Tories tear up equal pay law


Louise Nousratpour, Equalities Reporter
Thursday December 2, 2010
The Morning Star

The government scrapped legislation today that would put a legal duty on employers to disclose whether they pay women less than men.

Business organisations rejoiced at Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone's decision not to enact Labour plans to extend mandatory gender pay reporting to private companies with 250-plus employees.

Employers will be left to police themselves about whether they are breaking equal pay law - despite clear evidence that the voluntary approach has failed.

Ms Featherstone also confirmed the government's intention to scrap the socio-economic clause, which would have put legal duties on public authorities to reduce inequality by taking into account disadvantage and poverty when making decisions about policies.

Publishing the government's equality strategy today, she said: "We want to move away from the arrogant notion that government knows best."

Under the now scrapped section 78 of the Equality Act 2010, employers had been given until April 2013 to make voluntary arrangements work or face mandatory pay audits.

But the coalition government has now kicked equal pay further into the long grass by giving no deadlines to bring rogue employers in line.

Adam Marshall of bosses' club the British Chambers of Commerce hailed the government for removing "the burden of compulsory gender pay reporting."

Fellow fat cat Miles Templeman of the Institute of Directors even blamed women for pay discrimination, claiming: "Hard evidence shows that influences and choices made by women at the pre-employment stage are what generally lead to average gender pay differences."

Public-sector union Unison general secretary Dave Prentis slammed the decision to abandon legal pay audits as yet more evidence that this government is no friend of women.

"Women public-sector workers face a triple whammy - frozen pay, cuts to services and now further delays in giving them equal pay," he said.

"It is a disgrace that women are still getting paid less than men. This move threatens to turn the clocks back on all the progress already made with equal pay."

A landmark study today put Britain in the bottom four of the OECD countries in terms of equal parenting, the gender pay gap and other equality issues.

The Fatherhood Institute highlighted that women were still paid on average 21 less than men in Britain compared with 9.3 per cent in Belgium.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "The decision not to introduce mandatory gender pay reporting, despite the failure of the voluntary approach, will allow employers to continue to obscure sex discrimination in pay systems."

But he welcomed government plans to introduce positive action measures and extend the right to request flexible working to everyone, not just parents and carers.

"Allowing employers to choose a woman over a man of equal merit when recruiting will help to overcome the ingrained sexism still rife in some workplaces," Mr Barber said.

louise@peoples-press.com

Britain failing on equality

Louise Nousratpour, Equalities Reporter
Thursday December 2, 2010
The Morning Star

Britain is the fourth-worst country when it comes to parenting leave, the gender pay gap and other equality issues, according to a new study released today by the Fatherhood Institute.

Sweden and Finland shared the first spot of the 21-nation family friendly league table, with only Switzerland, Austria and Japan faring worse than Britain.

Men in Sweden can get up to 40 weeks full-time paid paternity leave. In Britain paternity leave is two weeks at a maximum weekly rate of £124.88. The institute said this was the same as getting two days leave on full pay.

The Fairness in Families Index - the first of its kind - also found that there was a 21 per cent gap between the average earnings of men and women in Britain, compared with 9.3 per cent in table-topping Belgium.

Fatherhood Institute chief executive Rob Williams said families in Britain were getting a raw deal on paid parenting leave, time spent caring for children and equal pay.

Mr Williams said: "Parents' choices are restricted by an outdated distinction between fathers as breadwinners and mothers as home-makers.

"We need to establish a better framework in the UK to support equal earning and caring. Much more needs to be done to make families fairer and getting the paternity leave system right is a good place to start."

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis warned that things would get worse under the Con-Dems' plans to cut child benefit and water down equality laws, including proposals to abandon legislation designed to close the gender pay gap.

"The government fails the fairness test and is stripping down its commitment to equality," he said.

"We need more support and choice for working parents, with workplaces that understand that families share parenting and that many women are the breadwinners."

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said it was "disappointing" to see that workplaces were still failing families.

"Evidence shows that close parental involvement benefits a child's development but we need a far more father-friendly working culture, with more shared leave and flexible working, to make this possible for dads today," he said.

"The UK cannot afford to lag behind our Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development competitors on such an important issue."

louise@peoples-press.com

Funds cut for family planning

Louise Nousratpour, Equalities Reporter
Wednesday November 24, 2010
The Morning Star

CAMPAIGNERS warned yesterday that the government's failure to ring-fence funding for teenage pregnancy services will reverse the success of recent years which has seen a downward trend in under-age conceptions.

Latest figures show that teenage pregnancy in England and Wales has dropped to its lowest level for more than a decade, with the number of pregnant under-16s reduced by 7.5 per cent year-on-year from 8,200 to 7,586.

Family planning campaigners hailed the figures - released by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday - as evidence that the previous Labour government's teenage pregnancy strategy was working.

But Con-Dem ministers have decided not to renew funding for the strategy once its 10-year period expires next month.

