Selling the Family Silver

 by New Worker correspondent

 London’s Great Russell Street is the address of two major institutions: the British Museum and the TUC HQ, Congress House. But not for much longer. While the classical nineteenth century Museum is staying put the 1950s modernist Congress House is up for sale. 
This little noticed decision is a damning reflection on the state of Britain’s trade unions which now represent less than a quarter (22 per cent to be precise) of the workforce. 
After the TUC’s Finance Committee decided it is no longer viable to keep the building its General Council agreed that point in early June. It is claimed that essential refurbishment will cost around £20 million.
Congress House was opened in 1958, some 14 years after the 1944 TUC called for a new building. It is the grandest purpose-built labour movement building in Britain, although the nearby British Medical Association’s Tavistock House and the National Education Union’s Hamilton House are equally impressive. 
 In 1946 David Du Roi Aberdeen won the design competition against 180 rivals, but it was not until 1958 the building finally opened.
 The competition brief was to provide a building which would be “fitting to the dignity and propagation of the great ideals for which the Movement stands”. 
 It is centred on a large semi-basement conference hall surrounded with offices, smaller meeting rooms, it had a library (now at the University of North London), a catering hall, with a well-lighted entrance hall. The panelled rooms are the result of timber donated by unions from across the globe. All the construction workers had to have a union card. As the TUC is very respectable the Royal Horse Guards played at the opening ceremony.
Modernist architecture is not to everybody’s taste, being rather plain, but the building has important unique features. Its internal courtyard is dominated by Sir Jacob Epstein’s 1957 sculpture of a mother carrying her dead son, a striking anti-war monument. This was designed specifically for the building. At the front the plain Cornish granite slabs frontage looks down the bronze “Spirit of Brotherhood” showing a strong man helping a weak one, by communist sculptor Bernard Meadows. Being a Grade II listed building such important features will have to be retained, which be certain to put off buyers. A mysterious Ministry of Defence building at the back enabled the spooks to know what was going on.  
The TUC claims it needs a “modern fit-for-purpose” building. But this is something which they already have. It is near three major railway stations connected the north of Britain. The building is used by other trade unionists. As a humble trades union council delegate this correspondent recalls sitting in the top floor council chamber listening to both fiery and long-winded speeches.
Parts of the building are already rented out to sympathetic bodies such as law firm Thompsons. Its large hall has been rented out to all and sundry including for large company AGMs, which bring in cash, albeit at the cost of generating controversy. 
Forty jobs, largely of catering workers are at risk from the TUC’s planned move. TUC General Secretary Paul Nowack said the decision was “an incredibly difficult one” but was as in the movement’s best interests. 
 In some respects this is like a twenty-strong congregation struggling to keep a Victorian church built for hundreds water-tight. But things are not as bad as that for the TUC. Given its location the TUC could clearly do more to exploit the building rather than simply throw in the towel, even if that meant hiring its soul for corporate AGMs. The  alternative will likely be a suite of offices occupying a couple of floors in an expensive nearby office block. 
The planned sell-off is definitely a retreat at a time when trade unions need to go on the offensive. There is a petition against the sale focusing on the risk of lost jobs at:   https://www.change.org/p/save-congress-house-jobs.

