Coxon, GMB regional officer who led the negotiations with Mr Knights said, 'GMB has today received a revised written pay offer from Mr Knight which the union can recommend to our members in JJB Sports. GMB will put the offer to the members on Monday next and they will make the decision as the whether they will accept it and call off the dispute. If accepted, the offer will be backdated to 1 August 2006.'
During this dispute GMB has carefully monitoring the illegal strikebreaking activities of the 3 local employment agencies. We want these activities stopped in this and future disputes. We want the agencies punished for breaking the law. We will not rest until EAS takes action. The agencies are being interviewed by EAS today.
When this dispute is over GMB will raise question about how EAS does it's job. GMB members are far from satisfied that we are in the third week of the dispute before EAS took action
Contact: Graham Coxon , GMB Lancashire Regional Officer on 07740 804064 or Steve Pryle, GMB Press Office on 07921 289880 or Rose Conroy on 07974 251823.
Employment Agencies Standards Inspectorate (EAS) 0845 9555105.
Bond Personnel 01942 743270, Heads Personnel 0161 746 8811, Lightyear 01942 511159.
The agencies supplying labour to JJB Sports are Heads Recruitment, Bond Personnel and Lightyear Recruitment Limited. (Contact details above). Light Year Recruitment is jointly owned by David Speedie ex. Liverpool, Chelsea, Blackburn and Coventry footballer.
No news, Nadine
It's been three days and we've still had no reply from Nadine Dorries ... very hurt...
WHY ARE YOU HAVING A GO AT OUR ABORTION RIGHTS, NADINE?
Hello, Nadine? Hello?
Put your knickers on and come and have a chat.
No peace at camp
Police arse about as usual at Parliament Square peace protest.
It's the final morning of the weekend-long Parliament Square peace camp and famed protestor Brian Haw seems tired enough to swing at somebody: the police probably, but maybe a journalist if it comes to it.
'It's called sleep deprivation!' he screams, trying to get a moment to himself in his blue chair by the traffic. 'It was the bastard police, being their usual bastard selves.' The peace camp was set up for the weekend to remember the 2004 Fallujah slaughter and as a protest against the occupation of Iraq. The tents were set up in the grass on the Square. Haw says that he was up until at least 6am this morning, because the police were circling the camp, and then looking for him, as usual.
'One Chief Inspector, or this one who I call Chief Inspector, came up at about 6.30am this morning. He said 'is Brian around?' I said Brian? Who are you talking about, Brian? It's Mr Haw to you.' He is furious at police action that he sees as both insidious and over-the-top. 'They come in to attack peaceful men and women,' he says, pointing at the members of the peace-camp behind him. 'Why would they want to talk to them? There is no need for them to do that. There's no need for them [the police] to keep us awake. They are the ones that are illegal.'
Brian Haw has been living on Parliament Square for five years now, next to his anti-war posters and placards. It's nearly six months since the police rushed in and raided and confiscated most of his anti-war display, and only a few weeks since Haw's last court appearance for defending his display and, by definition, everybody's right to protest. 'I am so fucking tired,' he says. 'I don't want people coming over here and asking stupid questions.'
'This is a mass action group,' peace camper David King says. 'This is a protest against the injustice of Iraqis having to pay for the reconstruction of their own country.' He says the group also wanted to demonstrate against the government's 'draconian' restrictions on the right to protest. The police treatment of Brian Haw was a case in point.
King was arrested last year for protesting peacefully on Parliament Square, when the police tried to bag as many protestors as they could under the then-new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. Some of those protestors went to court and were fined, while some were let go. King had to spend nine hours at a police station, for engaging in what he felt was his right as a citizen to protest. He says it wasn't a terrible experience as experiences go, but it was still an infringement on his rights that he should not have had to tolerate.
He says this weekend's peace camp went reasonably well. It's the second one they've done. 'We had people on guard. It wasn't a peaceful night's sleep. The police made arrests. They picked people off. We wanted to be here, just bearing witness to the occupation of Iraq.'
Peace camper Jonathan Stevenson, 25, said the same. 'We have to remember the attack on Fallujah. People are aware, but we have to keep the pressure on here.'
Sports all round at JJB
Many types protest outside JJB Sports stores against the sacking of JJB Sports employee and union organiser Chris Riley
The protest outside the Shepherd's Bush JJB Sports store is quiet until mall Security turns up to try and move the protestors on. Security is two weedy-looking, middle-aged guys who are wearing dark jackets, light trousers, plain shoes, and old and cloudy plastic badges.
