Modern day Britain.......

Whilst out walking the dog I had the chance to chat to some people of working age on Sunday. This is no scientific survey but what follows I would guess is not unusual. I have not used the proper names of anyone in this piece but these are true stories.

Dave is in his late 20s and works in a manufacturing factory. He has had the job for just over six months and earns a few pence over the minimum wage. There is no trade union at work and speaking to him indicates he knows very little about unions or their aims. He is keen to keep his job but has been told by other workers there that the company has let go a number of people for ‘undefined reasons’ even though there was ongoing work. Dave has a regular shift pattern but he can also be called into work at short notice - on some occasions within an hour - if there is anyone off work on an earlier shift. Dave says that the management at the factory are ‘not too bad and generally speak pretty well to you.’ He believes that the conditions he experiences are similar for many other people in West Yorkshire.

Sarah and Gary are both in their 20s and work at MacDonald’s. It is Sarah’s first job as she spent a long time - right through her teenage years - looking after her mother, who was unwell. Sarah now regrets not having taken up advice from an advice worker to claim a carer’s allowance for her caring of her mother, believing at the time that she shouldn’t claim for something ‘I would do anyway.’ She has only recently started work at MacDonalds and is enjoying it. Both young people said they were happy with working for the company and Gary had - to my surprise - heard of the McLibel case in which the company sued Dave Morris and Helen Steel in the late 90s for a leaflet they had distributed criticising the company.

Stan is a single man in his 40s who is employed at a factory via an agency. He has been there - on and off - for close to a year, but does not expect to ever been taken on full-time at the factory as it would appear there are workers with longer employment records who are not considered permanent. The wage is a couple of pence an hour over the minimum wage and although he has been in a union previously - and speaks highly of them - he feels pretty sure that if he began chatting to people about joining one that he would find himself out of work. He knows of many people who are in a similar situation to himself and he speaks critically of how the ‘bosses want everyone on zero hours contract.’ 

Barry is a skilled craftsman who some years ago was badly injured due to poor health and safety at his workplace. He did not receive any compensation after he was badly advised by what he feels was a ‘bent solicitor.’ He has been working on jobs right across the Midlands and northern England for the last 2-3 years and in particular for one firm. He was earning £130 a day plus he was paid his expenses. His employer in the last six months has had him training workers from Poland and now he finds himself out of work as the new workers are prepared to work for £84 a shift and from which they pay their own living expenses. Barry had tried to persuade the Polish workers not to agree to work for such a low wage, but he was unsuccessful. He understands why workers from Poland have come to England and displays no negative attitudes towards them blaming the employers and convinced they are ‘loving this recession in order to add more profit to their bank accounts.’ 

'Dirty tricks' on Fiji

Workers on the paradise island of Fiji are accusing hotel chains of taking advantage of its military dictatorship to cut wages and conditions.

The Fiji National Union of Hospitality Catering and Tourism Industries Employees (NUHCTIE) claims it is facing “obstacles to collective bargaining in the hotel industry, resulting in below poverty line wages for part-time workers increasingly employed on casual or temporary contracts”.

In August 2011, Daniel Urai, general secretary of NUHCTIE, was arrested and charged with unlawful assembly for holding a union meeting with hotel workers to prepare them for collective bargaining. Later that year he was arrested on returning from a meeting in Australia and charged with “inciting police violence by urging to overthrow the government”. An international campaign secured his release from prison but he is barred from foreign travel and has yet to go to court in either case.

History of coups

The union’s claims have been contested by Accor, which operates over 4,200 hotels worldwide and has four in Fiji.

Graeme Ham, director of human resources for the company in Fiji, said: “We are not aware of any issues restricting the freedom of employees in the tourism and hospitality industry. We support any Accor employee to exercise their right for union representation and all four hotels have registered collective agreements in place.”

NUHCTIE’s concerns have attracted support in India, with demonstrations outside the Fiji embassy in Delhi as part of a campaign aimed at restoring workers’ rights.

Fiji became independent from the UK in October 1970 but has a history of military coups. The last one seven years ago saw Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama take over and dissolve parliament.

In 2009, Bainimarama issued a decree outlawing collective agreements in the public sector and the police broke up several trade union meetings.

No legal redress

Urai said: “All union general secretaries are no longer able to bargain on behalf of public sector workers, who have not had a pay rise since the coup and have no legal redress.”

A new constitution was announced this month but Amnesty International says it does not respect “basic human rights, a free press, the rule of law and freedom of expression.”

Halifax hero Ralph Fox

Part of the Rebel Road series at Unite education 

Ralph Winston Fox 

There is a memorial bench for Ralph Fox (30-03-1900 to 27-12-1936) in his hometown of Halifax. It is located in the Piece Hall, around five minutes walk from the train station. The journalist, novelist and historian was killed fighting Franco’s forces in Spanish Civil War. He was a well-known member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and wrote biographies of the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin as well as Genghis Khan.

