Where now for Fremantle?

For much of 2007, careworkers in Fremantle Trust carehomes in Barnet took strike action in protest against the harsh pay and leave cuts a new Trust contract forced on them in April. The careworkers started striking to try and win back their lost earnings and leave allowances. The dispute is still unresolved:

A year's a long while to fight your employer: Sandra Jones, a careworker at the Fremantle Trust's Rosa Freedman day centre, says there are days now when she wonders if there's much point to it. She will 'keep on with the fight, because you have to keep fighting,' but she doubts very much that Fremantle will budge. 'Fremantle doesn't give a shit about its staff. It's gone on for so long now. They [the careworkers] are so demoralised. Some people have depression and stress.'

One thing everybody is particularly stressed about is Barnet Council's recent announcement that it plans to terminate part of the lease at the Rosa Freedman home - that's the carehome that Jones works at. Fremantle says that it will move residents in that home into residential care elsewhere.

Careworkers say that families of residents in the Rosa Freedman carehome are extremely unhappy about the transfer, because of the effect it is likely to have on their vulnerable elderly relatives - Fremantle management got, apparently, a vinegary response at a recent meeting with the families of Rosa Freedman residents.

The careworkers are worried about the transfer and the job implications of the closure, as well they might be. 'The closure of the residential care part of Rosa Freedman could result in staffing issues,' notes a 6 December 2007 report to Barnet Council's Cabinet Resources Committee. 'Fremantle will be responsible for these issues under the terms of the staff agreement with Fremantle Trust and Catalyst.'

And who be Catalyst, I hear you ask?

Well - as far as I can ascertain, Catalyst Housing is yet another group of grasping wide boys (meaning no disrespect) that have got themselves in on the third-sector act. They describe themselves this way: a 'group made up of four registered housing associations, together with a number of associated companies... we operate in 16 local authority areas, and across the group there is more than 140 years' experience of providing affordable homes for those in need...' Ain't that grand.

Up in North London, they provide carehome services in partnership (LOVE that word) with Fremantle. They also appear to have achieved local legend for trying to crowbar higher care fees out of Barnet council - 2007 council reports detail the council's failure to negotiate settlements with Catalyst and consequent trips to arbitration. Hard to believe that the council took them to arbitration because Catalyst was asking for less money, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, they're clearly useless - the council admits in its 6 December Cabinet Resources report that Catalyst remains unable to perform within budget and that its attempt to mitigate losses by cutting staff wages has yielded thin results. I will come back with more on this part of the yarn - this instance of the third sector's eagerness to renegotiate settlements with councils and screw the public sector for everything - literally - that it's worth, needs a goodly probing, and I'm looking forward to doing it. Catalyst are of course welcome to come over here and sprinkle the comments board with writs. Bring it on, boys. Bring it on.

But enough about me: Jones took a pay cut when she was forced to sign Fremantle's contract last year - she used to work some Sundays for the double-time payment which was available until April 2007. 'Well... I've adjusted,' she says wryly when she explains how she's managed. 'The ones who have a real problem are the ones [careworkers] who worked for that [enhanced] weekend pay, and now they haven't had that for a year.' Fremantle told staff who relied on that enhanced weekend pay that they could make up the lost money by working extra shifts.

Then, there are the effects of the cut to Fremantle careworkers' sick leave allowance. Under the Fremantle contract, careworkers are not paid at all for the first three days of sick leave. Jones says the upshot of this is careworkers crawl into work with flus, colds - you name it - because they can't afford to miss a day's pay.

I came into work when I had a viral infection,' Jones says. 'I was really sick, too. I felt really terrible, but I had to come in, because I did not want to miss that day of my pay.'

'I thought it could be that winter virus,' says Pat Ward. Ward is a domestic worker who has worked in Barnet carehomes for more than 20 years.

It doesn't take much to figure that all of this must be having a very unhappy effect on the elderly people in Fremantle's carehomes. Take a look at last year's report on conditions in carehomes by parliament's joint committee on human rights for more on the ways that today's care standards play.

Both Jones and Ward say it's hard to know where to go from here: they could strike again, but they are clearly wondering about the point of that. The shop meetings haven't been much of a picnic over winter - staff are not permitted to hold shop meetings in their Fremantle workplaces, so they hold them outside, or in their cars.

