Unscrupulous Employers

[Mitch]

ISS - www.issworld.com
www.labournet.de/solidaritaet/hongkong.html

See also: 'Helots No More: A Case Study of the Justice for Janitors Campaign in Los Angeles', Waldinger et al, in "Organizing to Win" (1998) (eds) Bronfenbrenner et al, Cornell University Press.

What joy, campers, imagine my delight this morning when my post arrived and what should I find no less but an invitation from ISS, who employ me for two evening cleaning jobs, to join their Employee Share Programme 2004 - price per share £9.14.

Great, I thought, I now have the opportunity not only to be screwed by this company having received no information on union membership, but I'm now being invited to invest in their short-term profit making scenario, - this type of bonus system is common now in share-owner capitalism, as opposed to stakeholder capitalism. If I buy shares I get a bonus dependent on the performance of the group, not linked to my own good work (I'm very adept at cleaning toilets you know!!)

Yes, by investing in their shares I can now contribute this company's notorious record for paying their workers the lowest wages, (note the Justice for Janitors Campaign of the early 1990s where immigrant workers in Los Angeles were being screwed by this company - they were successful in their campaign when a number of things came into play including a strong grassroots/worker led campaign, many activists and community groups becoming involved, rigorous research into how to hit multinationals where it hurts, plus importantly one union realising they were in crisis and that they had to change).

ISS is a Danish multinational, and is making great inroads in the UK, particularly picking up catering contracts in the NHS. Their approach is a resistance to Unions, employment practices and policy in chaos, little if any training of staff and extremely high staff turnover -not to mention working cultures of gossip and bullying. They also have all the cleaning contracts for the Royal Bank of Scotland & the NatWest. Their profits are gleaned directly from cutting costs by paying their workers low, and with cleaning many of these workers are women - and the State/NHS/Local Government is complicit in this by pushing contracts their way because they are cheap - Best Value - the current central government approach in the public sector which preaches partnership and a balance between quality and cost is a total farse - Best Value means cost cutting any way any how!!

Where are the Unions? I've sent several emails to UNIFI asking for information on joining, explaining that I clean banks and that I would like to join UNIFI. I've had no response? Too busy selling credit cards and insurance! UNIFI's slogan is 'Changing Minds, Changing Work', (UNIFI are currently merging with Amicus - is this a sign of a union in crisis I wonder??) Jolly good, but the nature of work is changing in the UK. There is an increasing propensity towards casual workforces on short-term contracts (in Burnley the temping agencies are busy and expanding), and workers being employed by contractors. New Labour policies have quickened the pace on this. Change is a good word, and unions need to do it. There is a direct link between casual workers and the denigration of their rights, and full-time employees - soon the latter's rights will be denigrated as well.

Needless to say, I will not be purchasing shares from ISS, and suspect that as I speak out more about this abysmal company I will get sacked, despite being the best toilet cleaner in the North West! Ah well, I'm sure UNIFI will give us a hand.

More soon on ISS, and a colleague's recent experience in three disciplinary hearings with them whilst working in the catering department of a hospital. Reads like a comedy!!!

It's good to make connections with other ISS workers across the country, as with most unscrupulous employers they will try to isolate us from each other! The nature of the work we do makes that easier for them. Has anyone else out there got any stories on ISS?

[michele cryer]

Presenting...........




Mitch.....The Best Toilet Cleaner In The North West.....

[Mitch]

Titter titter - yes I think that's a stronge resemblance to meself!

I clean all the desks with the toilet cloth as well you know, except one woman's desk which has lots of notes on it from her daughter saying she is the best mum in the world. ;D

All the employees seem to know that the banks are stringing them along, as they write pisstake messages under all the PR speel that comes from head office.

Christmas is always a good time, when they have a few drinks and start sticking chipendale bodies on pictures of cardboard cutout male managers and so forth.

Got any tales of GUS in Burnley Michele - bet there's some corkers there! They will close it soon - more Burnley redundancies - as they are moving all their call centres/business over to India.

[bryan]

Beating the Black-List:
Winning with the Manchester Electricians
by Brian Bamford, Editor of Northern Voices/Manchester Social Forum.
.
LAST JULY, a handful of Manchester
electricians bashed the black-list in the
Manchester building trade and scored another blow against sweetheart deals on local sites.
This is our interpretation of the decision of the Manchester Employment Tribunal in the case of the Locked-out Manchester electricians: Mr S. Acheson & others v DAF Electrical Contractors Ltd.
The outcome of the 12 month bitter dispute was that the Industrial Tribunal found that four of the electricians had been falsely made
redundant and that Steve Acheson, Tony Jones, Sean Keaveney and Graham Bowker, had been ‘unfairly dismissed’ by DAF ‘on grounds
related to their union membership’.
The finger of justice now points not only at the guilty subcontractor DAF in the Dock; but also at the main company Carillion—which took on the original contract from Manchester City Council before subcontracting it to DAF, and at Richard Leese, Labour leader of
Manchester City Council, who throughout the dispute refused to intervene. Yet above all the trade union Amicus turned out to be a shabby little shocker, when one of its officers tried to enforce the blacklisting of T&G shop steward Steve Acheson.
Bosses ‘concocted their evidence’

