Resistance to Austerity fringe meeting at Green Party spring conference 2014.

 Resistance to Austerity fringe meeting at Green Party (England & Wales) spring conference 2014. Introduction from Nigel Rolland, (Tameside GP and Tameside Against Austerity) and Paul Ellis and Ruth (speakers from South Liverpool Against Poverty).
Resistance to Austerity fringe meeting at Green Party (England & Wales) spring conference 2014. Nigel Rolland, (Tameside GP and Tameside Against Austerity) and Sheila Coleman (Unite Community NW Region organiser).
Resistance to Austerity fringe meeting at Green Party (England & Wales) spring conference 2014. Questions and discussion

The Green Socialist alternative to climate chaos and austerity: Videos

Green Left meeting at GP conference spring 2014: The Green Socialist alternative to climate chaos and austerity: with Romayne Phoenix, Laura Bannister, Will Duckworth and much questions and discussion

Videos now posted at http://greenleftblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/green-left-meeting-at-gp-conference.html

The NUT needs your support to defend education and protect teachers. There is a national strike planned for March 26, but there is much that can be done before then.

from http://www.teachers.org.uk/campaigns/protect-teachers with acknowledgements

Teacher Workload Survey – huge increases shown

It is now clear why the DFE didn’t want to publish this survey and its publication is a tribute to the many members who contacted their MPs.

The average primary teacher is now working nearly 60 hours per week. Secondary heads 63 hours and the average secondary teacher is working nearly 56 hours a week. This is simply unsustainable.

You can read our press release here.

For more information click here.

Stand up for education

Roll mouse over to pause slideshow.

Download campaign PDFs here or Powerpoint here

The NUT needs your support to defend education and protect teachers. There is a national strike planned for March 26, but there is much that can be done before then.

Reps bulletin – dealing with next stage of campaign, success stories and our reaction to NASUWT decision.

You can help us:

• ENGAGE with parents. We know that parents trust teachers far more than they do the Government. We have leaflets and a petition and you can read our message to parents here. We are also asking members to set up stalls around the country, where parents and the general public can join the campaign for education.
  For stalls on 8 March click here. Details of stalls on later dates will follow.
• Put PRESSURE on politicians. Meeting with your local MP is a powerful way of getting across how low teacher morale is. There is a General Election just around the corner - they need to listen and your vote counts. You can also write to your MP here.
• STRIKE on March 26. We deeply regret this step, but Michael Gove hasn’t shown any willingness to change on issues which matter deeply to teachers. Your support is vital and it is your democratic right to take action. Rallies will be organised throughout England and Wales and details will be circulated shortly.

The cross-union talks which opened on February 25 could avert a strike. We will engage in all talks but they need to be constructive. To avoid a strike, Michael Gove must show he is willing to compromise. Already, the STRB has dealt a blow to Michael Gove in their refusal to accept his flimsy reasoning for changes to pay and conditions. Even the head of Ofsted has dubbed it a ‘scandal’ that two fifths of teachers leave the profession within the first five years. Education is in crisis and we must stand against those who seek to erode it further.

This document summarises the recommendations on teacher pay and conditions set out in the latest School Teachers’ Review Body report, including its rejection of key proposals from Michael Gove, and explains the implications for teachers.

We are standing up for education. Join us and get involved.

FRom http://brightgreenscotland.org/ with acknowledgements to Josiah Mortimer

Education

Young Greens plan week of action against university pay inequality

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Josiah Mortimer | No Comments

The Young Greens are planning actions at campuses across the country as part of a national week of action against pay inequality at UK universities.

The youth branch of the Green Party, which represents thousands of students and young people in England and Wales, has launched the week of action running from the 17th March-21st March as part of its Fair Pay Campus Campaign. The organisation’s Fair Pay campaign is calling on universities to:

1. Publish the ratio between their highest and lowest paid worker

2. Commit to working towards a 10:1 ratio on campus

3. Pledge to pay directly employed workers the living wage

4. Ensure your contractors pay their workers the living wage

5. Publish the pay of vice chancellors and senior management

Chris Jarvis, Campaigns Coordinator and organiser of the week of action said: “Fair pay at our universities is resoundingly on the agenda. As part of our ongoing campaign to make pay in the higher education sector more equal, the Young Greens have called this national week of action to demand universities take the huge pay gap in the sector seriously and to treat institutions of education as public goods – not fat-cat corporations.