They and the people they care for need someone with political muscle to get involved and start using that muscle - an MP, a Cabinet minister (everybody at these union meetings falls about laughing at that suggestion), or even a Jamie Oliver, or a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, or some other modern-day liberator of production-line captives who just might persuade Guardian readers to move onto careworkers when they've finished emancipating battery chickens.

'It's taking away your civil rights,' Ward says. 'It's being bullied. You can't allow yourself to be bullied.'

'I went into it [the industrial action and dispute with Fremantle] wholeheartedly,' Jones says. 'As far as I'm concerned. I worked hard. I came here [to work in Barnet carehomes] all those years ago and I worked hard and then I got more leave and more wages. I'm 48 now. I don't want that [money and leave] taken off me, to go back to how I was when I was 30... we're not asking for a pay rise or anything like that. We're just asking for what we had.'

Of course - what the careworkers really need is the rigorous support of Unison's London regional office, and more than stuff-all out of Unison's famed 'special relationship' with the Labour party. The careworkers say that unfortunately, support from Unison's London regional office has been in short supply during the dispute with Fremantle. They think their local Unison branch officers are marvellous, but they're buggered if they know where the union's upper echelons are. My personal view is that the reason why Unison's upper echelons aren't visible to members in trouble is because they spend most of their week two-thirds the way up Gordon Brown's butt.

Which is another article in itself, of course.

All in good time.

I rang the office of Fremantle Trust chief executive Carole Sawyers about a fortnight ago to arrange an interview to discuss this and that. I explained to Sawyers' PA that I'd been talking to Fremantle careworkers and that I'd like to put their concerns to her.

Her PA said that would be fine, and that Sawyers would call back later the same afternoon.

Probably ten minutes later, the PA called back. Things seemed to have changed since we'd spoken. She asked if I would see my way clear to submitting a list of questions by email. She said this would help Sawyers prepare for the interview. I can't stand email interviews - I think relying on them is a lazy way to do journalism - but I agreed to email the PA a general guide to the sorts of questions I'd be asking when Cazz and I spoke on the phone. I told the PA that I still wanted the phone interview.

'Oh,' the PA said.

I sent her this email:

Hi -,

Thanks for talking to me today.

Regarding the questions I'd like to ask Carole - as I said, I've been following the Fremantle careworkers' strike action, and their concerns about their changed pay and conditions.

I'd like to have a discussion around the pay cuts and the cuts to annual and sick leave. I'm also interested in talking about the reasons why Fremantle took those actions, and Fremantle's views on the status of the dispute.

My mobile number is -. I won't be on email tomorrow and will be in meetings in the morning, but will have my phone with me and will certainly be available after about 12.30pm. The weekend is fine if that's more convenient.

Thanks again,

Kate Belgrave.

And what do you know - Cazz wrote back:

Hello Kate,

I attach the press statement we prepared in June 2007 which gives the info you wanted. Since then there have been three further days of action – the last in November 2007. GMB withdrew their support for continuing industrial action in early October.

Carole Sawyers
Chief Executive
The Fremantle Trust
01296 619304

So... that's what I got. An eight-months-old press release. I'll be ringing again this week.

I ring Hayes and Harlington MP John McDonnell next - I want to ask how his trade union freedom bill is coming along, and who has most recently tried to shaft it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, this bill has as its focus the repeal of Thatcher's anti-union laws, seeing as New Labour hasn't quite got round to it. The details are on the United Campaign site, but in brief - it would offer protection against victimisation for people who take official industrial action, and prevent employers from hiring agency workers to cover the work of striking staff (certainly a concern for Fremantle careworkers).

The bill would also allow for solidarity strike action - the part that McDonnell thinks would have been most advantageous for the Fremantle careworkers.

Anyway, the bill never got a reading last year - McDonnell says the government scuppered that. The plan now is for the United Campaign to try and introduce amendments on trade union freedoms to the government's employment bill. McDonnell says the cabinet and the prime minister are increasingly isolated in their opposition to improving trade union freedoms. We're interested in that over at liberalconspiracy.org. We're going to write to all MPs, and see.