This was a case where the Tribunal banged the boss’s heads. The Tribunal considered that the employer’s ‘evidence was unreliable in respect of’ each of their claims:
‘that there was a redundancy situation in early May (2003)’; that they ‘did not know that the four (to be made redundant) were Transport & General Workers Union members and (that their) work was unsatisfactory.’
The Tribunal ‘decided that the (company) witnesses had attempted to conceal their knowledge of (their worker’s) Transport & General Workers Union membership.’ The Tribunal found ‘that attempt was wholly unconvincing and frankly incredible.’ It led the Tribunal ‘to conclude that it was designed to disguise the true picture.’
Of Mr David Fahey, the boss of DAF Elect-rical Ltd, the Tribunal said: His ‘evidence was unreliable because he sought to postdate the time he became aware of the (men’s) Transport & General .

Sue Machins’ Sexy Cross-examination!

Seldom have I seen such a sexy crossexamination of witnesses as that of Ms Sue
Machins’ for the locked-out Manchester
electricians. She was like Charles Dickens’ Madam Defage knitting while the guillotine fell on the Fahey clan of sub-contracting bosses.
The Fahey family from Cheltenham, which runs DAF Electrical Contractors, were left gasping in the witness box. The plumy voice of the boisterous blond Madam Machin was a joy to listen to on a June afternoon in the hot
Tribunal room, full of local electricians, as she sprung trap after trap for each of the Fahey brothers.
Ms Machin, I understand, was formerly in Chambers in London, but has now moved back home to a Manchester Chambers, where she is regarded as a bit of a radical bobby dazzler. Certainly she charmed us all with her silver tongue like ‘one of the lads’.
She threw questions with the deadly accuracy of a dart thrower in a Tap-Room . She had the Fahey brothers leaping around like a crowd of Hibernian Calibans as if tickled ‘With a
raven’s feather from an unwholesome fen’, until they were all tied-up in knots and fit for nowt.
She flew at them like Prospero’s Ariel and,
‘Before you could say, Come and Go,
And breathe twice; and cry So, so;
Each one, tripping on his toe…’

‘AMICUS is our Union!’ cried Michael Fahey from the witness’ box. This had
Ms Machin on her feet: ‘Your Union?’ - the employer’s Union?
‘Yes, we pay the union dues for the men’, replied Fahey. But this, it seems, is not a straight forward check-off payment of union dues; it’s more like a backhander paid by the bosses to the union, whether the men agree to it or not!
In part AMICUS is looking increasingly like a union that has been bought and sold by the bosses in the building trade. Sweetheart Deals and a payoff by the bosses to the AMICUS
union is creating an unsavoury situation on the building sites. In the case of the locked-out Manchester electricians it seems Roger
Furnage, a now pensioned-off AMICUS official, tried to enforce the black-list against Steve Acheson on the One Manchester Piccadilly site.
As Ms Machin submitted for the electricians: ‘It was more likely than not that Mr Furnage (AMICUS official) told (Dave Fahey, DAF) that Mr Acheson, a well known “troublemaker” and TGWU member, was on site. On 9, May 2003 David Fahey had decided that it was an appropriate time to dismiss some TGWU members.’
How can justice be done when the union and the boss are up each other’s backside? How can justice be done when a City Council, which dishes out the contracts to companies like Carillion/DAF, says one thing and does
another? Richard Leese, Manchester City Council Labour Leader, says he is keen on safety at work and wants to protect local
labour, but then gives the bosses a free hand to build his ‘World Class City’.

DAF: A company led by Calibans

In the witness box Dave Fahey said he had told Carillion, that in future his firm was going to monitor who it employed more carefully. Blessed be the Blacklist! He said he had only found out late in the day when the Agencies had told him ‘that Steve Acheson specialised in taking employers to the Industrial Tribunal.’
The truth is the Caliban bosses of DAF were incompetent. The Tribunal was ‘surprised by the lack of any documentary evidence to support the (bosses) contention that their was any problem with their (workers’) work output.’ The Tribunal accepted that the steward—Mr Acheson’s—‘evidence...was more credible than that of the (employers’) witnesses.’ But
Carillion was angry at the bad publicity from the Manchester dispute at One Piccadilly
Gardens and so, the Tribunal found: DAF ‘had come under pressure from the main contractor (Crown House/Carillion).’ The Tribunal found: ‘They were seeking assurance that the embarrassing episode would end quickly and there would be no reoccurrence.’

Or as Caliban says:
‘How does thy honour?
Let me lick thy shoe...and I thy Caliban,
For I thy foot-licker.’

