Thursday 4 January 2024

That Was the Year that Was

by New Worker correspondent

 2022 saw the greatest number of working days lost (2.47 million) since 1989 when 4.13 million took to the picket lines. The figures for 2023 are, of course, still to be totted up, but it is clear that industrial action has not slowed down. The public sector and the transport sector, particularly the NHS and railways have seen most of the action. 
Unfortunately this action has not done much to boost union membership figures which remain stubbornly low a miserable 22.3 per cent of the workforce, a record low. It has been a comparatively small number of traditionally well organised workers who have taken the lead.
A notable feature of 2023 was that many groups of workers not normally associated with industrial militancy took to the picket lines. Under the British Medical Association’s leadership even senior NHS consultants took strike action, eventually securing a higher pay rise than cleaners and nurses, a matter about which we will not have heard the last of. 
For the first time in history Anglican clergy, belonging to the Church of England Clergy & Employee Advocates (CEECA), part of Unite the union’s Faith Workers Branch submitted a formal pay claim which could come out of Church Commissioners’ £10.3 billion bank account. 
Among the smaller groups of workers taking strike action were Scottish lighthouse keepers and the Westminster traffic wardens were unfortunately unable to stick a parking ticket on the King’s gilded coach when it was parked outside Westminster Abbey for his crowning. 
New faces 
 There were only a few new faces on the trade union scene this year. The main one was Paul Nowak, the Trades Union Congress General Secretary who made much of the fact that he began with stacking shelves in Asda at the age of 17, but failed to mention he has been a Congress House bureaucrat for the great bulk of his working life, latterly as Deputy GS. His inaugural speech naturally deplored low pay and included the rousing message that: “ministers, unions and employers should work together on a proper industrial strategy, delivering good green jobs, training and skills across the country”, thus demonstrating the TUC’s deep attachment to class collaboration.
Another newcomer was at the Transport and Salaries Staff Association (TSSA) which elected Maryam Eslamdoust as the new General Secretary after the incumbent was found not to have behaved as a proper gentleman should. The election inspired a whole 13.5 per cent of the 17,324 strong membership to vote. She triumphed with 46.6 per cent of the vote against two rivals. 
In contrast the main teachers’ union Daniel Kebede was overwhelmingly elected General Secretary, the first since the merger of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teacher and Lecturers in 2017. Out of 445,601 members 28,636 voted for him and 12,918 for his opponent.  
Only last week Fran Heathcote was elected General Secretary of PCS, the main civil service union, succeeding Mark Serwotka who will be retiring next month after being in office since 2000. At the same time incumbent Assistant GS John Moloney was re-elected. Ms Heathcote ran on the Democracy Alliance ticket – the platform for the bureaucrats, former Trotskyists and revisionists that backed Serwotrka and has dominated PCS politics for decades – while Moloney stood for the still formally Trotskyist Broad Left Network – an unholy alliance of supporters of the Alliance of Workers Liberty and the Socialist Party. The Democracy Alliance retained their hold on the general secretaryship and Moloney was re-elected AGS. So a no change there. Out of 173,844 members only 20,058 or 11.5 per cent bothered to vote. This went 10,340 to 9,557 in favour of the winning General Secretary and a more impressive 11,705 to 8,152 for the “left opposition” AGS. From these figures it appears that no-one other than activists bothered to vote. 
Immediately afterwards at the British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa) a new General Secretary took control of the cockpit. Completing a trio of unions appointing a woman GS for the first time in its history, she secured 100 per cent of the votes in contest that had a zero per cent turnout as it was uncontested. Deplorably, she is not actually a pilot, but a career  union bureaucrat who has been promoted from the senior civil servants’ union, the FDA.

