NuLieBore comes out in support of police harassment & the bosses’ blacklist

NuLieBore. New Labour. Geddit?

Ahem. I’ll start again…

How low can you go?

Jacqui Smith gives us this act of desperation:

I now want the Action Squad to co-ordinate a new drive against the hard core of ‘hard nut’ cases.

That car of theirs – is the tax up to date? Is it insured? Let’s find out

And have they a TV licence for their plasma screen? As the advert says, “it’s all on the database.”

As for their council tax, it shouldn’t be difficult to see if that’s been paid

And what about benefit fraud? Can we run a check?

The police, she says, should harass young people who persistently offend. In tabloid-speak this is “get tough on young thugs” - but some of those young people may not have actually been convicted of anything.

Is it a productive use of police time to have officers partaking in… anti-social behaviour? And might such intrusive policing be met with a violent response, endangering police officers and members of the public?

It used to be that politicians would call for more police on the beat, which is fair enough, but Smith’s speech was spun almost as a call for police brutality - which tells you how bad things are for New Labour…

The blurring of boundaries between suspect and convict may continue in the workplace if the bosses (and the New Labour) are able to get away with this:

A government-backed database of ‘workplace offenders’ will be launched later this month to combat the annual loss of half a billion pounds through staff theft and fraud.

The National Staff Dismissal Register will allow employers to share and access details of staff that have been dismissed or have left employment while under investigation for dishonest actions.

Such actions include theft, fraud, forgery, falsification of documents and causing damage to company property. An employee need not have a criminal conviction for their details to be added to the database.

Ah, my emphasis there - and emphasis that’s needed. It continues…

The register is an initiative by Action Against Business Crime, a partnership between the Home Office and the British Retail Consortium, and is allowable under the regulation of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Funny how that Data Protection Act always fails to protect your data…

Big names to have thrown their weight behind the register, include retailers Harrods, HMV, Mothercare and Selfridges and outsourcing agency Reed Managed Services.

Yes, it’s a blacklist ladies and gentlemen. As Ian explains,

A shop worker can be dismissed if the employer reasonably believes that the employee has had his/her hand in the till or had pinched some stock. The give away in the article is that no criminal conviction is needed to be on the register just the fact that the employee has been dismissed.

Just think of it. A Trade Union/ Health and Safety rep can be alone in a warehouse. He/she is later invited to a meeting to account for missing stock. This quickly moves to a disciplinary and on the basis of reasonable belief the worker is sacked. The balance of proof needed is very low. The explanation the worker gives is inadequate. The TU activist is out the door and even though there is no criminal conviction the worker ends up on this register.

By the way, JimJay has an excellent post on this subject which links to the National Staff Dismissal Register. As he rightly says,

Employers can take against employees for a whole number of reasons. Whilst some are legitimate there are a whole raft of others that are not. An employer may dislike someone because they refuse to work unpaid overtime, for being an effective trade unionist or because they are gay. An employer may resent someone who objects to being bullied and knows their legal rights, who holds different political views to them or who is simply better at their job than they are. [...]

If I’m caught stealing a tenner from the till I don’t deserve to keep my job, but I don’t deserve to be made permanently unemployed at the tax payers expense either. It isn’t helpful and there are few non-criminal charges where this would be anything like a fair and reasonable response.

All this scheme does is to give further leverage to employers to make unreasonable demands of their workforce. One ex-employer’s unsubstantiated whim should never be enough to blacken someone’s name or ruin their livelihood, yet this is precisely the aim of this site. This system isn’t simply open to abuse – it’s designed for it.

Some good news to finish. Karen’s struggle has reached parliament, where it seems there are Labour MPs supporting working people in their struggles:

More than 200 health workers, trade unionists, service users and MPs packed into a room in the House of Commons yesterday to show their support for Karen Reissmann, the Manchester psychiatric nurse and leading union member who was sacked for speaking out against cuts and privatisation.

The meeting, which was organised by Karen’s Unison union and chaired by her MP, Tony Lloyd, aimed to raise support for Early Day Motion 443, which calls for Karen’s reinstatement.

Addressing the meeting, Tony Lloyd praised Karen’s two decades of service to the NHS and said that trade unionists must be given greater protection. He said, “There is a real issue of principle at stake here. Health workers have a right and a duty to tell the truth about what happens at work.

“I have a long experience with the Manchester Mental Health Trust. If services there are not being provided properly, we need to know so that we can get improvements made.”

