After the words, action

Gordon Brown made a nice speech – now he has to deliver. That was the message of UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis last night, as he spoke out in defence of vulnerable workers in British society, particularly women struggling for equal pay and migrant workers.“We’ve been waiting years for a leadership speech like that,” Mr Prentis told a fringe meeting on social justice at work. “But it’s easy to have a speech full of rhetoric and full of promises. We know from Warwick that they don’t always deliver. “The trade unions have to ensure that the government does deliver. The four unions working together are the best bulwark we’ve got.”Those four unions – UNISON, Unite, GMB and CWU – hosted the fringe to discuss social justice, the minimum wage, equal pay, migrant labour and social housing. “All the promises made today have been about individual rights,” said Mr Prentis. “But workers and their trade unions have to be able to negotiate collective rights. “Equal pay is not about individual women engaging no-win no-fee solicitors and getting back pay for themselves, while the structures never change. If we are to protect people and deal with equal pay properly, for all of our women members, we need class action and a collective approach.” Mr Prentis also talked passionately about the exploitation of migrant workers. And he said it was “absolutely disgusting” that the government was preventing trade unions from accessing the European Court of Employment Rights, “excluding ourselves from employment legislation, when every other worker in the EU has access to that protection.”Mr Prentis was joined by three other general secretaries: Paul Kenny of the GMB, Derek Simpson of Unite-Amicus and Tony Woodley of Unite-TGWU.

Strike ballot gets green light

UNISON is to ask its local government members outside Scotland whether they're prepared to take action over this year's low pay offer.The ballot was given the go ahead by the union's industrial action committee at a meeting today. Papers will be sent out in October.Earlier this month local government representatives rejected the employers' revised offer of 2.475% and a new minimum rate on scale point 4 of £6 an hour.The deal is below inflation, despite being a slight improvement on the original offer. The Retail Price Index figures were recorded at 4.1% in August.UNISON’s head of local government, Heather Wakefield, said: "I don't want to see local government pay falling further behind the rest of the public sector and private sector. Our members' morale is low. We urge employers to help resolve this situation by returning to talks." Council workers covered by the pay claim include care home and home care assistants, housing and environmental health officers, refuse collectors, librarians and school cooks. Almost two thirds of them, 75% of whom are women, earn £15,825 or under a year -- £8,000 less than the national average.

Trafalgar Square confirmed

for NHS demo
Trafalgar Square has been confirmed as the venue for the national demonstration to celebrate the NHS on 3 November.UNISON has issued a rallying call to NHS supporters throughout the UK to turn out in force and make the day one to remember."The aim is to celebrate the fact that, after almost 60 years, the NHS is still largely owned and run by the public sector -- and send a strong message to the government that we want to keep it that way," said UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis.He added: "We believe that this event will send a clear message to the new health secretary, Alan Johnson, and we hope that he will seize this golden opportunity to listen much more to the real experts in the NHS - the staff and patients."Demonstrators will march along the Embankment before rallying in Trafalgar Square for an afternoon of speeches and entertainment.The event is being staged in partnership with the NHS Together alliance of health trade unions.
Timetable
11am: Assemble at Temple Place, Victoria Embankment, London
Noon: March through Westminster (will take approx one hour)
1pm: Rally in Trafalgar Square
1.30-4.30pm: Speakers and entertainment in the Square

Prentis leads Congress call to arms

"What is so wrong with councils building council housing," general secretary Dave Prentis asked TUC delegates in Brighton this morning, as he moved a call for Congress to campaign on affordable housing."What is so wrong with councils renewing their housing stock? Councils doing what they do best: offering local communities the housing they want, the homes they need; respecting tenants' choice?"Congress agreed that there was nothing wrong in that at all, urging the general council to lead a campaign for:
affordable solutions to the housing shortage, including new homes for social rent;
expanding the options for real low-cost home ownership;
councils being able to bring existing houses up to standard and build new ones;
tenant and community involvement in housing programmes. The scale of the problem was revealed when Mr Prentis pointed out that nurses can afford to buy homes in just 1% of British towns, and just 22% of towns are affordable for teachers."If nurses and teachers can't afford it, how on earth will our cleaners, our teaching assistants, our porters, survive?" he asked."We have to do more to reverse the record where the national spend is the second lowest in the developed world."And Mr Prentis made no apology for linking the housing need with public-service workers' need for better pay."Access to decent homes means access to decent pay," he stated. "That is why it is so wrong that hard working public servants should be made to bear the brunt of government cost-cutting."And that is why UNISON, together with all other public-service unions, will stand up and fight for the right of our members to decent pay awards - not just this year, but next year and the year after that."Decent homes and decent pay: our members deserve nothing less and we will accept nothing less."

Pay offer rejected !
(05/09/07) Representatives of UNISON’s local government members yesterday voted to reject the employers’ revised offer of 2.475% and a new minimum rate on scale point 4 of £6 per hour. The NJC committee – UNISON members of the sector’s negotiating body, the national joint council – decided to ask the union’s local government service group executive and industrial action committee to authorise an industrial action ballot.A meeting of the industrial action committee will be arranged in the near future.