And so, Dave Fahey’s Caliban licks Carillion’s boot before him; and behind Carillion, awaiting his turn, stands Richard Leese and Manchester City Council; and behind the City Council stands the union AMICUS.
So it was on May 21st, 2003 Dave Fahey wrote to ‘Crown House (Electrical) and Carillion…(that) as a consequence of the action on site we are
looking at ways of tightening our selection procedure and can confirm that, with immediate effect, any potential employee will be thoroughly screened before any offer of employment is made.’
The case of Mr S.Acheson & others v DAF Electrical Contractors Ltd is embarrassing for the local building site bosses, the City Council and AMICUS, because it has laid bare aspects of the way they operate which is not very complimentary.
North West Cowboy

[bryan]

Another report from the North West building site bulletin: NORTH WEST COWBOY.

How Blackburn Council get ripped-off by Agencies on PFI

ON THE NEW Private Finance Initiative (PFI) Hospital in Blackburn, building workers have again found themselves sacked over their struggle to uphold Health & Safety legislation. At the same time a ‘grubby-subbie’ contractor pulls the wool over Blackburn Council’s eyes!

As this project is one of the first prestigious PFI contracts it seems Blackburn Council have prohibited the use of what have been called ‘parasitical employment agencies’ and the rogue cowboy sub-contractors.

Yet one subbie doing the fire alarms called
PROTEC, are employing workers via the Rullion Agency. Their workers have been told that ‘if anyone asks you, tell them you are working directly for PROTEC!’

These lads are then being charged £400 to go on a Scaffolding Building course’ and a ‘Scissor Lift course’. If they refuse to pay; they get the sack. These workers are not refusing to do Safety Courses, but object to having to pay for it.

Looks like another Tribunal is on the way. But when will Blackburn Town Hall wake up and kick this Agency of the site. What’s Haden Young doing sub-letting the electrical work out to a rogue
employer?

The lads at Blackburn hospital should know if this is a PFI job then the site should be covered by the Major Projects Agreement—which gives workers £2.40 an hour on top as a 2nd tier payment. Has the new AMICUS official for the North West done a deal with his partner: the employer, to sub-let the work at his members’ expense?

Will the largest PFI project outside London, at the Manchester Royal Infirmary go the same way or will Manchester Council have the back- bone to stop it?


North West Cowboy: GOT A COMPLAINT ABOUT YOUR SITE RING THE COWBOYS ON: 07960 661526

[michele cryer]

Wow! Bryan that's terrible news from Blackburn...is there any sort of direct action that we could take to try to help these workers?

[bryan]

Jim, Iain and Mitch each have a copy of the North West cowboy No.1. with the original report of the Blackburn PFI Hospital job. The Manchester electricians rang me tonight to ask if Tameside TUC could contact Blackburn TUC TO TRY TO GET SOMETHING DONE ABOUT IT. I'll talk to the local sparks tomorrow to see if they can suggest anything you can do. These are the kind on things we should be exposing together. Thanks for your offer.

[michele cryer]

You're welcome Bryan...btw..if you're Bryan the member, and you are having probs with your password, logging onto the site, please send me an email with your chosen password and I will alter your profile so that it is accepted again...please ensure that you are typing in your user name exactly as it appears in your profile too!!

[bryan]

The electricians came to the Tam TUC on Tue:
understand there will be some action in Blackburn om Friday Nov. 19th, over the employment of non-unionised Agency labour on the PFI Hospital site. Two carloads are planing to go up. Will send more details when I get them.

The thing is the local council may be being two-faced about this: saying they want an above board, cards-in, union job. No dodgy cheap labour sub-contract scams. But closing their eyes to what is really going on. That's what happened at Piccadilly in Manchester, and it might happen again when the Manchester PFI Hospital building really gets going.

Jobs done on the cheap. So despite of all the big talk about public health, fluoridisation of drinking water, smoking in pubic places etc. The scandals still continue because they seem to be built into the system of cheap-jack tendering. One story just breaking in Salford is of a Swinton Labour Councillor, who has just died after contracting a multi-resistant bug on the operating table at Hope Hospital. That's what comes of tendering out jobs to get the cheapest.

[michele cryer]

My God! It gets worse doesn't it...thank you for that update Bryan...please do let us know more details about the 19th November when you receive them...

[Mitch]

Greetings Lone Ranger and your black briefcase Tonto,

Here's an extract from a piece I wrote a few years ago on the changing ethos in local government - it was too tame this piece back then but I didn't at that stage perceive the extent that local government, instigated by policy from a corrupt central state, would go to cut costs & corners, contract out work and compromise on health and safety.

Seems Blackburn with Darwen have been taking lessons from that idiot Richard Lees (resident chief exec. at Manchester City Council). It's important I think to note that Manchester City Council and Blackburn with Darwen have been two of the larger councils who have really got into bed with central 'new labour' state policy. They have won many awards, received much funding to build new buildings here and there, but this is off the back of low paid, highly stressed public sector workers. A well thought out campaign would seek to make links with such workers who are in the current climate desperately trying to maintain their commitment to care in the community.