The teenage pregnancy independent advisory group (TPIAG), which monitors local authorities' progress in addressing the issue, will also be abolished in December.

Instead councils will be given an early intervention grant made up of funds formerly allocated for tackling issues affecting children and young people.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Education insisted today that this would give councils "freedom" to spend the money as they see fit.

But TPIAG director chairwoman Gill Frances warned that councils facing budget cuts were already preparing to axe teenage pregnancy services.

She added that if councils "take their eye off the ball their teenage pregnancy rates will go up."

Family Planning Association director Natika Halil said a continued financial commitment by the government to the work of the teenage pregnancy strategy was "essential if we're to keep the numbers on a downward trend."

Despite the latest fall in teenage pregancies, Britain still has one of the highest rates in Europe.

Thousands join protests against tuition fee rises

Louise Nousratpour
Wednesday November 24, 2010
The Morning Star

Education protests: Demonstrations across the country today saw thousands of school pupils, students, lecturers and parents march on town halls and occupy buildings in anger over the proposed tuition fees rise.

As well as the national demonstration in central London, protests took place in cities including Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford and Glasgow.

Around 3,000 protesters in Manchester congregated outside the town hall. Police blocked the entrance to the building as protesters sat down in front of them, chanting against education cuts and the coalition government.

The demonstration spilled onto Princess Street, causing traffic chaos in the city centre.

University of Manchester Student Union spokeswoman Sarah Wakefield said: "We've had a really peaceful protest."

More than 2,000 demonstrators from across Merseyside converged on Liverpool, chanting "No ifs, no buts, no to education cuts."

Hundreds staged sit-downs outside the town hall later and blocked three main city centre streets to traffic.

In Birmingham around 40 students occupied the University of Birmingham's Great Hall and unfurled a banner demanding that the university's vice-chancellor steps down.

Student Alan O'Connell told the BBC that the protesters had received messages of support from other students occupations around the country.

"I think direct action is the only way," he said.

Education Activist Network spokesman Mark Bergfeld said: "We have the right to protest, we have the right to civil disobedience, we have the right to occupy our lecture halls."

Protest organisers warned of "an unprecedented wave of student revolts" unfolding over the next few months to force a rethink of proposals to increase university fees to up to £9,000 a year.

School pupils and college students joined marches across the country, not only against higher tuition fees, but also in anger over Education Secretary Michael Gove's announcement today scrapping the £30 weekly education maintenance allowance for 16-19-year-olds.

More than 300 secondary school pupils marched on County Hall in Derbyshire against the maintenance cuts and rising tuition fees.

Lecturers' union ATL general secretary Mary Bousted said she understood why school students were joining the protests: "It's the prospect of debt that stops you going to university."

Coalition scraps extra midwives

Louise Nousratpour, Equalities Reporter
Wednesday November 17, 2010
The Morning Star

The coalition government has reneged on its pre-election pledge to recruit thousands more midwives despite maternity services across England being at a "cracking point," health workers warned today.

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said that, despite repeated requests, Prime Minister David Cameron, his deputy Nick Clegg and Health Secretary Andrew Lansley had all failed to honour their commitment to hiring 3,000 extra midwives.

"The silence from the government is deafening," RCM's general secretary Cathy Warwick told delegates at its annual conference in Manchester.

She pointed to a recent RCM report which showed that maternity units face budget cuts and redundancies despite dealing with a high birth rate and more complex deliveries.

The birthrate has risen by 19 per cent over the past decade but the number of midwives has increased by just 12.1 per cent.

Ms Warwick called for least 3,500 extra midwives, adding: "I fear for the future of maternity services, that the quality of care will fall and that safety could be compromised.

"I think it's getting to the point where it really is at cracking point."

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said it was "a disgrace" that the lives of mothers and babies were being compromised in this way.

He warned that the situation could get worse as the NHS scrambled to make so-called efficiency savings of £20 billion through hiring freezes and redundancies.

Despite stark evidence of a shortage of midwives, a Conservative Party spokesman said: "The commitment to 3,000 midwives made in opposition ... was not in the coalition agreement because predictions now suggest the birth rate will be stable over the next few years."
louise@peoples-press.com

May takes axe to Equalities Act

Louise Nousratpour, Equalities Reporter
Wednesday November 17, 2010
The Morning Star

Theresa May was accused today of reducing accountability and snatching power away from the powerless after she scrapped a vital clause in the Equality Act.

The Home Secretary, who is also the equalities minister, said: "We are scrapping the socio-economic duty for good. It would have been just another bureaucratic box to be ticked."

The measure, introduced by Labour's equalities minister Harriet Harman, was intended to force public authorities to reduce inequality by taking into account disadvantage and poverty when making decisions about policies.

The clause would also have applied to job centres, where officers would have had to assess whether an unemployed person would be worse off if their benefits were cut as a result of the government's new welfare policies.

By scrapping the clause, Ms May has removed the possibility of properly monitoring the impact of the government's welfare overhaul on the poorest.