trains and boats and planes

 Transport services were the main battleground throughout the year, particularly on the railways.
Drivers union ASLEF was involved in industrial action which caused widespread disruption by talking short strikes at different companies and different times to maximise disruption. It also imposed a number of overtime bans. This was particularly effective as the train operating companies depend heavily on overtime rather than pay to train and employ sufficient numbers of drivers. ASLEF complained that the Government took a “hands off” approach when it declined to pressure employers to settle. Some claim the Government wants industrial action to drag on so as to deplete union funds. Early in the year Aslef rejected what appeared tempting offers because it would lead to the loss of hard won terms and conditions. The latest ballot means that drivers have a mandate for another round of strikes in this unresolved battle.  
There was a notable success on the railways when the rail unions, united for once, successfully fought off plans to close nearly all ticket offices in England, partly as result of securing 750,000 hostile respondents to the official consultation. 
On the London Underground a long struggle saw outsourced cleaners winning the same right to free transport as direct employees, however the RMT battle to have them taken back into direct employment has not yet borne fruit, despite the Mayor of London expressing agreement at least in theory. Other battles on behalf of railway cleaners do not seem to be so successful, but RMT continues the difficult battle to organise them.  Catering workers on the railways also secured some decent pays rises thanks to RMT campaigns. 
Strikes, and the threat of them, at various bus companies up and down the country were regular event. Only last week 350 London Transit workers, drivers and engineers alike, rejected a 6.8 per cent pay rise resulting them taking strike action which disrupted west London services. Earlier, in February, workers at the neighbouring Abellio service needed 20 days of strike action to £18 an hour for experienced drivers
Many bus drivers were aggrieved at discrepancies between different companies on such dispute was at Newcastle where Go North East drivers average wage was is £12.83 per hour, while drivers on the other side of England at Go North West earn £15.53 per hour. 
During and shortly after the pandemic many bus drivers left the industry in favour of the expanded home delivery services from supermarkets which resulted in many bus companies raising wages to keep drivers, but the threat of strikes by organised workers is still required. One wonders why the powerful Unite does not launch a nationwide pay campaign and put more effort into campaigning for renationalisation. Not all battles were as successful as in the Midlands where Unite won pay rises of between 20 per cent and 25.8 per cent for 100 Trent Barton bus engineers across five sites in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.
  In the shipping industry there was no major issue such as the mass sacking of workers by P&O. Government promises to legislate against such acts have predictably proven worthless. However the ferry between the Isle of Man and Liverpool saw a dispute between the officer’s union Nautilus and bosses over their demands they spend at least 76 extra days per year on-board rather than with their families. 
Road transport saw a number of disputes. The mere threat of strike action can be very effective as because of just-in-time working disruption can immediate effect in companies not handling perishables.  
For instance in May 150 tanker drivers at Fuel Transport & Logistics who service the supermarket chain Morrisons’ petrol stations secured a 13.5 per cent increase for 2022, a 10.5 per cent increase for 2023 and a guarantee that next year all drivers’ salaries will increase to an impressive £65,000 per annum.
The summer holiday season was used by unions in the aviation industry to put pressure in employers. Pilots at Virgin Atlantic sought a reduction in their hours which had been recently increased, resulting in increased pilot fatigue.  
Around the same time workers at various airports ranging from refuelling drivers and Gatwick baggage handlers threatened action. British Airways staff, excluding pilots and management won a 13.1 pay rise over an 18-month period which was some compensation for pandemic cuts. 