During the meeting health workers from Manchester and from across Britain spoke of their fear that Karen’s sacking is an attempt by management to silence trade unionists and opponents of cuts to services. Many of those attending were Karen’s workmates who had taken several weeks of strike action in an effort to see their colleague returned to work.

Parliamentarians – including Gerald Kaufman, Kelvin Hopkins, Katy Clark, John Leech, and Jeremy Corbyn – heard workers and carers describe the way mental health services are at breaking point in many parts of the country.

Unison vice-president Gerry Gallagher spoke of the tremendous wave of solidarity that the Manchester strikers had received and pledged the continuing support of the union, both for the continuing campaign and for Karen’s employment tribunal that is due to commence in the autumn.

“We must maintain the profile and the pressure in support of Karen,” he said.

From the floor John Mcloughlin from Tower Hamlets Unison talked about the way that emloyment law is stacked against trade unionists. To loud applause he pointed out that even when employment tribunals find against the employers, they cannot force them to reinstate staff who have been wrongly sacked.

Closing the speeches Karen Reissmann said, “This is not a dictatorship. This is Britain under a Labour government in 2008.

“Obviously I want my job back. But I also want protection for all trade unionists.”

The meeting urged everyone to contact their local MPs to ask them to sign the Early Day Motion, and continue to raise Karen’s case wherever possible.

Witch-hunting in Unison?

From The Socialist:

Unison witch-hunt: Defend the four, come to the lobby!
The four Unison members under attack from their own union leadership had their disciplinary hearings postponed to 14-16 May. Please support the lobby of the hearings (see below).

In June last year the Unison bureaucracy launched a disciplinary investigation into five union officers. This was for daring to print and publish a leaflet attacking the union leadership’s blocking of the union conference’s right to debate issues such as the funding of the Labour Party, the election of fulltime officials and control over strike action.

Despite the leaflet making no derogatory remarks about any individual member of the standing orders committee, the former president announced an investigation and then allowed and supported an unsubstantiated and unjustified attack of alleged racism without giving the branches the right to respond.

The leaflet used the well known Buddhist proverb and cartoon of ’see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’.

Four of the five under investigation - all Socialist Party members - are now facing the 14-16 May disciplinary hearings. These are - Glenn Kelly, NEC member and Bromley branch secretary, Onay Kasab, Greenwich branch secretary, Suzanne Muna, Housing Corporation branch secretary and Brian Debus, Hackney branch chair.

All four have a proud record of standing up for their members and leading struggles against their employers and are fully supported by their branches.

The union leadership should be putting their effort into leading a struggle for a decent wage rise and not witch-hunting hard working and respected branch officers.

This is not just an attack on these four. Other activists and branches who stand up to the leadership and challenge decisions have also been disciplined.

All supporters are urged to attend a lobby on 14 May from 8.30 am at the London Hilton Metropole Hotel, 225 Edgware Road, London W2 1JU. Please bring placards and banners.

You can also support the four and defend union democracy by:

Making a personal donation, cheques payable to ‘Stop the witch-hunt’. Please send to: ‘Defend the Four Campaign’ PO Box 858 London E11 1YG.

Signing the petition or letter to show your opposition. The appeal for funds, petition, and letter are all on the website:
www.stopthewitchhunt.org.uk

Comedian and activist Mark Thomas has humourously condemned the witch-hunt:

“I know Onay Kasab - Kas. I have had the privilege of working with him on the Ilisu Dam Campaign and on the issue of trade unionist deaths in Colombia. To accuse him of being racist is utter stupidity and madness. If using the image of three monkeys is racist then Gandhi is racist, Steve Bell and every working cartoonist for the past fifty years working in every continent are racists…those who brought this charge need to take a lie down in a quiet room, possibly with whale music playing and get a rest or they need to acknowledge their actions are motivated by other factors.

I know for a fact Kas is a dedicated and hard working union member who puts in remarkable time and energy. He exemplifies the very best traditions of trade unions, tireless, principled and open to debate, willing to fight for what he believes in but always ready to listen to other points of view.

Kas is happier to form an alliance than make an enemy over petty sectarian issues or spiteful office politics. If Kas is disciplined for having the audacity for asking for debate… a terrible crime I have to confess, after all what is trade unionism but abject obedience… Unison will be the loser, trade unionism will be the loser and the winners will be the Sun, the Mail, the spiteful hacks who will scream ‘political correctness gone mad’, the winners will the forces of conservatism (as David Blunkett said), the winners will be the right wing. Kas describes the actions against him of being a witch hunt… will there be an investigation into the use of the word ‘witch’ , after all this is a word that has gender bias inherently within it, witches were burnt for their gender and women have been accused of being witches in negative contexts for centuries… I demand justice, stop the use of the word ‘witch-hunt’!”