The Anti-Strike Bill

by New Worker correspondent

Monday evening saw the House of Commons predictably pass the misnamed Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, whose name ought to have been prefixed with the word “Anti”.
    The bill applies to six sectors: health, education, fire rescue, transport, border security and nuclear decommissioning. Under the law, unions would be required to take “reasonable steps” to ensure members comply with the work notice to maintain “essential” services and could be sued if they fail to do so. It will also allow bosses to sack striking workers whom they claim are essential.
    In the debate Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said the Bill should be called the “Conservative sacking nurses Bill” and said Labour would repeal it if the party was elected to power She denounced it as an “attack on our basic British freedoms”. That promise should be taken with ladleful of salt as Labour pledges to overturn Tory anti-union laws do not last very long.
    The final vote was 315-246. A number of opposition amendments, some designed to exclude Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and water down the requirements on the levels of service unions were expected to maintain were thrown out.
    Anyone hoping that the noble lords and ladies on the red benches will introduce positive changes are probably the sort of people who believe in fairies and magic crystals. The protests on Wednesday described on the front page will be a good start.
    The measure has been widely denounced even by the most traditionally right-wing unions. Paddy Lillis, of shopworkers union said on the eve of the debate: “This anti-union legislation means that when workers democratically vote to strike, they could be forced to work and sacked if they don’t. That is undemocratic, unworkable and almost certainly illegal. We are also staggered that the Tories have chosen to unjustifiably fast-track the legislation through the House of Commons, so that it won’t receive the necessary scrutiny and MPs won’t hear important evidence from those affected”.
    Even a Tory supporter of the measure, Jacob Rees-Mogg partly agreed with the latter, warning it was so badly written that it will be subject to legal challenges unless it is drastically amended by the House of Lords. The former Business Secretary also said that it gave sweeping powers to his successor, in particular he took aim at Clause Three which he denounced for allowing the Business Secretary the power to define minimum service levels at a later date.
    The TUC while denouncing the “draconian nature” of the legislation has done little apart from submit a freedom of information request to discover why the Government published the Bill without an impact assessment. No doubt that will put the fear of God into the Government.
    The Tories claimed minimum service agreements are already in place citing agreement with Royal College of Nursing when it took strike action recently, but the Bill obviously goes much further and is an attack on the right to take industrial action.
    The debate also signalled that the Tories will continue to take a hard line in the present round of public sector strikes when the minister claimed that “An inflation-matching pay increase of 11 per cent for all public sector workers would cost £28 billion, which would put just under £1,000 on to the bills of every household in all our constituencies”.
    Another dangerous move by the Government against trade unions, which has been overlooked in recent weeks is the new regulations which will allow agency workers to be hired in disputes to fill in for striking workers.
    This will be the subject of legal action in the High Court next month. The measures have even been criticised by employment agencies, who do not want to be involved in industrial disputes. Their trade body, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), which represents suppliers of agency workers, described the proposals as “unworkable”. Even the House of Lords Committee which examined the measure said: “the lack of robust evidence and the expected limited net benefit raise questions as to the practical effectiveness and benefit” of the new laws.
    Last December retiring TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady pointed out that: “The right to strike is a fundamental British liberty. But the government seems hellbent on attacking it at every opportunity. She added that “these attacks on the right to strike are likely illegal. Ministers failed to consult with unions, as the law requires. And restricting the freedom to strike is a breach of international law”.
    However it is rare for the TUC to actually mobilise workers against such laws. They seem more upset about the fact that they do not get invited round for herbal tea and hummus wraps with the minister to discuss the legal technicalities than stirring up mass action.

The same old tune...

In his inaugural address to the nation Paul Nowak, the new TUC General Secretary’s made much of the fact that he started stacking shelves in Asda at the age of 17, and had been a hotel porter and worked in a call centre, but failed to mention he has been a Congress House bureaucrat, since 2000, or for the great bulk of his working life.
    Apart from his less than inspiring comments on the proposed anti-union laws he made the standard complaints about workers being: “on course for two decades of lost pay – the longest squeeze on earnings in modern history”, deploring low pay and saying that “ministers, unions and employers should work together on a proper industrial strategy, delivering good green jobs, training and skills across the country”. So, as might be expected the TUC is on course for more class collaboration instead of actually rousing the working class to action.
    He repeated the tired old slogan that the TUC should be concerned with securing: “A fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage” but we should heed Engels’s 1881 demand that it should be replaced by a very different motto: “Possession of the Means of Work, Raw Material, Factories, Machinery, By the Working People Themselves”.
    On another recent occasion Nowak said that that unions including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) were unlikely secure the 19 per cent they are demanding but meekly said that: “I would hope that there would be a compromise reachable — in order to get to a compromise you need to sit down and negotiate and that’s what the government is point blank refusing to do.” Such inspiring leadership is what we have come to expect from the TUC.