We should be under no illusions now that local governments are behaving like private businesses. The implications for employees are obvious in your campaigns - low pay, abysmal working conditions, casual work, instability and no employment rights regarding issues like unfair dismissal, sick pay, and holiday pay. The effects of the increasing push towards casual work has effects on organising, making it difficult to organise - isolating people - is not being addressed head on by unions, although I am heartened by these campaign attacks. However, I'd suggest that a strong anti-casualisation union is needed, with welcomed input from the radical edge of unions. This beast is big and growing, and we must think long-term how all casual workers can come together and support each other to make real inroads of attack.

I'd also suggest that there are many employees within local government who are much disgruntled by the chain of events - gaining their support and action would make sense. For example, there have been campaigns recently in Manchester City Council against the 'Lees way' by employees who have confronted policy in Best Value and have faced dismissal and edging out as a result.

The historical background of corporate management - leading to what we currently have with increasing casualisation stretches right back to the 1970s (before Thatcher) under a Labour government. The complicity of a corrupt state needs more highlighting in these campaigns I think.

I'll post a description of Best Value policy in another section.

adieu Mitch

(From 'Best Value in Local Government'. Effects and implications for Employess/2001)

Section One:

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND THE CHANGING ETHOS

New Labour’s current Modernising Agenda for the public sector does not come out of a vacuum, but rather a political-economic shift which has been occurring globally at a varied rate, but most notably in the UK and the US. Clarke and Newman (1997) describe this as a New Managerialist settlement that is framing political perspectives on the relationship between citizen and state. They set this within a context of a changed landscape initiated by the political and economic features of the New Right and suggest that the political ‘spectrum’ has shifted rightwards. They emphasize that in the UK there is increasing political agreement for a ‘managerially based process of modernization of state institutions’. The philosophy is that improved management will solve problems, and the tension between dwindling resources and rising demand is now a problem for managers not government (Ibid, 1997). Targets, however, emanate from the centre – “We will decentralize power within a clear framework of national standards to increase the quality and diversity of public services and meet the challenge of rising expectations” (Labour Government Manifesto, 2001, p.17). This statement in itself seems contradictory.

The emphasis on managerialism runs through previous initiatives and reports – the Financial Management Initiative (May 1982), reports from the Efficiency Unit such as ‘Improving Management in Government: the Next Steps (Jenkins, 1988) Ideas contained in these were directly imported from the private sector. (see Cutler & Waine, 1997) Autonomous management is the message, but the tools such as performance indicators and general guidance for FMI, the Citizen’s Charter and now ‘Best Value’ are devised by Civil Servants at the centre, and the audit inspections are undertaken by the government affiliated Audit Commission. Thus, organizational design has become politicized (Clarke & Newman, 1997) and tensions exist between different parties involved in the process. Managerial practices, whatever the latest fashion may be, have consistently infiltrated the public sector to shift the focus from a sense of public purpose to a narrow focus on core business short-termist targets (Ibid, 1997). Performance indicators are increasingly dictated from the centre leading to league tables and benchmarking primarily against upper quartile performers, rather than being set locally within unique social and economic contexts. The promise from central government for high performance is increased funding and autonomy. Local authorities increasingly must ‘compete’ for their funding and accountability to central government has intensified. Performance Management, business planning and the orchestration of corporate strategy and commitment to elicit culture change have been the rising trends (Ibid, 1997). This performance management framework may be encouraging a concentration on the process rather than outcomes, and in effect a short-termist annual focus on achieving upper quartile targets which may be unrealistic in different social and economic contexts.

(continue to section two)

[Mitch]

(section two - continued)

New Public Management (NPM) is often defined in terms of its effects, rather than in relation to the changing approach of the state. Although valid, this omits the consideration mentioned above that choices are made with ideological underpinnings. Prior to 1979 Blyton & Turnball (1998) assert that the preference in the UK was for industrial self-government, rather than statutory regulation or state intervention. Broadly this is true in the public sector as well, but capping of local government budgets was already in full force prior to 1979, greeted in response by public sector workers with the Winter of Discontent and strike action in 1978/79. As discussed previously, it is crucial to consider the changing role of the state in connection with employee relations in the public sector (ibid, 1998). The changing role of the state after 1979 has been mimicked by the changing role of management in the public sector. Under Thatcher post 1979 the agenda changed, underpinned by a different ‘New Right’ ideology. The consensus on full employment was rejected, collectivism had to be eroded and the labour market deregulated. The agenda for the public sector was less state involvement to be achieved through privatization, devolved financial budgets and commercialism, but deregulation required a strong centralized state and a highly interventionist one, particularly where cash limits were concerned. (Ibid, 1998) Market forces were promoted, but consecutive Conservative governments remained highly interventionist towards the public sector. Supported by a Right Wing press, Conservative governments effectively projected an image of the public sector as bureaucratic, inefficient, ineffective, inflexible, highly unionised and irresponsive to customer needs. With the establishment of ‘public bad, private good’, the scene was then set to crudely import private sector management practice swiftly into those areas of the public sector which were not open to overt privatization. The Civil Service and the NHS, being closest to central government were the first testing grounds.