EU’s push for postal privatisation: no benefit to public

The front-page story from today’s Morning Star:

Posties sunk by EU market madness
(Tuesday 06 May 2008)

THE “liberalisation” of the British postal market had delivered no benefits to the public while jeopardising Royal Mail’s future, an official report warned on Tuesday.

Postal campaigners demanded an end to the creeping privatisation of the post office after the report said that opening up the market to competition had only benefited big business.

The government-commissioned review warned that the “substantial threat” to Royal Mail’s financial security endangered universal postal service to all British addresses.

The independent panel, which will produce its full report in the summer, concluded that the continuing “status quo is not tenable.”

The Royal Mail’s 350-year monopoly ended at the start of 2006, when private operators were allowed to collect and deliver mail.

The report found that large firms had seen “clear benefits from liberalisation” but there had been no significant benefits for consumers and smaller businesses, who “have no choice in provider and are paying higher stamp prices.”

Abolishing Sunday collections and the move to a single daily delivery were also more visible to consumers and small firms and were seen as a reduction in services.

Labour Representation Committee chairman John McDonnell MP said that the report had confirmed what the left had warned all along.

“We warned that liberalisation would only benefit big business and do nothing for the public or the dedicated workers of Royal Mail,” he said.

“In fact, by undermining Royal Mail’s revenue, liberalisation has meant cuts in services, post office closures and attacks on postal workers’ pay and pensions.

“In the local elections, the programme of post office closures around the country was a major issue,” said Mr McDonnell, challenging the government to “decide whose side it’s on - the public and the workforce or big business?”

Communication Workers Union (CWU) deputy general secretary Dave Ward agreed that the report identified problems long flagged by his union.

He argued: “Currently, the policy and funding of Royal Mail makes its future untenable and damages the service to customers, the terms and conditions of workers in the industry and the future of the universal service.”

“Royal Mail is preoccupied with managing decline rather than meeting customers’ requirements.”

Mr Ward revealed that the CWU had submitted a report to the review team, insisting: “The public wants an innovative, publicly owned postal service that provides customers with the service that they want.”

The CWU has been leading a Europe-wide campaign against postal privatisation in light of EU laws forcing member states to open their markets by 2011.

Trade Unions Against the EU Constitution spokesman Brian Denny condemned the “undemocratic” EU postal directives as a step closer to privatising all public services in Europe.

“EU directives are drawn up in secret by corporate lobbyists like the EU Roundtable of Industrialists which have enormous power in Brussels,” he said.

“These anti-democratic diktats allow big capital to sweat the assets and gives them access to huge subsidies paid for by the taxpayer.”

But ultra-Blairite Business Secretary John Hutton appeared to draw the opposite conclusion from the report, declaring that “I am now clear that, to be successful, the Royal Mail must undergo radical change.”

New Labour’s initiativitis crisis

Some examples of the ongoing crisis in the Labour party:

* The pay-as-you-throw bin tax - which was one of the issues that has been raised by voters in the local elections -has been scrapped and then unscrapped over the course of one day. The latest position is that the rubbish charges will not be rolled out across England until the results of pilot initiatives have been assessed…

* State television has aired footage of immigration raids filmed last month as evidence of a crackdown on employers breaking the law, but the workers were the ones in chains…

* “Defence” Secretary Des Browne has paid a visit to a rehabilitation centre for injured service-personnel - and announced an extra £24m to improve its facilities…

* The 10p tax rebels have been “assured” ahead of the Crewe & Nantwitch by-election which the Tories are attempting to portray has a referendum on the issue, but as yet there’s no detail on how the 5.3 million people who have had their income tax doubled are to be compensated. The Tories intend to use the by-election…

* Charles Clarke has called on Brown to stop using “dog-whistle” slogans, end post office closures, drop plans for 42 day internment (even though he supports it!), and hold a mini-budget to solve the 10p tax issue…

* Bosses have put the government on notice over tax changes, threatening to pull out of the UK - and this, before the disastrous local elections…

With all this in mind, the Morning Star asks, Are you listening?

GORDON Brown’s claim to be a listening and learning leader will be put under daily scrutiny for as long as he occupies 10 Downing Street.

And no time like the present, as he is faced with three hard-hitting reports that savage the Prime Minister’s obsession with allowing the private sector to leech on public services.