Sick of Work
  
  The NHS was another major battleground with ambulance workers in many parts of England starting the ball rolling with strikes in late January. In April and May the Royal College of Nursing took strike action which for the first time included nurses in emergency departments, intensive care and cancer wards. Junior doctors and consultants later joined in, with many using the threat of emigration to Australia as a bargaining tool. Some doctors claimed that as a result of their long hours they were paid less than coffee makers at Starbucks. It was interesting that it was RCN members, rather than one of the more militant health unions that rejected the initial unsatisfactory five per cent offer recommended by union officials.
Apart from the salary issue medics have suffered from long term neoliberal policies such as having to pay off large student loans and the loss of proper catering in hospitals, and the ending of hospital accommodation.
  One welcome victory was that that the Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust where 670 caterers, cleaners, porters, caterers and other domestic services were brought back in-house, but there are many similar battles which are still to be won.
 While doctors in England had to take strike action, an overwhelmingly strike vote in Scotland forced the SNP to come up with a better offer before they actually downed stethoscopes.  
Tough Battles
 While there have been no postal strikes this year all is not well at Royal Mail which is hoping to abandon its universal service obligation and concentrate on profitable parcel delivery. This will drastically impact on workers conditions with the CEO openly supporting the model of hiring “self-employed” drivers who would supply their own vans to spare Royal Mail the expense.   
In mid-February CWU called off a further strike, despite a 96 per cent mandate after Royal Mail bosses took further legal action against the union. By then the pay offer had been marginally improved to nine per cent over 18 months. That almost 200 CWU reps were suspended for union activity showed how brutal Royal Mail management were. 
However the prize for the most difficult battle probably goes to the workers at the Amazon warehouse in Coventry where they have taken on the notoriously anti trade union firm.
Here GMB secured recognition at the predatory retailer, itself a remarkable achievement. Strikes later took place including one over the “Black Friday” weekend last month. The demand was for a 43 per cent increase from £10.50 to £15.00 an hour, which is much more that the 50 pence an hour offered by Amazon whose owner recently took delivery of a $500 million yacht. The necessity for a union presence at Amazon was confirmed when Tribune reported that in order to get its accident figures down Amazon had resorted to hiring ambulances to ferry overworked workers to hospital by taxi rather than call ambulances which appear in official statistics.  
It is not only Amazon that rejected Victorian Master and Servant style industrial relations in favour a more traditional lord and serf relationships. Another hi-tech firm Google laid off 10,000 workers globally including hundreds in London who according to Unite broke redundancy laws and refuses to meet their Unite representatives. Workers with disabilities had to get doctors notes simply to have a fellow worker attend their meetings and even in these cases union representation is forbidden.  
Classroom Wars
 From nursery schools to universities workers were often found on the picket line. Perhaps the major triumph was that by the University and College Union which won a long running battle to reverse the potential loss of £10,000 year from their pensions. Their strike actions were often delayed by the failure of the union to whip up sufficient numbers to vote in strike ballots. Even well paid professors grumble about the astronomical salaries collected by Chancellors and Vice-Principals. Scottish school teachers also secured a decent pay rise of ten per cent which the SNP denied they could afford. Targeting their action in ministerial constituencies brought rapid results. 

Bad Laws

 On the legislative front the Strikes Minimum Level of Service Act came into being which would effectively render industrial action at best ineffective and at worst illegal. Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner called measure the “Conservative sacking nurses Bill”, but that was about the end of Labour’s opposition.  Despite being passed in July it was only in December that the TUC held a special congress to make rousing speeches against it. It was an achievement for the Tories to unite the most traditionally right wing unions with the usual suspects. Even a Tory supporter of the measure, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg warned it was so badly written that it will be subject to legal challenges unless it is drastically amended by the House of Lords. 
q  Another move by the Government was a new regulations allowing agency workers to be hired in disputes to replace striking workers. This was condemned even by employment agencies as being unworkable. 

And finally...

---it is only for lack of space that we have little to say about disputes in other areas such as local and central government, but in both these areas there has been much to write about. The FDA, representing senior civil servants, used the threat of strike action to secure a decent pay offer and a promise of no compulsory redundancies in the ranks of the Sir Humphreys.  
In what remains of British industry there were disputes in the North Sea Oil and Gas industry where workers have definitely not been benefiting from the increase in oil and gas prices. At the Petrofac Facilities Management Limited workers were expected to switch from a 7 to 14 day rota, double the industry norm which would see rig workers losing £6,000 a year. 
  Struggles to save the last British steel mills in South Wales and Scunthorpe are under way. Owners plan to close down existing plants on environmental grounds and replace them with electric arc furnaces which will need only a fraction of the existing workforce. However they can only handle recycled steel materials which are cannot produce top quality steel for construction purposes.  What 2024 holds remains to be seen, but there are no shortage of disputes...



Thursday 13 January 2022

SOME DELAYS

 Printing has been delayed due to a malfunction on our press. We expect it to be repaired by Monday 17th January and the New Worker will be dispatched immediately afterwards.