A key concern is to establish the effects of recent change in the public sector on employees, therefore a more specific definition of NPM is needed. Three definitions of NPM are offered by Corby & White (1999), and provide a useful framework for discussions on New Public Management. They suggest that NPM is:
· A summary of an ideological tradition of managerialism or neo-Taylorism, where the emphasis in this definition is on increasing measuring tools and the setting of targets, specifically performance indicators and service standards to improve efficiency. The effect is cited as increasing work intensification.

· Synonymous with business-centred management practices which are imported from the public sector, and such practices may include benchmarking, measurement against the Business Excellence Model or performance related pay.

· A broad term for the transformation of a bureaucratic, paternalistic and democratically passive public services to an efficient, responsive customer oriented one. This definition implies organizational change and the adoption of certain management approaches.

Public sector workers, under the umbrella of NPM, have increasingly experienced organizational restructuring or transferal through compulsory competitive tendering. They have also been subject to increased inspection by outside institutions such as the Audit Commission. They are more likely now to be on a temporary or fixed contract than workers in the private sector, and public sector unions continue to struggle for involvement, especially at corporate level, against the onslaught of Human Resource Management practice. (Corby & White, 1999) As Bach (1999) suggests, the emphasis of HRM in the UK so far has been ‘firmly on cost minimisation’. Almond & Rubery (2000) further suggest that this is hardly surprising in a UK context which lacks comparatively a strongly regulated market system. Within this context, they suggest, UK organizations are increasingly pursuing a low cost, low pay and low quality approach.

continue to section three

[Mitch]

Section three

As demonstrated in a later section on contracting, employee protection, traditionally portrayed positively under the state as ‘good employer’ model, has been consistently eroded in the public sector and this has disproportionately affected women more in areas such as catering and cleaning (see Escott & Whitfield 1995; thingyens, 1997). Officers in local government have become increasingly more attentive to improving quality and output than to protecting employee rights under a new public ‘service’ ethos. This is reflexive of the general move from co-operation to a centrally led imposition of strict financial control, facilitated by legislation which has capped local authority spending throughout the 1980s and 1990s. (Brereton & Temple, 1999) Labour’s ‘Third Way’ is increasingly being challenged by public sector unions, most strongly by Unison, as consistently examples of public sector workers who have seen their pay and conditions eroded are coming to the fore. ‘Single Status’, a national pay framework agreement to try and even out inequalities in pay between those doing the same job seems to be generating more discontent than perceptions of fair adjustments. However, there are no nationally prescribed pay rates for specific jobs allowing considerable local autonomy in pay setting. At Coventry City Council over 100 employees heckled members of the Labour group as they arrived for a council meeting on 18th April 2000. Up to 11,000 employees were affected by adjustments and some faced pay cuts of thousands of pounds. (Coventry City Council News, 18 Apr 00) Employees at Knowsley Council (whose management have built up a reputation for privatization according to two ex-employees who spoke with the researcher) threatened strike action against what they perceived as the local Labour council’s plans to use ‘Best Value’s’ privatization policy to drive down working conditions. Performance related pay is still strongly resisted by many councils, but performance is increasingly becoming the criteria for reward, particularly at senior levels. Brereton & Temple (1999), in their study of the Staffordshire decision making process around local government suggest that a new culture of governance now exists here with a shift in ethical focus from process to end product, and from a professionally self-referencing definition of efficiency and effectiveness to one defined in terms of outcomes. They emphasize the new concern with customer services and the new role for local government as ENABLER in the provision process.

The tactic for change specifically in local government was initially ‘producer capture’ under Conservative governments post 1979. Producer capture was the notion, extended by the New Right to professionals and trade unions, that public service bureaucrats were highly likely to act in their own self-interest rather than in the interest of citizens; in effect they were cited as promoting their own status and building empires. From 1985 the tools used to counteract this were Compulsory Competitive Tendering, promotion of internal markets, privatization, staff reduction and capping of local government rates. Supporting ideology was provided by the Citizen’s Charter in the early 1990s which promoted choice and consultation, standards, information and openness, courtesy and helpfulness, putting things right and value for money. Conservative governments from 1979 also overtly maintained an anti-union stance. (Corby & White, 1999)

thingyburn’s (1977) account of Lambeth Borough Council depicts the take-up of Corporate Management practice as far back as the 1960s. She cites the mid-1960s as the period when local government developed a concern with the authority as a whole. Increasing cost pressures were forcing councils to become more strategic. thingyburn’s (1977) analysis puts a new interesting slant on the development of New Public Management in local government, for it seems that a recurring cycle has been occurring in the role of the state since the early 1960s which has had various implications for employees. Conservative governments have pursued policy to encourage Corporate Management and breakdown of the committee system to open local government up to the market and implement efficiency savings and cost cutting. Labour governments have pursued the same policy to facilitate increased accountability to the centre, interventionist policy and (if history repeats itself) eventual cuts in spending.

Recognising a broader history of the development of a Corporate Management approach in local government implies a broader foundation to the development of New Public Management and the introduction of HRM practice, but it also serves to remind of the level of resistance that local government, particularly on the member/councillor and union side, has served to preserve the committee system and traditional hierarchies. thingyburn (1977) highlights the defects of Corporate Management in the late 1970s in Lambeth as giving too much strength to senior management and political leadership, which served to make local government even less democratic. She also suggests that there was little evidence that Corporate Management strategies were enhancing contact with local people.