Make the rich pay!

​by New Worker correspondent

London comrades joined tens of thousands of front-line workers over the weekend marching through the heart of the capital to a TUC rally demanding social justice and higher wages.
    Trade unionists and campaigners from across the country marched from Portland Place to for a TUC rally in Parliament Square. Some comrades carried the NCP national banner while others joined Donbas solidarity campaigners leafleting the crowd with the latest hand-out from the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity campaign.
    Real wages are down by £68 a month compared to a year ago but bonuses for the City executives have risen exponentially. Energy bills have gone up by 45 per cent in recent months and though the Government has offered an energy bill rebate of £150 a household that will barely make a dent in rising costs. Inflation now stands at nine per cent – a 40-year-high.
    The Johnson government bleats on about the impact of the global energy crisis and the conflict in Ukraine. But the cost of everything from food, fuel and rent is soaring because the Government wants to put even more of the burden of the slump on the backs of working people who are only just recovering from the Covid crisis. The price hikes are the worst in half a century. Many people are now having to choose between heating their homes and eating.
    At the rally TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady backed the rail workers whose pay campaign began with national strikes this week.
    “Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has threatened rail workers that they will strike themselves out of a job.“Well you are wrong, Mr Shapps: if you keep stirring, come the next election, you will be out of a job,” she said. “It is time to raise taxes on wealth, not workers”.