“Over the past 6 months, education unions have been rightly taking industrial action over a 13% real terms pay cut since 2008 – at a time when the pay of the average Vice Chancellor has increased by 8% last year alone. It’s time for university bosses to treat all staff fairly instead of stuffing their own pockets.

“Thousands of university staff across the country are lingering on low pay and being shifted from outsourced contract to contract, while university heads earn more than the Prime Minister. Our Fair Pay League report shows that if university heads took a pay cut to £140,000 – still an enormous sum – the money raised could bring thousands of minimum wage workers up to the Living Wage.

“As it stands, the lowest paid in HE currently have to work on average 18.6 years to earn the annual salary of the head of their university. This is a national scandal at a time of cuts to education, and it’s time that universities got behind the Young Greens’ call for maximum pay ratios of 10:1. Our week of action will be calling on universities to do just that.”
The Facebook event for the Week of Action is here: www.facebook.com/events/630502876998854/

Read the Young Greens’ Fair Pay League report on university pay: fairpayunis.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/2013-fair-pay-league.pdf

For more details visit the campaign website at fairpayunis.wordpress.com and

Twitter: twitter.com/FairPayCampus.

Find the Young Greens online at: younggreens.greenparty.org.uk

- See more at: http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2014/03/young-greens-plan-week-of-action-against-university-pay-inequality/#sthash.klZW4o7q.AbC9HeId.dpuf

STOP GAGGING LOCAL UNIONS IN BARNET COUNCIL

TO: RICHARD CORNELIUS LEADER OF BARNET COUNCIL

1,813
of 2,000 signatures

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Campaign created by Barnet UNISON 

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Campaign Facebook Page

Campaign Website

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FACEBOOK

TWITTER

 

EMAIL

Dear Mr Cornelius 
It is clear from your own website that Barnet Council has already embarked on a radical outsourcing policy which has had a significant impact on former and current Council workers. Surely you must recognise the importance for staff to be represented and supported by a trade union? 
Facility Time is good practice and is a means by which trade unions can carry out what are often demanding and complex roles which includes provision of advice to members, formal representation of members in grievance and disciplinary hearings and negotiating with managers over terms and conditions, outsourcing, restructures, cuts to services. 
In 2007, the then Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR, now BIS - Department for Business Innovation and Skills) conducted a review of facilities and facility time available to workplace representatives. The review found the following in unionised workplaces:
Dismissal rates were lower 
Voluntary exit rates were lower 
Employment tribunal cases are lower 
Workplace-related injuries were lower 
All of the above generated savings up to £977m for the employer. 

As Leader of Barnet Council I am asking that you cease your proposal to reduce the facility time pot to zero for the two local trade unions.

Why is this important?

The two local trade unions, UNISON & GMB, have been subject to both personal and political attacks by Conservative controlled Barnet Council in relation to facility time. On 1 April 2014 the Council are ceasing all of the facility time for both trade unions. The facility time pot has already been cut by 66% to date. This is the final act of what has been a sustained attack on the local trade unions for daring to question the wisdom of the One Barnet mass outsourcing of Council services. Barnet Council has been promoting the ideology ‘Public Bad Private Good’ as the solution to ‘Austerity’ with the help of expensive consultants (Consultancy Agilisys estimated costs to date close to £8million this does not include £millions spent on legal advice). First it was Future Shape then EasyCouncil, then One Barnet and now it is being promoted as the Commissioning Council. Whatever the name of this policy the human cost has meant redundancies and significant attacks on terms & conditions for those staff outsourced to contractors such as Your Choice Barnet, NSL, Capita and Barnet Homes. 
Here is an animation explaining what is happening in Barnet 


The Trade Unions view this attempt to gag the unions as a form of de-recognition as it is clearly designed to undermine our ability to represent and organise across a number of employers all of whom currently contribute to a facility time pot of money. Once again Barnet Council in its drive to outsource all of its remaining council services also wants to be first to smash the ability of trade unions to be able to support, represent and defend hard working staff.

Green Party challenges 3 main parties with radical education agenda

3 Mar 2014 acknowledgements to martin francis

The Green Party has sharply differentiated its education policy from that of the three main political parties in revisions adopted at its Spring Conference this weekend.