Fox studied modern languages at Oxford University, where he was drafted into an officers’ cadet regiment only for the First World War to end before he saw active service. On his return he became active in efforts to half the British blockade to overthrow (Lenin’s) Bolshevik government which had assumed power following the Russian Revolution of 1917. In 1920, Fox travelled to the Soviet Union and returned convinced of the need to overthrow capitalism. After successfully completing his studies he later began work for the CPGB and completed his first major book. He later worked for the Daily Worker as a columnist and wrote several books for the Communist press. 

In 1936, Fox joined the International Brigades in order to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War. These were military units composed of volunteers from different countries and who travelled to Spain to help defend the Second Spanish Republic between 1936 and 1939. The Brigades base was in Albacete and where Fox received training before being assigned to the XIV Brigade. He was sent to the front  during one of the first operations in which the Brigades were involved and died at the Battle of Lopera in the province of Jaen in late December 1936. 

For Unite members interested in finding out more about Ralph Fox see:- 

http://www.marxists.org/archive/jackson-ta/articles/1937/fox_writings.htm

Micky Fenn - trade unionist and anti-fascist

Part of the Rebel Road series at Unite education. It was a privilege to have met Micky Fenn. 

Micky Fenn (11-01-1938 – 28-7-1996)

 

Michael Fenn was one of the most influential trade union and anti-fascist activists of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. At an early age, Micky was heavily influenced by his experiences on National Service in the Middle East during the Suez crisis where Britain wrongly entered the war on Israel’s side. He remained an anti-imperialist for the rest of his life.

 

When Micky became a docker in 1965 he joined the ‘blue’ union, the National Association of Stevedores and Dockers (NASD), which, unlike the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), allowed Communists to be members. Consequently, Jack Dash -a Communist Party of Great Britain member - who was heavily vilified by the conservative press in the same manner as Arthur Scargill heavily influenced Micky.

 

Dash and Fenn were key participants in the founding of the unofficial National Port Shop Stewards movement that united NASD and TGWU dockers in 1967. The following year when dockers at Tilbury marched out in support of Enoch Powell’s inflammatory speech that demanded a ban on black immigration, Micky was one of the few shop stewards (workplace representative) to speak out. He later described it as “the worst day of my life.”

 

In 1972, Micky was one of the London dockers’ leaders that led industrial action when five shop stewards were imprisoned in July for refusing to obey a court order to stop picketing an East London container depot. The Edward Heath government totally misjudged what would happen next. Although many workers were on holiday, hundreds of thousands of workers took unofficial action and with many more set to join the dispute the Trades Union Congress announced a date for a General Strike. This never took place as within a week the five were released. Micky was particularly involved in picketing out Fleet Street, where most national newspapers were printed at the time.

 

Micky said afterwards: “It wasn’t really a dockers’ victory, but a victory for the trade union movement.”

 

The following year, Micky left the Communist Party and joined the International Socialists (which would later become the SWP) and where he became heavily involved in the Anti-Nazi League but soon began a series of clashes with the leadership over the need to physically confront the fascists. This was to eventually lead to him quitting the ANL and he later become involved with Anti-Fascist Action. Micky’s politics on this were described by him in a BBC Open Space programme in 1992 and which is available online atwww.blowe.org.uk/2010/10/mickey-fenn-on-fighting-fascists.html

 

In 1982 the NASD and TGWU merged and by which time Micky was working at Tilbury docks and where he was a leading steward. In 1989 when Thatcher abolished the National Docks Labour Scheme – designed to eliminate casual dock labour – Micky was one of many dockers who organised 11-days of unofficial strike action. He was devastated when he discovered that many ports had already surrendered and in the aftermath he was one of 152 Tilbury dockers sacked. Three years in industrial tribunals produced a successful outcome but rather than get their jobs back the men were awarded compensation. Micky did not work again, but remained active and was the chair of the London support group for the sacked Liverpool dockers in the mid 1990s. The plaque in the CASA club in Liverpool is therefore a fitting tribute to a great man who died at aged 58.

Row over 'toxic' wood dust

Taken from the current edition of the Big Issue in the North magazine, please buy a copy when you see a seller. 

Complaints by residents about the possible health impact of wood dust emissions from a recycling plant have been dismissed by the Environment Agency.

People living near Mossley in Greater Manchester fear dust generated by the processing site is affecting their health, but the agency is satisfied the plant is safe. The decision could make it easier for firms to gain permission to recycle waste wood into pellets for electricity generation at biomass power plants.

Supporters claim these plants divert material from going to landfill and reduce reliance on imported energy.

Under the Renewables Obligation Scheme, the government is committed to seeing 14 per cent of the UK’s total energy needs being generated from renewable sources by 2020. The current figure is close to three per cent but there are numerous new plants on the cards, including the Barton Renewable Energy Plant in Trafford, which gained planning consent this year.