The Working Day

by New Worker correspondent

Last week the TUC released a report on The Future of Flexible Work, something which it thinks is a good thing. Flexible working hours (FWH) means that people do not need to clock in at 9:00 and of at 17:00 with an hour for lunch. It can allow people to come in at 8:00 or 10:00 and leave at 16:00 or 18:00. Thy can have a half hour for lunch or two hours and work late. Doing many long working days can be rewarded with extra holiday time.
     The TUC say “Genuine flexible working can be a win-win arrangement for both workers and employers. It can allow people to balance their work and home lives, is important in promoting equality at work and can lead to improved recruitment and retention of workers for employers”.
     That is true to some extent. For those with a long commute an early start, it can make sense to avoid overcrowded trains, or people can leave for work after their little darlings are sent off to school. During much of his working life this correspondent was on “flexitime”. This is suitable for large organisations which have work to do outside the nine to five day. But the major drawback to FWH is that in many cases it has seen the end of overtime and unsocial shift payments.
     This is generally popular with workers, with the TUC’s report showing that 82 per of those it surveyed want FWH and variations such as remote working, flexi-time, part-time work, job sharing, annualised hours, term time only working , compressed hours and mutually-agreed predictable hours. A study by the Government Equalities Office found that jobs that advertised flexibly attracted 30 per cent more applicants than those that did not.
     However there are other downsides to flexible working. It can also be a polite name for zero-hours contracts and other types of insecurity which is a feature of modern capitalism. This “flexibility” means that people have to sit by their phones to know if they are going to work and earn anything that day.
     The pandemic has enforced flexible working in the form of imposed working from home. This has become surprisingly popular as people can get an extra hour in bed and calls have been made for these arrangements to be made permanent. However this obviously does not apply to everyone. Nobody can make a cup of coffee or take out an appendix over the computer.
     People who claim that their jobs can be done from their spare room in the suburbs ought to be aware that some bosses might take them at their word and replace workers in the office with those in a call centre in downtown Bangalore. This point seems to have been somewhat neglected by well-meaning advocates of home working.
     The TUC says that after the pandemic workers should get more flexible working patterns, but warns that “steps need to be taken to ensure that the experience of those working from home does not mirror the damaging one sided ‘flexibility’ experienced by so many on zero-hours contracts, with arrangements imposed that only benefit employers”.
     It demands that increased access to remote working must not come at the price of reductions to workers pay, increased intrusive remote surveillance, unsafe working environments, lack of access to union representatives, an increase in unpaid hours worked and draining, always-on cultures”.
     During the pandemic homeworkers put in many extra hours. The Office of National Statistics which points out that people who completed any work from home did six hours of unpaid overtime on average per week in 2020, compared with 3.6 hours for those that never worked from home.
     The TUC takes up a pledge in the 2019 Tory manifesto to make flexible working the default. It demands that a legal duty to be imposed “on employers to consider which flexible working arrangements are available in a role and publish these in job advertisements”, which naturally provides plenty of wriggle room for bosses.
     More precisely it wants to abolish zero-hours contracts by giving workers the right to a contract that reflects their regular hours with at least four weeks’ notice of shifts and compensation for cancelled shifts and to ratify the International Labour Organisation’s Home Work Convention.
     Mobile phones and email now mean that many workers are on call even when having a bath at home, therefore the urgency of introducing a statutory right for employees and workers to disconnect from their work so as to create “communication free” time in their lives is important.
    Another urgent question is that fact that every keystroke can be recorded for ever by your boss. So there is an urgent need to “amend employment and data protection legislation and provide for statutory guidance to ensure that no unlawful discriminatory decisions can be made using artificial intelligence”.
     At the same time the TUC demand that employers should provide and maintain the equipment necessary for home workers to work safely and effectively (not just electronic equipment) and provide the training needed for a person to do their job remotely.
     After making these modest legislative demands the TUC doffs its cap to respectfully point out that “employers do not need to wait for legislative change in making genuine flexible work the default in their workplaces and ensuring that all workers have the opportunity to benefit from positive flexibility that helps them to balance work and home life”.
     Needless to say the TUC says that unions should be involved in discussions on such matters, and equally unexpectedly does not suggest taking any militant action to secure these gains.
     The TUC argues that “making flexible working available in all but the most exceptional of circumstances would be an important catalyst for promoting greater gender equality” as part-time work appeals to women with child-care responsibilities, and recognises that they are often forced into it.
     The report reminds us that about 3.6 million workers were in insecure work in 2019 out of a workforce of over 27 million. This unlucky 13 per cent is twice as likely to be from the ethnic minorities than white workers.
     For them “flexibility” is something of a joke. Those with no or few guaranteed hours are often offered work at the whim of their employer, facing irregular hours and therefore irregular income, as well as last minute shift cancellations. Picking and choosing hours is non-existent as many feel compelled to work whenever asked, fearing that if shifts are rejected they will not be asked again. Sick pay, protections from unfair dismissal and statutory redundancy pay are non-existent.
     The pandemic made things worse when 67 per cent of insecure workers saying they received nothing when off sick compared with 7 per cent of secure workers. Needing to self-isolate or take time off sick needs money many do not have.