Saturday 7 August 2021

Lucky for Some

by New Worker correspondent

 Despite the gloomy prognosis on pay for most public sector workers there are rays of sunshine for some of the high castes. The Chancellor’s pay freeze for civil servants does not apply to those at the very top. Clare Lombardelli, the Chancellor’s chief economist got a rise of £30,000. This blow against the gender pay gap means her salary is now just under £150,000.
     One way round pay freezes is for the chosen few to be awarded bonuses, which they can “earn” by simply turning up. The two top Treasury civil servants, Sir Tom Scholar and Charles Roxburgh, were each given bonuses of up to £20,000 on top of their salaries, along with the Treasury’s department’s head of tax and welfare, Beth Russell.
     Well-heeled Tory MPs, such as former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith disapproved because it would cause grumbling in the lower ranks. He said: “I would have thought that they would show a bit of sympathy and that even if you were to pay them bonuses, they weren’t paid until everyone was back to work properly” .
     One group of workers who won’t be getting a pay rise because it would be too politically embarrassing are MPs whose pay will be frozen in this financial year. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) had recommended a bumper pay rise worth about £3,300 late last year, but both Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer opposed it. It dawned on the IPSA that an increase “would not reflect the reality” faced by many voters after the coronavirus crisis. As MPs are on a minimum of £81,922 this will not cause too much hardship and they would have to have remarkably tough brass necks to accept a rise while lecturing others on the necessity of fiscal prudence.

Tuesday 13 April 2021

DVLA – People before Profit

By New Worker correspondent

At the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) at Swansea talks to avert strike action over Covid-19 health issues broke down resulting in workers taking strike action earlier this week. The four day Tuesday-Friday strike was organised by the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) who are deeply concerned about the lack of immediate moves by Management to reduce the number of workers on site. Since September 600 workers have tested positive for the virus, and one has died. Despite this most of the 2,000 workers till have to come into work, sitting just a metre apart.
     PCS is seeking a reduction in the capacity of the site by removing over 300 desks, a revision of risk assessments which has led to a further 300 staff being sent home to work safely from their homes. PCS points out that further consideration needs to be given to pregnant women and those who live with vulnerable people. It also demands from management a commitment on how to proceed in the talks over the coming months, in terms of extending home working, safety on site and any potential increase in the numbers of staff on site when it is safe to do so.
     Despite progress during the failed talks PCS argues “that the DVLA is able to give more than it is willing to at this stage and we believe that a strong show of strike action next week will help tip the balance to getting management to reduce numbers in the medium term and make the site safe”.
     Instead of a physical picket virtual rallies were held and an overtime ban begins this Saturday.

Friday 18 December 2020

Grave Pay Cuts

Commonwealth war graves El Alamein Egypt
by New Worker correspondent

Two civil service unions, Prospect and PCS, along with Unite are taking up the cases of workers employed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) who are facing having their incomes cut in half and losing health benefits by the Tory Government using the excuse of Brexit.
    A ‘Brexit Mitigation payment’ of up to £30,000 has been offered, which unions denounce as inadequate, should their members accept local contracts for the loss of earnings.
    Defence minister Ben Wallace doubles up as chair of the Commission and can exert considerable pressure on the employer to give a fair deal to our members, says PCS, whose requests for further urgent negotiations have been completely ignored.
    PCS says members have been given a false choice to either repatriate or face losing up to half their wages. The union also condemns the Government for deliberately withholding this information until the day after Armistice Day commemorations. The CWGC set a deadline of 7th December for accepting the £30,000.
    Unite’s national officer Bev Clarkson said: “Commonwealth War Graves staff, many of whom left the UK years ago, face having their incomes halved or upending their home lives and that of their families. These are staff who perform an important duty on behalf of the UK and the other Commonwealth nations. The commission is treating them appallingly and the government must step in to protect their terms and conditions.”
    One 61-year-old gard­­ener, who had worked for 35 years for the Commission across Europe, told the Daily Mirror: “It’s shocking and it has been handled so badly. It’s just so unfair. We have all devoted our lives to looking after the graves of the brave soldiers who died and this is how we are being repaid. There has been no consultation – an email arrived one morning which gave us three weeks to make a decision. I feel so down.
    “We either have to return to Britain, where many of us haven’t lived for years, or take these terms which ­basically means our pay is halved.”
    But CWGC Director General Barry Murphy merely said: “We believe that the new arrangements will properly align this group with our existing staff in France and Belgium.”
    As the New Worker goes to press there will be a Westminster Hall debate on the issue, The Government’s Brexit excuse is of course nonsense, because people working for the British government abroad are always paid British salaries.