The protest isn't huge at this point - maybe ten people altogether, at least three of whom are not protestors, but SWP worker-bees, who have clearly been pressed into putting an hour in at the protest, to try and shift leftover copies of this week's Socialist Worker - but the two security guys still look a bit worn on it. Being paid bugger-all to protect JJB Sports stores from people who are protesting about being paid bugger-all to work in JJB Sports stores probably does get on your wick towards the end of the week.
Life doesn't improve too much when they try to assert themselves, either.
'You can't protest here,' they tell the people in the small group of protestors who have started handing out leaflets to people who are going into the JJB Sports store to shop. The leaflet calls for the reinstatement of Chris Riley, the JJB Sports employee and union organiser who was recently sacked after helping to organise a series of (successful) strikes for better pay and conditions. JJB Sports says Riley was sacked for gross misconduct, after making an unsavoury remark to a non-union member. Riley says he was sacked because he was a union organiser.
The group of protestors here at Shepherd's Bush includes Becky Crocker, who is an organiser with the anti-sweatshop campaigning group No Sweat. No Sweat is working with the GMB to try and get Riley his job back.
'Most people we give the leaflets to seem to be in support of what we're doing,' Crocker says. 'We're trying to get different trades councils to vote on motions to support Chris. We want them to vote on support so that we can build a bit of momentum. This is the public face of this protest, which is about working somewhere where somebody is attacked for their trade union work.'
'Well, you can't hand out those leaflets here,' the security guys say again. 'Go outside. You can do this protest outside, but you have to set it up outside.'
'Look at that fucking moron,' says a voice from the fast-growing crowd. 'Look at him. Oh yes. Look at him pointing that finger. Yep, look, there it goes. Look at him point that fucking finger. Fucking security and their fucking fingers. Fuck.' The voice belongs to a large, grinning individual. He steps out of the crowd at this point. He identifies himself as local, and says that his name is Den Maloney. He's had a few drinks, and the plastic shopping bag that he's holding still has a few unopened cans still in it.
'I'm a criminal,' he grins. The security guys watch him, and Maloney watches their eyes move. 'What fucking now?' Maloney asks them. The security guys look at him and turn back to Crocker.
'You can't give out those leaflets here,' they tell her again. 'Take them outside, please.'
'Hey - why don't you two go outside?' Maloney shouts at the two security guys. 'Get-out-fucking-side! Oo,' he says, as a large, male staff member in a lolly-pink shirt emerges from the JJB Sports store and strides towards the protestors. 'Oo, look, here we are. The serious wankers are coming down now. Oo. Look at the guy in the pink shirt.'
'We're not wanting to have trouble,' the smaller of the Security guys says, addressing Maloney. This security bloke is probably in his late 50s. He's thin, and bald, and has a lot of liver spots on his neck and head. He looks tired, and old. 'I'm only doing my job,' he says.
Maloney looks at the little guy, and breathes beer all over him. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' he says. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your job. Doing your job. Well, you can't do this with union stuff,' he says. Then he leaves the mall. The two security guys think about it a bit, and decide that the protestors can stay, as long as they don't cross the line in the floor-tiles that marks, apparently, the beginning of the land area that is the JJB Sports store in Shepherd's Bush.
December 2006
Talks To Avert Strike Action Adjourned Till New Year At JJB Sports Wigan depot
Industrial action and demonstrations suspended until New Year as JJB Sports agree to extend the mandate for industrial actionm fro 28 to 56 days to allow further talks
GMB officers and shop stewards on Wednesday (20th December) accepted an invitation from the JJB Sports managers to enter talks to avert a stoppage at the Wigan warehouse following a 4 to 1 vote by GMB members for industrial action.
GMB consider that a lot of progress had been made in the talks. JJB Sports management have confirmed that all charges by the company against GMB Convener John Stewart have been dropped and that no action will be taken against him. Senior JJB Sports management have sent managers onto the shop floor to instruct supervisors to stop bullying and harassment of GMB members on the floor.
Both sides have agreed to adjourn the talks until January 11th. GMB has agreed to suspend industrial action scheduled for next week and to call off demonstrations outside Wigan FC ground and at Old Trafford. The company has agreed to extend the GMB mandate for industrial action from 28 days to 56 days to allow time for the talks to continue.