The involvement of the private sector and the use of traditionally Human Resource Management private sector tools has been increasingly deployed in the public sector, including local government, and this has had and will have considerable implications for local government workers and again may disproportionately affect women, as Corporate Management, under a new name, again becomes the focus. Cutler & Waine (1997) summarize the effects of the established political consensus on public sector managerialism. This consensus, they suggest, has served to marginalize political debate on central distributional issues. What managerialism does instead is not to produce more, but to redistribute already limited resources. (Ibid, 1997) A careful framework of activity must be orchestrated to give the appearance of improvement, but throughputs simply transfer costs elsewhere and particular groups of employees (and one might argue the public/customer) are treated less favourably, particularly as regards race, gender, class and age. Instead of a reconciliation of equity and efficiency through education and training, Cutler & Waine (1997) suggest that there is more evidence for ‘competitive credentialisation’. They describe this as a process which is distributing already limited employment opportunities.

[bryan]

BLACKBURN GENERAL HOSPITAL PFI EXTENTION (see above):

~ MANCHESTER ELECTRICIANS ACTION AT SITE ~

Fri 19th, November 2004: electricians plus Manchester Social Forum expected on site from 1pm onwards (THIS LAST DETAIL HAS JUST COME THRU TO Northern Voices).

There is a need to publicise what is going on with the 'grubby-subbies' on this site.

WE HOPE THE LOCAL SOL. FED. WILL REDEEM THEMSELEVES AND SUPPORT THIS ACTION.

[bryan]

BLACKBURN GENERAL HOSPITAL PFI EXTENTION (see above):

~ MANCHESTER ELECTRICIANS ACTION AT SITE ~

Fri 19th, November 2004: electricians plus Manchester Social Forum expected on site from 1pm onwards (THIS LAST DETAIL HAS JUST COME THRU TO Northern Voices).

There is a need to publicise what is going on with the 'grubby-subbies' on this site.

WE HOPE THE LOCAL SOL. FED. WILL REDEEM THEMSELEVES AND SUPPORT THIS ACTION.

[Mitch]

I'm back on the case of ISS, both because I need the money, but I like to see what this company are up to.

I've started another evening cleaning job in one of the banks for ISS. Since I've been away they've lowered the hours for cleaning jobs and the pay. So I have to clean this whoppin big bank in one hour.

Last night I met my new boss - for some reason he kept calling me 'Margaret'. Training and introduction consisted of 'black bags there', here's the key, lights are over there and I'll bring you some new cloths next week.

Great to see things rapidly deteriorating. There are millions of cleaners out there - on low pay, isolated from each other, and increasingly having their hours and pay lowered so the banks and ISS can cut costs. Any anti-casualisation campaign would do well to reach out to such workers.

[michele cryer]

Well said Mitch. I'm reading a book at the moment, called Some Lives...it was written by a GP who worked in the East End of London at the time that the Docklands area was being developed, council and some terraced housing being destroyed to make way for motorway connections into the city..etc.

In it he is very outspoken about the effects of, not only those changes but the amount of homeworkers in the area, the low pay, poor housing and community conditions and the poor health of the people as a result of all this...very interesting read. If I find some relevant parts of it, I will reprint them here.

[bryan]

MANCHESTER ELECTRICIANS' TRIBUNAL:

There hasn't yet been a full report on the MANCHESTER INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL REMEDIES HEARING of the Manchester electrician's which took place last week. Steve Acheson gave a report of the overall problems to the 'SHOCK OF THE NEW' meeting in the FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE called by the TAMESIDE TUC & MANCHESTER SOCIAL FORUM on the last day of the hearing last Thursday, and chaired by NORTHERN VOICES.

I think there was a brief report of this on the NAN THREAD.

A REMEDIES HEARING DECIDES HOW MUCH COMPENSATION TO PAY THOSE WHO HAVE WON THEIR CASE AT THE APPEAL EARLIER. IN THIS CASE THE ELECTRICIANS WON THEIR VICTORY LAST JULY.

Gossip now says that one of the Irish leprechaun bosses of Daf took a swing at the union official involved on the electricians' side, and had to be restrained by his brothers. The anger may have been brought on by the incriminating statement made by one of the brothers from the witness box.

This statement could now lead to trouble for those big companies involved in blacklisting local electricians. It could even damage the Joint Industry Board: the JIB. The clock could now be ticking for the JIB.

With bosses hitting out at workers, it is not for nothing that the bulletin of the Manchester electricians is called the 'NORTH WEST COWBOY'.

[michele cryer]

Thank you Bryan, Please continue to keep us up to date on this campaign.

[bryan]

It's WORKERS' MEMORIAL DAY tomorrow the 28th, April. On Monday at the Manchester electricians' branch meeting it was reported that a building worker at Manchester Arndale fell down the lift shaft and was badly injured last week. Figures from the T&G and UCCAT, show that the North West of England in 2002--04 had the highest number of deaths at work than any other region in England, Scotland or Wales. The number of serious injuries was 7,218 in the same 2 year period.