Sunday 22 November 2020

Mighty Minnows?

By New Worker correspondent

This week we once again turn the spotlight on the activities of three of Britain’s smallest and newest unions which are not affiliated to the Trades Union Congress. The three unions whose recent activities are discussed were generally founded to organise in sectors which larger and established unions have not been successful in organising for one reason or another.

IWUGB

First we turn our attention to the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) which was founded in 2012 and has a membership of 4,613.
     It recently elected a new general secretary, Ecuador born Henry Chango Lopez when he worked as a porter and cleaner at the University of London. Here he helped unionise the majority of the outsourced workers there. After a ten year campaign the union finally secured the end of outsourcing at the sprawling federal university. His election follows less than a week after this major victory for the union. Following his election he said “I have the experience of being in the union since the beginning, when we had about 300 members and no office. I used to work as a cleaner and porter at the University of London. Before I joined a union I didn’t know anything about unions and I was an exploited worker so I am very proud of what we have achieved”.
     The founding General Secretary, Jason Moyer-Lee, commented that “We should all be proud that our union believes that a migrant worker, who came to this country barely speaking English and got involved in unions as an outsourced cleaner earning less than the living wage, is the best person to be our leader. I have every confidence that Henry will do great things in this next phase of the IWGB’s history and I look forward to supporting him in those efforts.
     The IWGB specialises in representing sections of the workforce which have traditionally been non-unionised and under-represented. It was founded out of dissatisfaction at Unite and Unison’s failures to organise. This correspondent has heard grumbles that an organising initiative involving the Unite ended the moment the photographer departed from the launch event.
     IWGB also represents bicycle couriers, cycle instructors, Uber drivers, and foster care workers, almost entirely in London. In 2018 it established a Game Workers Unite group which now appears to have be inactive for the past year. A union for precarious workers can have a precarious existence itself.
     While it has organised strikes it has been particularly active in the courts. Its legal department has notable successes in establishing that private hire drivers and couriers are rightfully employees, thus entitling them to a range of employment rights previously denied to them by employers.
     Last week it won an important High Court judicial review against the Government which called for health and safety protections for ‘gig economy’ and precarious workers. This success means that the government failed to properly implement EU health and safety directives and must now extend health and safety protections to ‘gig economy’ and precarious workers.
     It points out that the pandemic has made workers’ rights into a public health issue, arguing that the Government’s failure to extend health and safety protections has left many workers in the ‘gig economy’ exposed to serious risks. It claims that one in ten workers engage in ‘gig economy’ work, which accounts for at least 4.7 million people working in the UK with little to no health and safety protections.
     Speaking of the case Henry Chango Lopez said “We are delighted with this win for workers’ rights. In the midst of the pandemic, health and safety at work has never been more important. It is crucial that businesses know they must protect the health and safety of their workers and that the Government brings the criminal prosecutions necessary to enforce this law.”
     Alex Marshall, the union’s president added that: “Key workers have been calling for greater protection throughout the pandemic and this has largely fallen on the deaf ears of their employers. The IWGB contacted numerous companies during the first wave and they either did very little or nothing at all as they tried to escape any accountability for their workforce. This ruling is long overdue and the IWGB expects that in the light of this clear ruling, the UK Government will now take urgent legislative measures to ensure workers’ safety.”