GMB Organiser Sandra Blight said, "We have made progress with these talks but we have a long way to go to normalize industrial relations at JJB Sports Depot. GMB members are also wary of any agreement reached being overturned yet again by Dave Whelan. We will pick up the talks again in the New Year. There will also be internal discussions in GMB as to the best way of dealing with the sacking of GMB Shop Steward Chris Riley. We will make a further statement in due course."
-Ends-
Contact: Steve Pryle, GMB Press Officer on 07921 289880 or Rose Conroy on 07974 251823.
Notes to Editors:
GMB announced on Monday 18th December that members at JJB Sports distribution warehouse in Wigan voted by 4 to 1 for official strike action for a second strike at the Wigan warehouse to secure implementation of the agreement that ended the first strike last month and to stop attacks on the union. They also voted by 4 to 1 for industrial action short of a strike including a work to rule, overtime ban and action. The union also announced that GMB officials and Shop Stewards at JJB Sports in Wigan would meet to consider the ballot result and to plan for a future programme of industrial action. That meeting has taken place but the GMB has yet to announce the programme of action to be undertaken.
The new strike action follows the refusal, at a meeting in Wigan on 30th November, of Tom Knight, Chief Executive of JJB Sport to implement an agreement that he had personally signed two weeks previously to settle the strike. The signed agreement with GMB stated that all grievances associated with the dispute would be withdrawn and both parties would work to improve industrial relations.
When Mr Knight was in America on Tuesday 28th November, Mr Whelan intervened. In breach of the signed agreement JJB Sports summarily dismissed GMB shop steward Chris Riley for an alleged incident associated with the dispute. On Friday 15th December 2006 an appeal heard by Richard Hodgson a director of JJB Sports upheld the summary dismissal of Chris Riley. Since the strike ended attacks on the union and union members have been stepped up and managers seem to have been given the green light to bully and harass GMB members. Meanwhile non union members are being treated more favourably than union members.
The new strike action at JJB Sports coincides with the GMB application for a ruling in the Glasgow Employment Tribunals that JJB Sports and Glasgow Rangers Football Club broke the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment Regulations (TUPE) law when they failed to transfer 100 employees from Glasgow Rangers merchandise division to JJB Sports when the latter took over the former on 8th June 2006. GMB have 31 Employment Tribunal cases pending against Glasgow Rangers Football Club for unfair dismissal and failure to consult and have 31 employment tribunal cases pending against JJB Sports for failing to comply with the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment Regulations (TUPE). The cases are expected to be heard in March 2007.
There will be protests outside JJB Sports shops and at Wigan Football Club's match against Chelsea on 23rd December. Again, there will be a demo at the match with Blackburn on 1st January 2007. GMB members in Manchester plan to hold a demonstration at Old Trafford when Wigan FC visits on December 26th. They will be GIVE DAVE WHELAN THE RED CARD - Dave Whelan multi millionaire owner of JJB Sports victimises his low paid workers
Teaching fairness: Brighton and Hove out
From the archive: Remember this?
Brighton and Hove special-needs teaching assistant Simon Parker, 30, spent part of the hour before Friday's strike and protest fighting with his partner about money. He will strike on the planned day of action in January, as well, if Brighton and Hove council doesn't accept assistants' concerns about a proposed new pay package.
Like the hundreds of assistants who took strike action on Friday, Simon Parker was furious at council plans to reduce the number of paid weeks in assistants' contracts by five. He also thought that assistants were desperately in need of better wages generally. 'I don't necessarily think we should get the same as teachers, but we need to get something that we can live on. You do spend a lot of time teaching, as well as the assistant's work. If I could have a pay increase, I could live with that.'
Smon Parker takes home about £1200 a month at the moment, but not all of it comes from the assistant's job: he has two cleaning jobs as well. He works as a special-needs teaching assistant for the main part of the day, and as a school cleaner for several hours before and after that. 'We're up against it,' he smiled wryly, as he described the domestic hostilities with his partner again. 'We''re so skint.'
Simon Parker said that he was getting angrier. He and his partner had just had a baby, and were often tired and irritated. The 750 teaching assistants who began yesterday's march outside the Brighton Town Hall in Barthlomew Square were equally annoyed.
They kicked the morning off by shouting and blowing horns and whistles for Children, Families and Schools Director David Hawker - a person that assistants like to refer to as Hawker the Talker, among other memorable titles. David Hawker didn't show, though - ''he's hiding, he's hiding, he's hiding in there,' people shouted, pointing at the Town Hall - so they took the march downtown.