Yet not one company director was prosecuted for these deaths or injuries. Unions are pressing for a bill to make inviduals responsible for health and safety, but up to now they seem to have been flogging a dead horse.

[Mitch]

That is sad news about the worker at the Arndale. Who is the employer here? This is a crime, not an accident. I don't see these as accidents - they are the blatent result of greedy, lazy companies - who are given free reign by government to endanger the lives of employees.

One case I noticed recently which made me think about the issues around corporate manslaughter cases, and how the law works to prosecute some but not others was the case in Barrow In Furness where the architect deemed responsible for the deaths of Legionaires disease was prosecuted.

This seemed odd to me, as surely many people must have been involved in these mistakes. So how is it there is a prosecution here, with this architect, and not with company directors

The buck stops with company director and prosecutions here, with a bill to back it up I agree with 100%. But I also think companies as a whole should face massive fines, and enormous compensation bill. The whole company should be held accountable, as well as company director prosecutions taking place.

The Health & Safety executive is having to make large cuts at the moment, courtesy of this government which gives a clear message on where they stand. Interestingly, there is resistance from Health and Safety inspectors who are calling for a lot more money to carry out their inspections. There's talks of strikes here.

The corporate manslaughter cases that do get through though only receive ridiculous penalties - look at this one:

Corporate Manslaughter Conviction
In October 2002, the company, Dennis Clothier and Sons, and one of its directors, Julian Clothier were found guilty of the manslaughter of Stephen Hayfield (39) who died in November 2000 when he was hit by a 20-tonne trailer which was owned by the company. Bristol Crown Court heard that the trailer became detached from a tractor because it was dangerously loaded and the hitch mechanism connecting the trailer to the tractor was ‘badly worn’. Mr Clothier was responsible for the maintenance on the company’s vehicles, and the court heard that he should have noticed the defect which was ‘obvious to the naked eye.’ In December, he was sentenced to 240 hours community Service.
www.corporateaccountability.org/Newsletter/Winter03.html#Corporate

They rarely trace the supply chains in these cases as well. You can have a grubbly little contractor who, if you trace the line back, is cutting costs with a vengence because of pressure from a large multi-national. The big supermarket chains are classic for this, we've seen this with homeworkers when you track the chain of Christmas Crackers. Tescos and Sainsbury's are creaming off the large profits off the back of homeworkers. The second highest number of deaths at work, second to construction work is farming. Reckon you could link greedy supermarkets to this, putting pressure on farming to cut costs etc.

I'm just wondering that yes, a bill for corporate manslaughter is a crucial step, but also how you tackle these beast multi-nationals.


Also, Bryan, I was also wondering what the Manchester electricians thought about current talks on T&G merger with I think it's Amicus isn't it? Are T&G members worried about this and are they T&G members?

[bryan]

THE MANCHESTER ELECTRICIANS' REMEDIES HEARING:

Preliminary reports of the decision of the INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL REMEDIES HEARING are as follows:

The four victimsed electricians each got the statutory £3,500 for 'DISMISSAL FOR TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP'.

For their loss of earnings caused by their victimisation/sacking the TRIBUNAL awarded (on average) £18,000. The Tribunal then deducted £9,000 for their wages they earned between the end of their dispute last June and the REMEDIES HEARING this Spring.

This leaves £9,000 each on average. But the Tribunal decided that the electricians by striking/picketing their former bosses Daf for over a year were 'not actively seeking work' and had 'not mitigated their losses'. Because of this the Tribunal decided:
The award of £9,000 would be cut by 75%; this would leave each electrician with about £2,250: out of which they would have to repay the dole for the first 6 weeks of their unemployment after their sacking: about £1,000.

All being well each electrician will finish up with just over £4,000 each. Watch this space for further info. The Manchester EPIU/TGWU branch meets on Monday next.

[bryan]

MANCHESTER ELECTRICIANS MEETING

The EPIU/TGWU Manchester electricians met last night. The decision of the Manchester Industrial Tribunal Remedies Hearing was discussed.

It seems certain that there will be an appeal by the electricians against the amount awarded by the Tribunal. It is also likely that there will be some legal action against the company Carillion for running a black list against the EPIU electricians in Manchester.

Tameside Trade Union Council will be moving a motion against the blacklist at the Trade Union Council Conference next month.

The EPIU electricians having broken away from the electricians, who were in the EEPTU and who scabbed at Wapping, and later merged with the AUEW/AMICUS union, are anxious about the prospect of a merger with their former enemies the EEPTU scabs now in AMICUS. There was passion expressed by the EPIU electriciansat Monday's meeting when Tommy Hardacre a Manchester official of the electrician's section of AMICUS.

The threatened merger of the TGWU and AMICUS is of great concern to the EPIU electricians. The anticipated date of the merger according to Tommy Hardacre tonight is January 2007.

