My investigation into Labour Party

My investigation - Labour Party 

Dear Friends 

I was happy to hear the news that more Labour Party members would be allowed to vote in the Labour Leadership election as a result of a legal challenge. Sometimes it is right to  take legal action if all other avenues to resolve issues within an organisation have been thwarted.

The disenfranchisement of 130,000 Labour Party members was one such decision to challenge. I don't need to document the growing list of actions to try and remove our democratically elected leader and the subsequent attempts to restrict who can vote in the election. The attacks on democracy in the Labour Party by a particular group who seem to have unlimited resources are appalling & summed up more eloquently than me here https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/08/labour-party-mps-corbyn-conservatives-tories-post-brexit?CMP=share_btn_tw

When I heard that the Labour Party were going to Appeal the decision I was initially shocked, then angry. 

I wanted to know who had made this decision. 

It has been an experience on social media to try and find out who made this decision and this is what I have found out so far. 

I have been told it was the National Executive Committee Procedures Sub Committee that made the decision to waste Labour Party members money on the Appeal. 

My next action was to find out who is on this committee and who voted which way. 

To date, Tuesday 9 August I have been told only two members voted against lodging an Appeal. 

AT this point I must make clear, this information is what I have been provided on social media, ideally I would like to see minutes of this meeting and who was present. 

What we all know is that this committee did vote to lodge an Appeal and I think that for transparency Labour Party members should know who voted which way. 

Ann Black - Voted not to waste money on an Appeal 

Jim Kennedy - Unite the Union Voted not to waste money on an Appeal 

Below are the remaining members of this Sub Committee, I don't have any other information as to how they voted or if they were present

General Secretary (Returning Officer) Iain McNicol - Don't know how he voted 

Keith Birch - (UNISON) Don't know how he voted

Diana Holland - Treasurer Don't know how she voted 

Paddy Lillis - USDAW Don't know how he voted 

Ellie Reeves - Don't know how she voted 

Mary Turner - GMB Don't know how she voted 

Tom Watson - Deputy Leader Don't know how he voted 

Margaret Beckett MP - Don't know how she voted 

Glenis Willmott MEP - Don't know how she voted 

If anyone reading this post has any further information please let me know and I can update this post.  

Link to the current members of the National Executive Committee 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Executive_Committee?wprov=sfsi1

Support Homerton NHS workers - No to Redundancies

Below is an all too familiar story of how privatisation ruthlessly exploits workers. The company in this case is ISS a global giant that has benefited under Blair, Brown and Cameron at the expense of the workforce.

For those who have not had the opportunity to represent and organise workers, it is heart breaking to see Terms & Conditions which have been hard won, ripped up after privatisation.

My take on what Jeremy is talking about, is that this ruthless exploitation must end. It is condemning workers and their families into poverty.

For me, Jeremy is saying it is for all of us to take part in this social movement that means in the communities we live. In this case we need to support these workers and condemn the attacks on their jobs. I know that Jeremy would give these workers his backing, not only that he would demand these critical services are brought back into the NHS.  

Homerton workers protest over job cut threat from private firm

“The staff say they have been told 89 out of 300 of them could be made redundant and others could have their hours cut.

Jordan Rivera, Unison branch secretary for the hospital, slammed the plans and questioned why the company can no longer run the service on a budget it said it could less than a year ago, when it won the contract.”

http://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/health/homerton_workers_protest_over_job_cut_threat_from_private_firm_1_4646168

Three things you can do to help these workers

1. Send a message of support to homertonunison@gmail.com.

2. Like and leave a solidarity comment

3. Share with others and encourage them to offer support. 

What does mass outsourcing in Barnet Council look like?

Please check you might be able to vote in the Leadership election if you're a UNISON member

Please check you might be able to vote in the Leadership election if you're a UNISON member 

https://research.unison.org.uk/s3/unison-membership...