Moving the revisions, Martin Francis, Brent Green Party spokesperson on children and families a former primary headteacher and now chair of governors of two primary schools, said:

The neoliberal project is based on the premise of unlimited growth and unrestrained exploitation of the earth’s resources and sees society purely in terms of the market, competition, private acquisition and consumerism. This leads to the marketisation of education through the privatisation of schools, erosion of democratic accountability and the narrowing of the curriculum policed by testing and Ofsted.

Our rejection of this model enables us to put forward an education policy that is child-centred and provides everyone with the knowledge and skills to live a fulfilled life, restores local democratic accountability, teachers’ professional autonomy and children’s right to a childhood.

The revised policy that was approved with only two or three votes against commits the Green Party to:

·        Abolish the current SATs and the Year 1 Literacy Screening Test and rigid age-related benchmarking

·        Recognise the great variance in children’s development in the early years and the need to offer developmentally appropriate provision including the important role of play in early learning

·        Strengthen the role of local authorities in terms of funding and the enhancement of their democratic accountability

·        Oppose free schools and academies and integrate them into the local authority school system

·        Restore the right of local authorities to build new schools where they are needed

·        Adopt an admissions policy that recognises every child and young person’s entitlement to access a fair, comprehensive and equal education system, regardless of their background

·        Embrace a diverse range of educational approaches within that system

·        Replace Ofsted with an independent National Council of Educational Excellence which would have regional officers tasked to work closely with LAs. The National Council would be closely affiliated with the National Federation for Educational Research (NFER)

·        Ensure every child in the state funded educational system is taught by a qualified teacher

·        Reject performance related pay for teachers

Existing policy on the Curriculum which replaces the National Curriculum with a series of ‘Learning Entitlements remains unaltered.

Martin Francis said:

We know that many despair of the current policies of Michael Gove and Tristram Hunt’s pale imitation and the great and reckless damage they are doing to the education system, teachers’ morale and children’s well being. We have clearly set out an alternative vision that replaces competition with cooperation, coercion with partnership, and fragmentation with cohesion. 

solidarity with lorne stewart workers' protest

Greens show solidarity with Liverpool Lorne Stewart workers for fair pay

3 March 2014

 One of the striking RMT members pictured with Shan Oakes of Yorkshire and Humber Green Party.

Green Party representatives from this region joined Lorne Stewart workers of the RMT union today at Liverpool Lime Street Station to demand a living wage. The Green Party conference delegates joined the workers outside Rail House on Lord Nelson Street.

"The Green Party fights injustice everywhere," said Shan Oakes, from Beverley, representing the Party at the demonstration.

"We are proud to show our support and solidarity to the Lorne Stewart workers and anyone in a similar position," she said.

Shan Oakes serves on the Green Party National Executive for equality issues and is standing for the Yorkshire and Humber region as a European election candidate in May.

"After 8 months of trying to negotiate, Lorne Stewart workers on Merseyrail have rejected the company's derisory below-inflation offer and are making a stand for a just pay settlement without strings. In Lorne Stewart's ballot on taking action not one single vote was cast against," she said.

Lorne Stewart workers, who clean and maintain Merseyrail station, were offered what amounts to a pay cut – with strings attached - while in the last 2 years the company has paid out more that £10 million to shareholders. New starters are excluded from even this 'offer'.

Lorne Stewart says it can't afford to pay more citing its contract with Merseyrail, however its latest profits are £15 million – equivalent to £5000 for every one of its workers.

"Greens campaign for a living wage and stand with everyone who is being pushed into poverty by a millionnaire government whose ideology promotes poverty and inequality in this country," continued Shan Oakes.

Green Party Conference finishes today.

MESSAGE OF SUPPORT FROM GPTU

Peter Murry yrrumuk@googlemail.com	8:49 PM (0 minutes ago)
to andy.vickers, paul.winglfield,

Dear Sirs,

As managers of a very profitable company, Lorne Stewart, I am writing to you on behalf of the Green Party Trade Union group to call for Lorne Stewart,to negotiate sensibly with the merseyside RMT cleaning workers who generate your company's profits and your salaries. Making offers to these workers that are, in real terms, pay cuts is not an acceptable or sustainable position for  Lorne Stewart to continue.

Today, on the last day of the Green Party Spring conference, Green Party members brought Green Party  banners to  the RMT workers' demo at Lime Street station as an expression of solidarity which, I am sure many members of the public will agree with., (see http://gptublog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/solidarity-with-lorne-stewart-workers.html)

Yours in support of the RMT workers in dispute.

Peter Murry (Secretary)

pp Green Party Trade Union group