Friday 30 September 2011

Join the Kenton School Demonstration


Following 3 days of industrial action ATL, NASUWT and NUT are organising a Community Demonstration to Save Kenton School turning into an Academy. The Governing Body of Kenton School have consulted of their intention to convert into an Academy and the staff, parents and local community are opposed to it. The Governors are meeting at the school next Tuesday, 4 October 2011 to make the decision. The demonstration will start at 4pm, so bring your banners and help support the trade unions, parents and local people stop their school changing to an Academy.

http://www.metroradio.co.uk/news/local/strikes-at-kenton-school/
Save Our Schools flyer

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Manchester for the Alternative


This year the Conservative Party are having their annual conference in Manchester and the TUC is organising a march and rally to show opposition to the Coalition Government’s disastrous policies of pay freezes, cuts and attacks on public services that are producing rising unemployment, cuts in living standards and stagnation. The march will also show support for the Alternative. We need jobs, growth and justice for a sustainable future and this event will send that message loud and clear

UNISON Northumberland County Branch in conjunction with the Public Services Alliance, along with Newcastle City Branch of UNISON, is organising a coach to attend the march, leaving on the morning of the 2nd October from County Hall and picking up Newcastle. Final details will be confirmed nearer the date. If you wish to reserve a seat on the coach then please either email the office – unison@northumberland.gov.uk or call 01670 533016/533779.

A Better Way: Forum for the alternative


The Tory-led government claim there is no choice but to cut public spending severely and quickly – we say there is an alternative.  To find out more register to attend ‘A Bettter Way: Forum for the alternative’ which takes place in Newcastle from 11th to the 13th November (for full details see attached or download at http://www.tuc.org.uk/tuc/regions_info_northern.cfm)

Programme in brief...

Friday 11th November – 6pm
Rally for the Alternative
Speakers: Bernadette Segol, ETUC, Frances O’Grady, TUC, Chris Baugh, PCS, James Imhoof, Unison

Saturday 12th November
9.30am ‘The Globalisation of Austerity’
Speakers: Bernadette Segol, ETUC, David Begg, ICTU, Berenice Celeyte, NOMDESC

1.30pm ‘The unfair impact of the cuts’
Speakers: Neil Coyle, the Disability Alliance, Jo Curry, VONNE, Irene Mbwanda, Unison

3.30pm ‘An alternative philosophy’
Speakers: Anni Podimata, MEP/PES, Chris Baugh, PCS, Tony Kearns, CWU

7.30pm ‘The Kenny Bell Memorial Lecture’
As a tribute to the work Kenny did campaigning for trade union solidarity, the inaugural lecture will focus on continuing our efforts for international solidarity, promote and organise support for trade unions and recognise that trade unionism is a global concern.  If you wish to attend only this part of the weekend’s agenda, please contact Melanie on 0191 232 3175, mlowden@tuc.org.uk

Sunday 13th November
‘Planning for Action’ Workshop and discussion.

Monday 26 September 2011

Permission granted for New Hospital Build


Northumberland County Council has today published on its website the report for the planning and environment committee on Tuesday, October 4. This includes the specialist emergency care hospital. This can be found at:
Jim Mackey, chief executive of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are encouraged by the planning officer’s recommendation to grant planning permission for the specialist emergency care hospital. This is a significant step forward however we recognise that further work will be required before development can start. 
“The state-of-the-art hospital is part of our £200million investment to bring world-class care to our communities and, if approved, will save lives and dramatically improve care for patients in Northumberland and North Tyneside.
“It will be among the first in the UK to have specialist A & E consultants on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week and specialists from all the main clinical conditions will be on duty during the day and evening and on-call during the night.
“Alongside the health benefits, the hospital represents an investment of £2.7m per month through the construction period employing, across the lifetime of the build, around 1,000 people.
“Throughout the process of planning the specialist emergency care hospital we have involved the public and engaged with the local community and amended the scheme, where possible, to address concerns.

“The site has been identified following rigorous analysis which confirmed there are no alternative sites which are suitable, available or viable.”

Friday 23 September 2011

Support Remploy


Remploy Ltd is a government owned company in the United Kingdom which provides employment and employment placement services for disabled people. It was established in 1945 under the terms of the 1944 Disabled Persons (Employment) Act, and opened its first factory in 1946. Over the following decades it established a network of factories across the UK making a wide variety of products, and in the late 20th century it moved into service businesses.
Remploy has undergone a major modernisation, and is now also a provider of employment services for disabled people and others with barriers to employment. In 2009/10 Remploy placed over 10,500 people into jobs across a range of sectors. In 2009 Remploy was selected as a prime and sub contractor delivering the Government's Flexible New Deal Contract, which aims to help the long term unemployed back into work. In its quest to be a major welfare to work provider, delivering a range of contracts and employment programme, Remploy aims to place at least 38,000 people a year into mainstream jobs by 2012.


Factories across the North East are under threat of closure as hundreds of Remploy workers from the North East are being excluded from consultation meetings as all 54 Remploy factories are threatened with closure if Government stops public funding in April 2013

All Remploy workers want to attend the consultation meetings set up by DWP to take place between 12th to 21st September at six locations. The aim of these meetings is to consult Remploy workers on Government proposals to end public finding for Remploy factories in April 2013 and on the privatisation of employment services provided by Remploy. 

According to the GMB union the DWP and Government are trying to prevent Remploy disabled workers from attending these consultation meetings. 

This government promised that all the employees with the company would be fully consulted about their future in Remploy. We now find a small number of employees from the 21 factories in North West, Yorkshire and the North East have been unilaterally selected by the DWP to be consulted. Thousands of Remploy employees are being excluded from this consultation and not a single Trade Union Official has been invited.