This was the third day of strike action. Union organisers estimated that there were at least as many strikers as there had been on November 25 and 26 (about 750 a day), and that they expected as many again on the next planned day of action in January.
Brighton and Hove Unison Branch Secretary Alex Knutsen said that the strike action would escalate if the council refused to negotiate, and that the council needed to note that. The council also needed to note that messages of support and donations were flooding in from union branches around the country: he read out of a list of branch donations of at least £500.
Alex Knutsen said that donations from other union branches had made it possible to pay strikers during the strike action 'so that you will not suffer over Christmas.'
The strikers were furious at a front-page Brighton and Hove Argus anti-union story which said that the strike had caused children and parents to suffer and that described the donations as a Christmas 'cash bonus' for strikers. 'Are you from the Argus?' they asked reporters they saw on the march. 'Get out if you''re from the Argus.' Assistants average a take-home salary of £9,000 a year, and 98% are part-time women workers. UNISON general secretary candidate Jon Rogers, who lives in Brighton, attended the march as a parent and strike supporter.
Striker Christine Mihocic said she found the council''s ethics difficult. She has worked as an individual-needs assistant for four years, and takes home about £850 a month for her part-time job. 'It''s not part-time, though,' she said. 'I'm supposed to work until 3pm, but I often work until five. You don''t just leave at three.'
She doesn''t get flexitime, and said that living on her present income was a challenge. 'I''ve got a 17-year-old daughter who is at college. I mean, you have to support them.' She felt that the council was trying to pretend it was acting fairly by re-evaluating assistants' job grades.
She said the proposal to reduce the number of paid weeks for assistants proved that the council had no intention of improving assistants' conditions, nor of acknowledging that they made a contribution. 'What are we meant to do for those weeks? Is the council going to give us a job for those weeks off? No.'
Simon Parker said that he 'loved special-needs' work - 'we do numeracy and literacy, and I just started working on digital technology with the kids' - but that he'd prefer not to have two other jobs to support it. 'The fact that they (the council) want to take paid weeks away is not exactly for our benefit,' he said.
December 2004
The world of crappy jobs
This article was accepted, and paid for, by a mainstream news organisation about ten years ago. They'd set it for printing in their magazine, then pull it out at the last minute, and say it was too libellous (hardly - it's wet) and negative (so what) to print. Then, the next month, they'd set it for printing again. Then, they'd pull it out. This went on for years. Sad wankers are probably still at it.
But enough. This is an article about the sort of monotonous job that people all over the planet are stuck in now:
A small group of Phonebet operators celebrated the company's birthday this year by bursting all the birthday balloons in the staff cafe with lit cigarettes. A guy called Matt proposed this little rape. Matt is a witty, long-haired, unwashed individual of about 50. He is perhaps Phonebet's least sentimental member of staff. Like most people who work the phones in this huge call-centre, he's paid about ten bucks an hour for the monotonous, low-level data-entry job that is taking phoned-in horseracing bets from the thousands of people around the country who make them each day. Unlike many of his workmates, though, Matt sees no reason to feign gratitude for this employment. So he doesn't. He is often late for his shifts, and, when he is in work, spends most his day heading outside for a fag.
Anyone who tries to wind him up about this usually comes off second best.
'Where have you been?' centre supervisors hiss at Matt when he wanders in, past the supervisors' table at the top of the room, at least an hour after his shift has started. 'This shift started at ten.' Matt always keeps walking when the supervisors start in on him. Some operators find it hard to understand why Matt hasn't been fired. The consensus usually is that either Matt isn't as perverse as he pretends, or he's living proof that it's difficult for operators to get the sack. The work is so boring, badly-paid and pointless that it is not at all unusual for operators to fail to turn up for shifts, or to arrive late and leave early and claim that both were genuine mistakes. Hundreds of people who start work here drop out after a week - they claim their RSI is playing up and go back on the dole or the sick, or they find a slightly less monotonous job in another call-centre, or they go back on the weed, or whatever.
Matt gives his fellow call-takers something to look at, anyway. Right now, for instance, he's about to walk straight through the centre of a presentation ceremony that is being held at the top of the room for a supervisor who is leaving Phonebet after 20 years' service. This is Matt at his very best. Several hundred phone operators sit in pseudo-respectful silence in their rows in the vast room, listening to the presentation speeches and clapping when each one finishes, and there's Matt, striding through the middle of the whole event with an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He even stops to feel for his lighter in his shirt pocket. Some of the people who are participating in the ceremony can't see each other around him.