UVW

The United Voices of Workers (UVW), is a similar, but smaller union founded in London in 2014. It began by winning victories for porters at posh auction house Sotheby’s and for security workers at the slightly more downmarket Harrod’s. It also represents people at the lower end of the legal profession such as trainees, pupil barristers, assistants, administrative staff, paralegals and even a few barristers.
     In April its United Strippers branch won a legal victory at an Employment Tribunal which a rejected the owner’s arguments that the ladies were self-employed and therefore not entitled to rights such as sick pay or holiday pay. No doubt that makes the venue an acceptable place for left-wing groups to hold their meetings.
     It also focusses on securing the London Living Wage, contractual sick pay and other rights and like IWGB has won battles on behalf of outsourced cleaners at the London School of Economics which set the tone for other similar campaigns. It also runs English language classes for its members and even took on the might to the British Monarchy by launching a case on behalf of a mostly black African who claim they are treated differently to the mainly white admin staff who work directly for the Royal Parks.
     At present the union is fighting the case of a member who was sacked from his present job for leading a strike at a former employer. Security guard Cetin Avsar was suspended by security, aviation and construction company Wilson James from work at the Francis Crick Institute in London’s Kings Cross, London. Wilson James said that his role in the successful strike at a London college which saw outsourced workers brought in-house “means there is a conflict of interest between your opinion and work with the union which lead to your protesting, and your employment with Wilson James”.
     The evidence presented includes a dossier of photos and videos of Avsar on strike and expressing his views in the press about outsourcing. UVW said this is “one of the most blatant and egregious violations of a worker’s human rights” they have ever seen.
     In response Avsar said: “I am totally shocked by the way Wilson James is treating me. They are totally victimising me for being a member of UVW union and for having taken lawful strike action against my previous employer Bidvest Noonan at St George’s of London. This has caused me a lot of distress. I have done nothing wrong. They are breaching my human rights and I will not stand for it”.
     Petros Elia, UVW added that “The hypocrisy of Wilson James is staggering. They have slapped a Black Lives Matter poster on the front of their website and waxed lyrical about how their industry “needs to do more for those from BAME backgrounds”, but in the same breath are unlawfully punishing a BAME key worker for having taken lawful industrial action against a great institutional racism at his former workplace”.
     In another case the union’s Legal Sector Workers United (LSWU) branch won a court action against a top divorce law firm Vardags (i.e. their lawyers are very expensive) which prevented the firm from gagging a former employee accused of leaking a memo in which female staff were reminded that they could dress ‘discreetly sexy’, but ‘never tarty’. She was sacked for alleged poor performance as soon as the leak was discovered. Nursing its bruises Vardags accused UVW of seeking a high profile scalp, which means they must be doing something right. Petros Elia, responded by saying: “Vardags has chosen to impugn our legitimate trade union activities in defending and promoting the interests of our members. They and other bosses in and beyond the legal sector should be in no doubt that we will continue to do so.”

IWW 

The third on the new unions is the Industrial Workers of the World, which was founded as a trade union in 2012, reviving in name at least the once mighty north American syndicalist union, known as the Wobblies.
     It has recently been active in the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) sector which rakes in £1.4 billion a year in Britain. The companies involved often have grand names which disguise the fact that their premises are couple of rooms above a chip shop. They often have employment practices to match. Other companies sell online course to learners abroad, particularly China.
     On Monday IWW announced it was taking the Canterbury based “Overseas Teacher” company to an employment tribunal on behalf of nine teachers who are hired on as self-employed. They allege they are not being paid the national minimum wage; statutory sick pay; and failure to provide holiday pay and suffer unfair deductions of wages. IWW caseworker Ryan McCready said: “We feel these teachers were essentially employees in everything but name. Just looking through their contracts, we were alarmed by the amount of control which the company exerted over these individuals. When we spoke to the teachers, we were shocked by how much more this translated in practice.”
     The lack of employee status “means is that schools and other organisations can hire staff at below the minimum wage, ignore UK employee and worker legislation, and subject them to conditions that are incredibly harsh and regressive” she added before concluding “It’s indicative of the declining state of the TEFL industry standards and this case really is the teachers standing up for their rights.”
     The IWW hopes more present and former teachers at the Overseas Teachers to join the claim. Efforts were made to resolve matters internally and through the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) to no avail.
     One ex-teacher said “It was really demoralising to see almost $100 deducted from my pay for 2 days of illness, that’s significantly more than I earn in that amount of time, so it seems very unfair. Eventually that led me to leaving the company as I don’t want to have to sacrifice my health for money.”
     Another teacher said “I was never in the job with the aspiration to make huge amounts of cash, only enough to survive. I accepted the bad working conditions and lack of communication because I believed the job provided me with the security to pay my bills. After our sudden and undiscussed change in contract, I could no longer afford most of my living costs. I now hold several jobs and continue to rely on Universal Credit due the unreliability and unethical practices of the Overseas Teacher.”
     More generally the IWW has been involved in opposing redundancies in Covid-19 related redundancies. English UK, the TEFL trade organisation were disappointed in the lack there was no specific government support offered to the language teaching industry which lead to redundancies in language schools in recent months.
     Now that furlough has been extended to March 2021 language schools seem reluctant to rehire even when legally possible. IWW say that keeping workers in a job would maintain “the UK’s image as an advanced economy in the soft power battles of inter-imperialist rivalries will hopefully be, to a certain extent, protected”.
     IWW claims that the TEFL industry has a history of a serious lack of union organisation, which it is now putting right in opposing zero hour contracts and bogus self-employment. It has claimed a number of recent victories against other companies in getting staff onto furlough at the start the pandemic. These include the high-profile campaigns against EF and Kaplan, and organisational support for reps at EC English who managed to reduce redundancies with an unpaid leave agreement. Those subject to that agreement are now back on furlough as they remained on the pay role.
     Now that the furlough scheme has been extended, those same workers are back on furlough.