The factories have a successful track record going back to 1946 till the public authorities stopped loading them with work in 1990s due to then EU directive. The EU rules have been changed and the factories can be successful again when they are fully loaded. Making uniforms for the armed forces, emergency services and medical staff, and supplying schools would more than keep them busy.

Members of the public can help if they are involved with any of these bodies or can lobby MPs, councillors and others to get them to place work with Remploy. You can also sign the petition below by clicking on the link.


Labour group in call to support Ashington Remploy factory - Ashington News - Ashington - Northumberland

The Robin Hood Tax Campaign — Public

The Robin Hood Tax Campaign — Public

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Hardest Hit - Regional Rally

Please click on the link, flyer advertising the 'Hardest Hit' event which is taking place on Saturday 22nd October 2011 in Newcastle.

The Hardest Hit coalition is over 30 different campaigning disability charities along with the TUC who are highlighting how disabled people are the hardest hit in terms of changes to benefits and loss of services.

We want to make this the biggest disability demonstration the North East has ever held and trade union members and friends can help achieve this. Please share this with all your contacts. For more information contact:

Henri Murison, RNIB Regional Campaigns Officer, RNIB c/o Action for Blind People, Parkside House, Elton Street East, Wallsend, NE28 8QU. 0191 234 5409/07762 175039 henri.murison@rnib.org.uk

Friday 16 September 2011

TUC Congress 2011

I was at Congress House this week as part of the UNISON delegation. This was the second time I have been a delegate at TUC Congress as I attended 2 years ago at Liverpool this time I was an NEC delegate.

I arrived in London on the Sunday the day before conference started and went straight to our pre-meeting. As I was not scheduled to speak I thought I was just going to absorb the conference and listen to the debates but on arrival Jane Carolan who is Chair of Policy, asked me to speak on Composite 4, An Alternative Economic Strategy needless to say I took this challenge on and you can read my speech as published on John Gray's Labour blog if you click on this link.

This years Congress was the first to be held at Congress House, under the new rules adopted last year. The conference lasted three days, instead of four, and delegation sizes were reduced. Despite the changes to conference we received a lot of press coverage and kept a high profile in the media.

To me the venue was to small and you felt like you were tripping over the press at times.

The conference opened with Brendan Barber. Below is a brief account of his speech.
He started by giving us a brief history of Congress House and how the building was bought as a home for the TUC for £25,000 during the Second World War on a 999 year lease. He then went onto condemn the recent riots and pointed out the vast majority of victims were frightened ordinary people in working class communities. He also thought that the cuts were not to blame for the riots but said it was obvious that they will make the underlying causes worse. The government says nothing about the morale disintegration of the rich. The super tax breaks that steal from hospitals and schools.

The cuts are “hurting” but are not “working”. In America the President has a new initiative to promote growth but is being opposed by the republicans. It is about time that the Tea Party crazies woke up and smelt the coffee. Growth is the answer to the deficit. The government is putting the long term pension security of public sector workers at risk for the short term cut in the deficit. Brendan called for affiliates to help form a mass movement for an alternative that no government cam ignore and build on the diversity of anti-cuts campaign.

On the second day Ed Milliband was our guest speaker and no doubt you heard his speech or least part of it. It really didn't come to any surprise the things he said and all I could think was I've heard it all before about how the link was so important.

The one thing I was curious to know was his relationship with our General Secretary, Dave Prentis as it seemed as though he wasn't aware of how the talks around pensions were progressing. But now I know that only a week before Dave and Ed had a meeting, so he must of been well briefed of our position and how un-productive the talks with the government have been.

Then he also stated that he favoured academies and there was some good examples of working academies in his constituency, which went down like a lead balloon.

Commenting on Labour leader Ed Miliband's speech to the TUC, Dave Prentis, General Secretary, said:

"The Labour leader delivered a measured, serious speech to Congress today, a tone that reflects the difficult times facing our members - job and service cuts, pay freezes and the Coalition's attack on their pensions.

"It was Labour that renegotiated public service pensions back in 2008 to ensure that they remain fair and sustainable - I would have expected Ed Miliband to give his full backing to our fight for a decent pensions deal.

"We want to negotiate - I have always said that strike action is a last resort. And Ed is right to say that talks have to be meaningful - sadly the progress of the pensions talks has been glacial.

"Ed's speech hit some of the right buttons - fairness for the workforce, the right to join a union and he paid tribute to the daily, unrecognised work of trade unions.

"He had harsh words for the bankers whose greed caused this recession. It is deeply unfair for the Government to try to make public service workers pay the price for their folly."

On our final day we had our very own Norma Stephenson speak as the Chair of Labour's NEC and the challenges she has faced as a woman in politics.

UNISON intervened 13 times in Congress and as usual the standards were high but no more than we expect. Finally Dave Prentis made an excellent speech to Congress and voted unanimously to support Composite 5 - Pensions. UNISON General Secretary proposed the composite and in his speech announced that UNISON (and the other public sector unions) will be writing to over 9000 employer’s that they will be balloting for strike action over pensions. Over one million UNISON members could be called out.

Dave reminded everyone that the average pension for women workers in Local Government is only £59 per week. The 57% increase in pensions is a tax on public service workers who have saved for their future. Not a penny of these rises is going to the schemes but to the treasury to pay for the deficit created by the failure of the banking system. Enough is enough. The unions will still negotiate anyplace, anytime and anywhere but it is now the time to take our stand. It will be hard and we will be attacked and vilified. Now is not the time for gesture politics or hollow rhetoric. We are determined, we are united – fighting for what is right, fighting for our members: Hands off our pensions!'."

There was a standing ovation for Dave when he finished.