Putting the boot in

by New Worker correspondent

One of Britain’s oldest and most effective trade unions recently secured an important legal victory which could pave the way for workers they represent securing huge pay rises. The ruling overturns an attempt by the bosses to impose caps on workers’ earnings.
The issue in question was actually that which led to the creation of the union in 1907. For the union is the 4,000 strong TUC affiliated Professional Footballers' Association.
    Originally founded as the Association Football Players’ and Trainers’ Union (AFPTU) in Manchester’s Imperial Hotel it succeeded a short lived Association Footballers’ Union (AFU) formed in 1898 and dissolved in 1901. The AFU had tried and failed to relax restrictions on players moving from one club to another and to prevent bosses introducing a maximum wage of £4 per week for players in the Football League.
    Two years after its foundation, bosses, in the shape of the Football Association (FA) withdrew recognition of the Union, a threat of strike action in response was met by the FA banning altogether players belonging to the union. Membership fell as players put their jobs before their union card, but Manchester United players stood firm, forcing the cancellation of a 1909 match. A prominent player, Tim Coleman of Everton gave his support shaming the FA, which encouraged members to return to the union and forced the FA to allow bonus payments.However, a later botched court case on the transfer question nearly broke the union.
    During the slump in 1922 clubs arbitrarily cut the maximum wage from £9 to £8, a move successfully opposed by the union. But major successes had to wait until the 1950s.
    When Jimmy Hill, footballer and later commentator became secretary of the Players' Union in 1956, it became the PFA. In 1957, the League’s maximum wage of £20 was scrapped, and the first £100 a-week player came in 1961. The age of footballers making the front pages for their drunken antics in sunny climes and tumbling out of nightclubs at 4 am finally dawned.
    In 1963 the PFA won a High Court case which declared that the “retain and transfer” system was an unreasonable restraint of trade. The commercialisation of sport clearly has its downsides, but unions are primarily there to get good deals for their members.
    Never very militant the union registered under the Industrial Relations Act 1971, which caused its departure from the TUC, but it returned in 1995. In the late 1990s it found itself in court for banning a woman football agent from its annual dinner. The case eventually cost £200,000.To compensate it now actively promotes women footballers so that they can in future misbehave in posh hotels just like the men.
In the same spirit of promoting inclusion, last month the PFA pointed out that although Asian and Asian British people make up almost 7.5 per cent of the British population, in the 2019/2020 season just eight players made first-team appearances across the Premier. To remedy this it launched its Asian Inclusion Mentoring Scheme (AIMS).
    In November 2018 the PFA had a revolt from its members over its management practices,which is presently unresolved with the much complained about CEO still in post.
    On the matter of the present dispute PFA’s CEO, Gordon Taylor OBE no less, said: “We were disappointed that the EFL decided to introduce salary cap proposals, which were voted through without the proper consideration or consultation with the PFNCC. As a result, in August 2020, the PFA served a Notice of Arbitration on the EFL stating the introduction of the new rules were in breach of obligations under the constitution of the PFNCC. We are pleased the panel upheld the PFA’s claim".
Needless to say not all players are in the multi-millionaire category. Comparatively minor injury can end a playing career, which in the best cases comes to an end decades before the pension age. To help get non-playing players it funds several education programmes for ex and current players. One is a physiotherapy degree course at Salford University. Media-savvy footballers can even be taught to be sports journalists.
    In line with ancient trade union practice it provides medical care including paying for injured players to attend the Lilleshall Sports Injury Rehabilitation centre in Shropshire for physiotherapy and sports injury.
    PFA is also a campaigning union. Recently it took up the problem of racist abuse directed at black players. Unfortunately some football fans are like Trotskyites and SNP supporters in the level of abuse they hurl at their enemies. Writing to the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter it pointed out that “The language used is debasing, often threatening and illegal. It causes distress to the recipients and the vast majority of people who abhor racism, sexism and discrimination of any kind. We have had many meetings with your executives over the years but the reality is your platforms remain havens for abuse”.
    PFA demands that the social media giants block racist or discriminatory material with an approved verification process for users and they urge co-operating properly with the police in such matters.
    It is also demanded more research into neurodegenerative disorders as the affect footballers, an a issue recently highlighted by the fact that many prominent footballers from the 1960s and 70s have been diagnosed with dementia, perhaps caused by frequent heading of footballs which were much heavier than now. The PFA is now funding such research.

She fought for Irish freedom

Austin Harney pays tribute to CountessMarkievicz

By Theo Russell

Over 100 people gathered on 28th December at the site of the former Holloway Women’s Prison in Islington, north London, to mark 100 years since the famous Irish republican and revolutionary Countess Constance Markievicz was elected as the first female MP in Britain. She was in jail for her leading role in the 1916 Easter Rising, in which she was a commander of the Irish Citizen’s Army led by James Connolly.