[Mitch]

Guest-bryan said:

MANCHESTER ELECTRICIANS MEETING

The EPIU/TGWU Manchester electricians met last night. The decision of the Manchester Industrial Tribunal Remedies Hearing was discussed.

It seems certain that there will be an appeal by the electricians against the amount awarded by the Tribunal. It is also likely that there will be some legal action against the company Carillion for running a black list against the EPIU electricians in Manchester.

Tameside Trade Union Council will be moving a motion against the blacklist at the Trade Union Council Conference next month.

The EPIU electricians having broken away from the electricians, who were in the EEPTU and who scabbed at Wapping, and later merged with the AUEW/AMICUS union, are anxious about the prospect of a merger with their former enemies the EEPTU scabs now in AMICUS. There was passion expressed by the EPIU electriciansat Monday's meeting when Tommy Hardacre a Manchester official of the electrician's section of AMICUS.

The threatened merger of the TGWU and AMICUS is of great concern to the EPIU electricians. The anticipated date of the merger according to Tommy Hardacre tonight is January 2007.

I bet they are worried about this merger - aren't the GMB part of the merger as well.

What's the next step here Bryan. I'm just about to join the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) as I'm a homeworker and want to try again to reach other homeworkers round here in Burnley and Nelson (I tried before and I know there are many - particularly women in the Asian community, and there are many doing packing at home. I got to the point of identifying some companies on the Lomeshaye Estate in Nelson who have a pool of homeworkers doing packing at home for them.

The main unions now don't want to know about these workers.

Isn't the next step reaching out to the IWW and anti-casualisation campaigns to bolster support for the electricians. This business style merger under the rightwing umbrella of Amicus is ominous indeed. What were the electricians thoughts on this?

The GMB used to be the biggest union in Burnley, with several branches. But they've closed, membership massively declined and I recently listened to a presentation by regional GMB 'leadership' at a community gathering round here, and basically they are going down the road of providing a training service for Burnley Borough Council. They have no interest in the increasing number of casual workers in this area, and no willing to help organise and support such workers.

What's the next step?

[bryan]

Yes Mitch, the GMB is potentially part of this merger. It is a top-down inspired merger, probably designed to bring in the economies of scale and save money.

Some in the TGWu hope to retain lay-member/rank & file control in the new union. Apparately this is not the case in the other unions who appoint their officials. Though I understand there are industry-wide conferences in AMICUS, which give some rank & file control.

The expected date of the merger is January 2007. The Manchester electricians got this date from an official from AMICUS last Monday.

The Manchester electricians are very critical of the whole deal. As are the Wigan electricians. In London, I understand, the London electricians have pulled out of the union and have formed a rank & file movement down there. The London Joint Sites Committee seems to be the radical grouping down there and their publication is 'The Builders Crack': which calls for 'EVERYONE ON THE CARDS'.

Rank & file members of all the unions will get a vote on the deal before it goes thru. The creation of a new rule book may present a problem though. Members should have a say in this. But it is not clear how.

[bryan]

Casualisation on the building sites is one of the issues most central to the concerns of the electricians. The Manchester electricians, as you know, already have considerable support from trade union branches, local trade union councils and the Manchester Social Forum.

I respect some people in the IWW like the miner Dave Douglass from Doncaster and Iliyan from Wales. If the current anti-casualisation campaigns can be linked to the rank & file struggles of the electricians this will be great.

The 'SHOCK OF THE NEW/TRIUMPH OF THE UGLY' meeting in Manchester at the begining of April showed me that there is a lot of potential links between different struggles. It seems to me there are links between the planning applications of developers like COUNTRYSIDE PROPERTIES in Rochdale's Spodden Valley and companies like CARILLION on sites like The Edge in Salford. And there were obviously links between what's going on in Barcelona on the building sites and Manchester. The problem is making these connections convincingly.

[michele cryer]

I wish you luck Bryan!

[bryan]

BLACKLISTING MOTION AT TUC TRADE UNION COUNCILS' Conference 2005 in Liverpool:

'Conference expresses its deep concern at the continued practice of "blacklisting" in private industry and in particular the construction industry and many none unionised workplaces.
'This was highlighted at the 2004 Conference in Birmingham because of the TGWU-Daf Electricians dispute in Manchester.
'Conference is pleased that the Daf Electricians Tribunal hearing found in favour of the TGWU Daf Electricians.

'Conference calls on the TUC and all affiliated trade unions to continue to support workers blacklisted, and for them not to co-operate with any company carrying out that practice.'

To be moved by
Greater Manchester TUC.
The individual moving the motion is believed to be from Tameside TUC: this Trade Union Council has worked close to the electricians, the Manchester Social Forum and is understood to be a NANista.

[bryan]

THE ABOVE TUC CONFERENCE IN LIVERPOOL WILL BE NEXT WEEKEND. THE MANCHESTER ELECTRICIANS MAY BE HOLDING A FRINGE MEETING ON THE ISSUE OF BLACKLISTING AT 5.30PM ON THE SATURDAY.

[michele cryer]

Thanks Bryan...that is a disgusting practise and should be outlawed asap!