Join the campaign to end "Term-Time Pay in schools

I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with UNISON Teaching Assistants, campaigning to be employed every week of the year pic.twitter.com/c3dT5ZwgV3

— Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) 28 July 2016

For those who have not organised in a school, there is a two tier system in schools.

Teacher’s Terms & Conditions are negotiated nationally, and whatever is agreed has to be implemented in schools.

However for school support staff it is chaos because there is no national agreement. This means that schools can pay as much or as little (more likely) as they like, to a point. If they are still a Community schools (employed by the local council) they will tend to follow the Councils Pay and Grading scheme. However local council employed schools are rapidly reducing in numbers due to the aggressive policy of academisation. This means Academies can and do what they want. In some cases they will continue to follow the Pay and Grading of the Council, but the key thing is that they don’t have to follow.

One of the most common issue for school support staff is term time pay, many of us organising in schools have been wanting this issue to be adopted by our union nationally. This is why I was surprised but very pleased to see that at UNISON conference a motion was passed to launch an end to term time pay in schools.

I am already looking forward to hearing back from UNISON details as to how this campaign is going to be started so that we can being consulting with our members next term.

Jeremy Corbyn statement (see Tweet at the top of the page)

On Thursday 28 July, Jeremy Corbyn made a momentous statement whereby he announced he was backing UNISON’s campaign to end term time pay in schools.

If you work in a school, or have family of friends working in a school this is a major policy change which will help all of our members and their families, please share his statement.

Below is a copy of his statement please feel free to cut and paste and use it in any communications.

"I recently had the honour of meeting the Durham Teaching Assistants at the Durham Miners Gala this year. I fully support their campaign to stop the proposal to move them to term time pay, a decision which could plunge this valued workforce into poverty.  

"The government must commit to providing the funding to employ teaching assistants every week of the year, recognising the crucial work these dedicated public servants do in our society.  

“It is a simple fact that the vast majority of school workers employed on so-called term-time contracts are women, who are effectively paid for just ten months of the year. It is in my opinion unacceptable that Equal Pay legislation is being used as a tool to attack a largely female workforce.  

 “My friend and comrade Davy Hopper, General Secretary, Durham Miners’ Association, who passed away only last week said: “Education is one of the most important public services we have and frankly it is unbelievable that a Labour Authority is behaving in this way. They should immediately start renegotiating with the Teaching Assistants and sort out this mess. My solidarity is with the Teaching Assistants.”  

Easington MP Grahame Morris "I whole-heartedly oppose the decision to substantially cut the income of low paid teaching assistants and I'm appalled that the council would threaten to dismiss and re-engage. The Government must now step up to the plate and commit to funding the wages of teaching assistants all year." 

“I give this commitment that I will be standing shoulder to shoulder with UNISON’s campaign agreed at their conference this year to end the imposition of term time pay and for school workers across the UK to be employed during every week of the year."
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of Labour Party

UPDATE 

On Twitter hundreds of School Support staff are already campaigning because they are facing up to 23% as Council force them on to "Term Time " contracts. 

Their campaign is inspirational, they had 450 workers at a meeting with Durham Trades Council to organise to fight the cuts in Durham. They had over 600 marching in their T-Shirts on the Durham Miners Gala and speaker after speaker pledged their unions support. 

They organised a mass protest outside Durham County Councils offices last week and 700 attended. 

Derby TAs have taken four weeks strike action, the @ta_hltaUK campaign is bringing the plight of term time pay to the wider public. 

All these campaigns are grassroots campaigns of a predominantly female workforce, who have said they have had enough of being exploited and want to receive a fair wage for the valuable work they do. 

This campaign has all the Hallmarks of a 21st Century Grunswick or Fords Dagenham workers strike. 

You can show solidarity by supporting them on Twitter and Facebook.

Look out for the following hashtags 

‪

#‎DurhamTAs @ta_hltaUK ‪#‎ValueUs @suptstaffdhm #DerbyTAs #StrongerTogether