The lesson to draw is that encouraging the private sector in the railways, the postal services and the NHS is a recipe for disaster.

Opinion poll after opinion poll has confirmed public hostility to this parasitic practice, but Mr Brown has lost no opportunity to nail his colours to privatisation’s rickety mast over the past 11 years of Labour government.

He was the architect of the public-private partnership on the London Underground, which then deputy prime minister John Prescott insisted must be in place, with contracts signed, before London mayor Ken Livingstone could assume his transport responsibilities.

That particular scheme has not only milked the public purse of billions of pounds but has also ended in failure, with the bankruptcy of the Metronet consortium.

But, far from learning its lesson, the Brown government is insisting on a similar structure to oversee the public investment of £600 million in the necessary upgrade of the successfully run, publicly owned Tyne & Wear Metro system.

Mr Brown should listen to the complaints that his original scheme threw up and to the helpful advice of rail unions RMT and ASLEF and then acknowledge the necessity of keeping all Tyne & Wear Metro maintenance in-house.

While he is allowing that information to sink in, the PM should pay attention to the independent review of the postal services that was commissioned by the government itself.

To the shock of Mr Brown himself and free-market zealot Business Secretary John Hutton, the review confirms the assessment that most people in Britain had already made, advocated and seen ignored by the government.

This assessment is that postal services liberalisation, which was decreed in EU directive 97/67/EC in 1997, followed up by directive 2002/39/EC in 2002, has been a godsend for big business but has threatened the services that ordinary people have relied upon for generations.

The government must listen to the statements that there has been “no significant benefit” for consumers and small businesses, that there is a “substantial threat” to the universal postal service and that “the status quo is not tenable.”

There will be no prizes for guessing what advice Mr Hutton will proffer. His outlook is based on the uncanny logic that, if private-sector penetration has messed things up, the only way to fix them is further private-sector penetration.

If Mr Brown listens to postal workers and consumers, he will draw the opposite conclusion.

And he should do the same with the NHS, the jewel in the crown of the post-war Labour government, which still has a special place in the heart of Labour voters or erstwhile voters.

Health Emergency’s advice to replace NHS private finance initiatives with direct public procurement, to scrap plans to hand over GP services to US transnationals, to suspend A&E closures and to end the target culture should be heeded.

Well, Mr Brown, are you listening?

Legal blow to secret big business lobbying

From the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, bad news for Comrade Digby and his fat cat friends:

The Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) has lost an appeal to keep secret its meetings with business lobbying group the Confederation of British Industry. The case has dragged on for three years and originally concerned secret meetings between the CBI and BERR, which was formerly known as the Department of Trade and Industry.

Friends of the Earth asked for information about a series of meetings between Digby Jones, then boss of the CBI and Alan Johnson, DTI minister, as well as a corporate jolly for senior civil servants and CBI staff. Last year the Information Commissioner ordered the DTI to release most of the information requested.

But BERR, including Minister of State for Trade and Investment Digby Lord Jones of Birmingham - previously known as Digby Jones, boss of the CBI - appealed the decision to the Information Tribunal.

The Tribunal ruled yesterday that most of the information requested by FoE should indeed be released.

Phil Michaels, head of legal at Friends of the Earth, said: “The Tribunal has recognised the strong public interest in members of the public having access to lobbying records and has recognised that transparency is particularly important where a group like the CBI has privileged access to Government to push their views. It is crucial that the Government now changes its outmoded culture of secrecy.”

A spokesman for BERR said: “We believe that there are circumstances where it is in the public interest to protect the ‘thinking space’ necessary for good public policy formulation and to enable the Department to have a private discourse with external organisations.”

The judgement reads in part: “In our view, there is a strong public interest in understanding how lobbyists, particularly those given privileged access, are attempting to influence government so that other supporting or counterbalancing views can be put to government to help ministers and civil servants make best policy. Also there is a strong public interest in ensuring that there is not, and it is seen that there is not, any impropriety.”

BERR claimed that making such meetings public would have a chilling effect on meetings between it and lobby groups. The Tribunal said it viewed such possible effects with sceptism.

BERR has 28 days to comply with the ruling or to take an appeal to the High Court.

The full judgement is available as a 44 page pdf - follow the link below.

The victory is a big filip for the wider movement, led by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency, to force the UK government to introduce more transparency into its dealings with lobbying groups. ALT is calling for compulsory registration of lobby groups and a record of their meetings with politicians and civil servants.

LINKS
Alliance for Lobbying Transparency
The full decision from the Information Tribunal (PDF)