careworkers

A few thoughts on the expenses scandal:

It's not so much that MPs have been feathering their first and second nests that is the outrage.

It's the poverty and misery that MPs cheerfully inflicted on society's most vulnerable citizens while they - MPs - were ransacking the allowances account, and, presumably, enjoying untold pleasant evenings out and in. Tis the lousy knowledge that even as oversold tarts like Hazel Blears were carefully explaining to us that salary control, frugality (particularly in the public sector), anti-union laws and the dreadful terms and conditions of the private sector were crucial to civilised society, they were beautifying moats and latrines, and reappointing flowerbeds, and paying off mortgages at such a canter that they missed the glorious moment when they finished.

The real tragedy is that none of it is any surprise - certainly not to those who have learned firsthand that modern government - much like old government, perhaps - looks actively to punish anyone without useful political or financial clout, and happily reward itself on the proceeds.

Trust in government - and indeed anyone in a position to cut the average guy a break - disappeared long before the sticky paws of Blears and Morley, et al, crept into the till. The trade union grassroots could give you hundreds, and probably thousands, local examples of skewed and screwed political decisions that have made life worse for just about everybody, apart from a handful of private sector contractors.

You may think here of small, but monumental (to locals, anyway) examples like the thousands of pounds cut from the budget of the Hammersmith community law centre, and the 100% funding cut to Hammersmith immigrant support group Horn of Africa (see law centre link above). As we speak, there are the plans to dismantle the sheltered housing scheme in north London (locals plan another protest in Hendon this week). It's all part of the same ideological wreckage that encourages some c-list bandit to profess that he didn't know he'd paid his mortgage. The list really does go on.

It includes the national disgrace that is the dire treatment of low paid careworkers around the country - people who have learned the very hard way that privatisation of care services means a fast route to subsistence living for anyone in a hands-on caregiving role.

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?

This story is also posted at liberalconspiracy.

As many of you will know, the Fremantle Trust careworkers are planning another day of strike action this Saturday:

Fremantle careworkers Carmel Reynolds, Anne Quinn, Lango Gamanga and Sandra Jones say they knew their working lives were about to take a turn for the perverse when Fremantle management began talking about cutting careworkers' sick pay and holiday allowances late last year.

It didn't take long for the talk to evolve into policy. 'It went from 'we're going to have to take your holidays and your sick pay' to 'we'll do all that and we'll freeze your pay and cut your weekend enhancements.' Reynolds says.

She and the other careworkers had been worried about their salaries and terms and conditions ever since Barnet Council outsourced its care contracts to Fremantle and transferred staff to the trust's employ, but the council had fallen over itself to reassure careworkers their new employer would be as great as their old one.

God knows those of us on the union circuit have heard that one a million times in the last few years, but unfortunately, there are hundreds of consultants out there who can still make it sound fresh at negotiating meetings, and even more local councillors who are dopey enough to fall for it, so it'll be a factor until such time as leading members of the New Labour cadre stop privatising public services (fat chance) and/or decide to legislate to consolidate worker protection (ditto).