'Well, it's not like I'm going to miss that bitch,' Matt says of the retiring supervisor as he leaves the room. A number of operators nod at this. Feelings about supervisors run high among operators. Supervisors are responsible for checking that operators keep to their shifts and break-times, and that they turn bets over as fast as they can. Some supervisors are better in this overseeing role than others - the less-than-pleasant supervisors will go so far as to hiss 'be quick' or 'haven't you been already?' at people who are on their way to the toilets. Phone-operators are touchy about taking instructions at the best of times; at the worst, there is a lot of bitching about overlords and police states and long fucking live the Third Reich.'
'Nice cake," says a guy called Jeremy, with his mouth full. Jeremy is a red-haired, balding, raucous individual of about 40. He says he works this job to meet child support payments. He likes women, and food. The cake he is eating is his personal slice of the Phonebet's huge, specially-baked birthday fruitcake. Each operator received a slice in a miniature, white cake-box, as a surprise.
'Generous here, aren't they?" observes a woman called Cath. Cath is small, 40 and stroppy, and the single mother of two. She's sports-mad, a one-eyed patriot, and a keen, and able, amateur athlete. She works as many hours here as she can.
Near Cath is Nola, a pretty young girl who recently had a baby. She smoked throughout her pregnancy but nobody said much, to her face. Down from Nola sits a guy called Jeff. Everyone likes Jeff; he's mild, and intelligent, and a natural peacekeeper. He works extremely hard - he works about 40 hours a week taking calls at this place, and about 40 hours a week moving boxes in a warehouse. Just past Jeff sits the small crowd of university students who work here part-time. Past the students sits the core-staff crowd of middle-aged women who've worked here for ten, even 20, years. Everyone sits down, and begins, automatically, to talk.
People talk all the time in this room. They talk whether they're taking calls or not. They talk to supervisors, to each other, and even, often, to themselves. They read shopping lists out loud, or ask questions of nobody - "now, should I have just my banana, or my whole sandwich, or just half my sandwich...?' - something about hearing yourself think, perhaps. The chat charges the place. On busy days, when everyone's in, the air vibrates with the unpleasant, wet hissing that is several hundred people spitting at each other in shouted whispers; a palpable buzz.
---------
God, but it is boring, this job. Time physically stalls in it.
The job goes like this: a punter calls, and reads out a Phonebet account number and pin and then the bets to place on that account. The operator keys in the bets on a customised keyboard, and reads them back to the punter. That's it. The computer does everything - the adding, the subtracting - everything. All that operators need for their part is an adequate set of reflexes. There's nothing to think. There's almost nothing to do.
Operators aren't allowed to read the paper, or a book, or fill up the time in a constructive way. They're permitted only to sit there, staring at their screens and waiting for calls. Even so-called busy days are a creeping torment. Far from speeding things up, a swag of calls accentuates the repetitive aspect of proceedings. Calls usually take between 15 and 30 seconds to process. Most calls come in the few minutes before a race. On a busy day, a good operator will process about 100 calls a session, but the overall average is somewhat lower than that - it stands at a rate that the Phonebet often tells staff only just meets budgeted turnover. Some days, as many as 40 calls are missed before a race because customers can't get through.
Not many operators care though. Nor do many people care much about liability, although liability is a massive problem for the company itself. Phonebet must compensate punters if an operator keys in a bet incorrectly (all calls are taped, and checked, if there's a complaint).
The trouble is that operators make mistakes precisely because the work is so tedious - they're trying to keep their minds off the job, not on it. People talk, and flirt, or do deals, or call home - anything that even briefly engages the brain. A genuine, she's-miles-away daydream is considered something of a shift-wide triumph. Unfortunately for Phonebet, operators often key in bets while thus asleep.
The upshot is, of course, that Phonebet is working hard to cut staff out of the picture altogether. It has already upgraded its touchtone betting system and is considering a voice recognition system that will ultimately make operators redundant.
The core staff here - the full-timers who depend on this job - are extremely concerned about touchtone and voice recognition. They are perfectly aware that progress in this sort of job means watching technology hooever at it until it's gone. Everyone knows this - already, as the job stands, there's nothing there.