Monday 19 October 2020

the thin red line

by New Worker correspondent

One of catering company Compass Group’s subsidiaries, Eurest Support Services (ESS) has been condemned as Britain’s most “heartless employer” for the manner in which it has been treating staff working on Ministry of Defence bases. They have been forced to sign new contracts making them hundreds of pounds worse off with the alternative of immediately losing their jobs.
     The workers, who are employed on outsourced MoD contracts mostly as cooks and cleaners on minimum wage, and are facing cuts in hours as well as a reduction in their working weeks. The sites they service include RAF Shawbury, RAF Cosford, and dry land Navy bases HMS Sultan, HMS Excellent, HMS Collingwood, and various army depots.
     The workers are facing a cut in their working weeks from the normal 52 to 50, 49 or even 48. Some of them face losing up to £1,600 a year.
     Unite the union points out that this is even worse than similar cases such as those at British Airways and Heathrow Airport because ESS is actively ordering workers to “sign or be made redundant”. In addition the union does not believe this is a genuine redundancy situation because ESS has not issued either a HR1 or section 188 notice, or undertaken any genuine consultation process on redundancies. Instead workers are required to undertake face-to-face meetings with local managers and the responses to fears about impending poverty have been callous.
     Unite reports that members have raised concerns such about not being able to afford their rent or mortgage, or “if I lose all this money I might have to use a foodbank” and “I’m on minimum wage as it is, what am I going to do?” Managements response has been to tell them they’re getting an extra ten days extra holiday and even “you may be eligible for Universal Credit, I can come across and go through the process with you and help you apply”.
     Managerial assurances that they would get a pay rise in April were, in fact, only a reference to the planned rise in the minimum wage, which ESS is legally obliged to pay.
     Caren Evans, Unite’s senior officer for defence workers said: “They are using a false redundancy process to force workers who are already on the breadline to accept huge pay cuts.
     “Unite does not believe this is a lawful process but ESS is relying on the fear and intimidation it can exert on workers on the minimum wage, to force these callous changes through.
     “The fact that this is on MoD contracts and involves workers who are dedicated to care for our armed forces is simply appalling”.
    She also deplored the fact that “ESS is seeking to squeeze every penny from these contracts and it doesn’t care about the service our armed forces receive or the effect it will have on workers”. That is of course what capitalist contractors do.
     Ms Evans also added “It is even more appalling that the government and the top brass at the MoD are refusing to take action and are looking the other way as misery and exploitation is occurring on their watch”.
     ESS have been blaming the Covid-19 pandemic for the changes but its MoD contracts have been unaffected and the workers were required to keep working throughout lockdown so the common excuse for cutting wages hold even less water than normal.
     ESS tried to do the same in 2017 in the Gosport area, including Fort Blockhouse, in 2017.
Then  Unite took ESS to an employment tribunal for breach of contract. ESS was then forced to accept that the cutting of the working weeks was illegal and it was forced to reinstate the working weeks and pay and average compensation of £1,900.