In the 1918 election Sinn Féin swept the board in Ireland but its MPs never took their seats at Westminster, instead establishing a new Irish parliament in Dublin, the Dail. Markievicz was amongst those sentenced to death after the Rising but the decision was reduced to a life sentence because of her sex. Joe Dwyer, Sinn Féin’s Political Organiser for Britain, delivered a message on behalf of the party’s seven Westminster MPs, which said: “The people of Ireland voted for freedom, and to see the future of Ireland decided on the island of Ireland. That historic election saw women voting for the first time, and also saw the election of Constance Markievicz as the first female MP elected to Westminster. She was a radical in every sense of the word – a feminist, a socialist, a revolutionary and a republican.”

Austin Harney spoke for the TUC’s London, Eastern and South Eastern region:  Constance Markievicz was a very principled woman, who would not have accepted the 1921 treaty and the partition of Ireland.” He said that the Free State, which lasted until Ireland became a republic in 1937, “denied Irish women the rights to divorce or abortion”.

Harney also read a message from Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who recalled that Markievicz “had fought for women to be allowed to vote and was jailed many times”, and called on the government, which owns the prison site, to guarantee a women’s centre and homes for women in the redevelopment.

When Constance Markievicz died in 1927 she was refused a state funeral, but huge crowds turned out in Dublin and she was given a guard of honour by the Irish Citizens' Army.

Unions march for higher wage

 TENS OF thousands of trade union activists, peace and social justice campaigners marched through London last Saturday from the Embankment to a massive rally in Hyde Park to demand better pay and conditions for workers throughout the country in what has been described as the biggest London march for many years. It was organised by the TUC.

The workers were demanding a minimum wage rise to £10 an hour, a ban on zero-hours contracts and higher funding for the NHS, education and other public services.

Workers involved in current disputes including those at restaurant chains TGI Fridays and McDonald’s joined the march, along with railway workers striking to keep guards on trains, nurses, ambulance crews, postmen, teachers, civil servants and cleaners.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said before the march started that workers have had enough of low pay, poor quality jobs and constant cuts to public services.

She added: “There is a new mood in the country. People have been very patient but they are now demanding a new deal.”

Just before the march, the TUC published a new report it had commissioned that showed that workers are suffering the longest squeeze on wages in modern history.

It found workers were suffering the biggest relative real wage loss since the Napoleonic Wars. Even after the Great Depression and the Second World War, real wages recovered more quickly – in 10 years and seven years respectively.

A decade on from the financial crisis, real wages are worth £24 a week less than in 2008 and are not forecast to return to pre-crash levels until 2025, said the union organisation.

The TUC said the current stretch of wage stagnation was the worst for 200 years. By 2025 the average worker will have lost out by around £18,500 in real earnings, it was estimated.

Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, said it was the most important demonstration for 50 years. He said: “This is the start of a serious challenge for a new deal for all workers.

“The world of work has become a pressurised environment, based on a flexible labour market and bogus self-employment.”

Marchers arrived in Hyde Park just as it started to rain but that dampened no spirits. They gave a rapturous welcome to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who addressed the growing crowd.

He pledged that a Labour government will give workers “more power” to fight for higher pay. “Our whole movement exists to challenge the powerful and stand up for the powerless,” he said.

“We want to see workers across whole sectors, not just individual employers, get to bargain together to get the best deal for the workforce in their industry.

“Why should bar staff and waiters not be able to organise and support each other like London bus drivers can? It's time for a fundamental shift in power in our country – from the few to the many.”

Corbyn won huge applause from the crowds when he pledged the next Labour government would launch a ministry to guarantee workers' rights.

He promised to "take rail mail and water back into public ownership" and warned tax dodgers that a "Labour government is coming after you. We will tax properly".

He added: "This demonstration today is about workers’ rights, it is about collective endeavour but above all, it's a declaration that we're around to campaign as long as it takes, to bring about that social justice and that decency in society."