----
'You know the odds - now fuck off,' grins a younger operator as she heads out to the cafe for a cheap coffee. They're spirited, operators; they like to give out. Quite a few even give out to punters - call-takers are fantastically rude to customers.
Occasionally, as part of an ongoing and desperate campaign to remind operators that is it important to treat customers well, Phonebet management holds short, in-house day-sessions with operators - day-sessions that are euphemistically referred to as 'staff training days.'
Basically, these sessions are about playing - for all to hear - tapes of calls that feature some of Phonebet's rudest operators (all calls made to the organisation are recorded). The hope seems to be that playing these tapes before their peers will embarrass abusive operators into behaving. Alas for Phonebet, this scheme has yielded thin results. The most hostile operators are easily the organisation's most popular.
Taped calls with punters tend to go something like this:
'You didn't read my whole balance,' a punter complains to a call-taker, on tape.
'It saves time,' barks the operator.
'What?' says the punter, stunned at the woman's tone.
'Not reading out your balance saves time,' snarls the operator. 'IT SAVES TIME.'
'Hey - forget it, lady,' says the punter. 'I'm not putting my bets on with you.'
'Good,' says the operator. She hangs up on the caller.
Someone else rings up in search of race results, or some information he should, as a paying customer, probably be given. 'No, I can't do that!' screeches the operator, flapping his hands, genuinely hysterical. 'We're far too busy for that!'
Other callers just get yelled at before the call-taker hangs up on them.
'Decide what you want before you call.'
'Charge your phone.'
Some operators even address Valued Customers in this manner. Valued Customers are punters who regularly spend thousands on betting. The words Valued Customer flash up on the screen when their account codes are keyed in. This means more to some operators than others.
Some operators like punters, though. This is especially true of the core staff - the long-termers, the people who have been here for five, ten or even 20 years. They come to know regular punters well. They exchange names and stories and a rather striking amount of personal information over the years.
A lot of long-term staff describe this aspect of the work as its saving grace. People like Jeff say they prefer this job to their second one because here, 'you get to talk.'
And talk. 'Oh my God,' an older operator called Pam rushes over to tell an operator called Jo. 'Trish just gave her phone number to a punter.' Jo smiles. Jo is about 50, and single now. She's a long-term staff member, and she's been around.
'I've done that twice,' she smiles. 'Hope Trish's one lives up to his voice.'
'Have you noticed that that guy Jeremy always takes his wedding band off when he comes in here?' says a woman called Carol. 'It's pathetic. You can see the mark on his hand where it's been.'
'I thought he was separated,' says a woman called Anne. 'Why is he wearing it anyway? Everyone looks over at Jeremy.
Jeremy doesn't notice. He is playfighting with one of the university students. The student is a very pretty girl of about 19 called Michelle. There is always a queue, somewhere in the ether, for playfighting with Michelle. Michelle is very different from most of the students who work here part-time. By and large, the students are hard, remote types. They don't mingle with core staff. They're aware that they're passing through, and that everybody else is stuck here. Michelle, on the other hand, uses her time here to practise sex. She's forever rounding the likes of Jeremy and Matt up, and hugging them and sitting on the floor in their rows to sing tracks from the Sound of Music and other songs they've heard. No-one has any idea what to do about it.
'Tell you what - that kid of mine is definitely finishing sixth form, eh,' says a very large, very determined-looking woman called Mary as she sits down to lunch in the cafe.
Mary, another single mother, has three teenage children. She is preoccupied with them. Her entire conversation is a re-enactment, or, at least, a rehearsal, of the tough line that she takes with them.
'He's not leaving without doing sixth form, eh. He can get into his horticulture course without it but what if he changes his mind halfway through that course? He won't be able to get into any other course. He can say what he likes, but I don't have it, eh. I just don't have it, eh. I don't even listen. It makes all the difference at this time, eh. I just tell him No.'
'Guess what!" says another core-staff member, almost beside herself with excitement. 'My son is down to the last ten or something for Treasure Island Reality! He's going to get onto that show!'
'You're joking.'
'That's pretty good, isn't? It's pretty good, isn't?' The woman is delighted. 'He could win ten grand or something. It's pretty good, isn't it? It's not bad, is it? He can probably last a lot of people out, because he's pretty fit. It's pretty good, isn't it?' The talk about this one lasts for the length of this tightly-policed tea-break. Around the room, cigarettes angled, the smokers prick the balloons.
1998