Plevin, a major biomass processor, is currently building a £5 million plant on a 50-acre site in Hazelhead, South Yorkshire. This will predominantly produce wood chips for E.ON’s £120 million renewable energy plant near Sheffield.

Dust and noise

Hazelhead will process up to 150,000 tonnes of waste wood a year – 50,000 tonnes less than is processed at Plevin’s Mossley site. There, members of the Mossley Environmental Action Group say high levels of wood dust are damaging their health. Residents also complain of being kept awake by noise from delivery wagons.

The action group has filmed dust being released into the air when woodpiles that are stacked outside are grabbed and broken before being scooped up and taken inside for processing into wood pellets. Sixty people took part in a demonstration against the plant in 2011, and the results of a door-to-door health survey they conducted are currently being scientifically analysed. The group wants the Environment Agency to urgently conduct tests on the dust.

Carcinogenic agent

Resident Donna Liley moved to a house around 200 metres from the plant six years ago. She said: “Within a year I had horrendous headaches, constant nausea, malaise and a general feeling of being unwell. I have had six chest infections since living here, have a constant streaming nose and endure numerous migraines.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO) classifies wood dust as a Group 1 carcinogenic agent, which means it is directly involved in causing cancer. UK standards allow a particulate matter concentration of up to 25 micrograms per cubic metre but the WHO is concerned about the safety of levels over 10 micrograms.

The Environment Agency tested dust samples at Mossley between September 2011 and January 2012 and found they averaged 8.8 micrograms per cubic metre. No chemical tests have been carried out on the dust but Liley believes these are vital. She said: “[The Environment Agency] tested in the months when it is much wetter and we want them to conduct all year round tests. In addition, we want tests which include finding out what chemicals are in the dust as the recycled wood comes from former industrial plants and could include cadmium, lead, copper, zinc, chromium and arsenic.”

An Environment Agency spokesman said it had worked with partners including Public Health England and the NHS. “They are satisfied there have been no negative health effects in the local population as a result of the site’s activities. If any evidence to the contrary comes to light we will take appropriate action,” he said.

‘Victims’

He confirmed that no risk assessment had been needed for the plant and there is no requirement for activities to be undertaken inside the building.

Mossley Environmental Action Group is not convinced. Liley said: “We feel we are the victims of the government’s need to boost renewable energy and we worry that other people right across the UK will suffer the same fate in the near future.”

Asda takes action on payday loan vouchers

Asda takes action on payday loan vouchers

The Big Issue in the North’s inquiry into Asda gift vouchers being offered as an inducement to take out unsecured doorstep loans has led the supermarket giant to act to block the practice.

In July, Rotherham-based KDS Finance advertised vouchers from the supermarket giant when it handed out leaflets door to door and canvassed residents in parts of Halifax close to the Asda superstore in the West Yorkshire town.

The KDS representative offered £100 worth of vouchers and said: “Once you have got a payment record then you can get more cash or vouchers.”

KDS offers loans of up to £500 on its website, with payment of £45 a week for 16 weeks.

‘Unacceptable’

The annual percentage rate of interest averages 963.9 per cent. A company sales collector collects weekly repayments at people’s homes.

At the time an Asda spokesperson said: “This is absolutely unacceptable and not a practice that Asda supports. We’re investigating with our gift card supplier as a priority.”

However, following further inquiries last week a company spokesman admitted Asda had been unable to prevent the practice continuing but said: “We are currently working with our cards agency to stop this activity as soon as possible.”

Third party

Twenty-four hours later Asda informed The Big Issue in the North that the third party agency that supplied the cards had been informed not to provide any more to KDS.

Rural communities badly hit by bedroom tax

Rural communities face being broken up by the ‘bedroom tax.’ That’s the warning from Acre with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) and Community Housing Cymru (CHC) on the likely impact on the Government’s under-occupation charge for social housing tenants. They both fear that people will be forced to leave the villages where they grew up.

According to CHC, rural homelessness is increasing and in Ceredigion it doubled between 2009 and 2012. It is concerned that by cutting housing benefit for tenants with spare bedrooms there will be additional pressure on already hard pressed households in rural areas where options to move to smaller properties is more limited. Some of the people who are faced with losing between £12 and £24 a week and who are classified as under-occupying are disabled people who have had their homes adapted to suit their needs. 

A survey by ACRE, the umbrella body for England’s 38 rural community councils, found that the average cut in housing benefit is £14 a week. The organisation believe the government has failed to follow its own ‘rural proofing’ guidelines. These were issued on 16 July with the stated aim of ‘ensuring minister and civil servants take into account the impact of their policies on rural areas.’  

ACRE Chief Executive Janice Banks said: “The DWP forecast the policy could have a greater impact on rural communities…….yet it went ahead with a blanket approach which will inevitably force rural tenants out of the villages where they have lived all their lives.” ACRE has backed the call by the Commons Committee for Rural Affairs to exclude settlements of fewer than 3,000 people from the charge.