Disability Alliance director of policy Neil Coyle warned that Ms May risked plunging many more vulnerable people into poverty.

He said: "We believe that certain aspects of the welfare changes will risk impoverishing thousands of people.

"The socio-economic duty would have monitored and prevented the implementation of any proposals that would have led to more poverty among disadvantaged people."

Child Poverty Action Group chief executive Alison Garnham said: "Far from being a box-ticking exercise, the duty would have given power to the powerless, making sure the voices of the most disadvantaged have a say in how government makes decisions.

"The message now is that government and public bodies can ignore the powerless and dispossessed and the bureaucrats can carry on regardless."

GMB's equalities officer Kamaljeet Jandu warned Ms May's announcement was "a dangerous sign of things to come."

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis added: "This watering down of the Equality Act is yet another example of the Tories hitting the poorest hardest."

Campaigners are also concerned that the government may scrap another part of the Act which requires private-sector employers to disclose whether they pay women as much as men.

The government's failure to implement the Act in full "undermines every speech coalition ministers ever gave endorsing the notion of a fairer Britain," women's group The Fawcett Society said.
louise@peoples-press.com

TUC gears up for mail fight

Louise Nousratpour in Manchester
Thursday September 16, 2010
The Morning Star

TUC Congress: TUC delegates have united behind postal workers' fight against the government's politically motivated plans for a full-scale privatisation of the Royal Mail.

Communication Workers Union deputy general secretary Dave Ward said the union had launched local campaigns targeting vulnerable coalition MPs to persuade them to vote against the looming privatisation Bill or lose their vote at the next election.

It has drawn up a "hit list" of 71 Lib Dem and Tory MPs in seats where Labour is second with less than a 10 per cent swing away from winning.

"We will need your full support to execute this strategy," Mr Ward told delegates in Manchester.

The CWU motion, passed unanimously by delegates on the final day of Congress, followed the publication of Richard Hooper's updated report on the postal services sector last Friday.

Mr Ward dismissed the report yesterday as "a match-fixer" for a government hell-bent on privatisation.

He said: "It's not independent and talks down the prospect of the postal industry to justify the government's predetermined position.

"The Royal Mail is set up to fail as competitors have taken 60 per cent of its profitable business."

Mr Ward warned that privatisation would spell the end of universal postal access in Britain, cause the closure of hundreds of post offices and mean thousands more job losses.

A total of 62,000 postal jobs have disappeared in the past eight years and communities up and down the country have been fighting to keep their local post office open.

"We don't need privatisation to tackle issues of regulation and pensions," Mr Ward argued, adding: "Royal Mail has a fully funded, successful modernisation programme and the stability of a three-year agreement with the union and workforce."

Supporting the motion, Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke warned that TNT was keen to buy up Royal Mail.

"This is a company that threatened our members that, if they did not accept a 10 per cent pay cut, there would be mass job losses," he stressed as a sign of what could be in store for the future of postal workers and the service.

"This is an attack on our public services and we will resist it," he vowed to cheers.

TUC Congress snubs King speech

Louise Noustrapour & John Millington in Manchester
Wednesday September 15, 2010
The Morning Star

Bank of England governor Mervin King struggled to justify Con-Dem austerity measures in front of the TUC Congress as delegates protested with placards, T-shirts and even walkouts.

Delivering his much-anticipated speech amid a hive of media activity and visible shows of dissent from some delegates, Mr King insisted that savage cuts facing workers amounted to "a more gradual fiscal tightening than in some other counties."

The entire RMT transport union delegation walked out in protest as the governor took to the Congress rostrum.

Reps for teaching union UCU wore T-shirts emblazed with "Make the Bankers Pay" and were joined by several delegates waving "No CONDEM Cuts" placards.

Although Mr King insisted that he understood the anger of workers losing their jobs, he attempted to shift blame onto the former "Soviet empire" as it entered the world capitalist economy and emerging economies such as China for running up high trade deficits.

"Such massive imbalances were never likely to be sustainable," he declared.

Despite the unprecedented capitalist crisis Mr King added: "To my mind a market economy and its disciplines offer the best way of raising living standards."

He went on to claim that there was "no alternative" to the spending cuts, despite voices within the Establishment warning of a double-dip recession.

He ignored the TUC's alternative economic proposals for investment in productive industries to create jobs and stimulate the economy.

However he did appear to sympathise with demands for a crackdown on tax evasion by companies and wealthy individuals who cost the Treasury up to £160bn - more than enough to wipe out the deficit.

During a brief Q&A, PCS president Janice Godrich asked for Mr King's views on whether more should be done to close tax loopholes and pursue "criminals" engaged in tax evasion.

Mr King responded: "I hear your points and they seem persuasive."

He also admitted that the huge banking bailout was "unfair," but rejected the union movement's call for direct control of those banks to curb bonuses and divert profits back into the public purse.

Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke was left unimpressed by Mr King's speech, pointing out that the Congress had passed numerous resolutions for sustainable growth and job creation.

"If these cuts continue over the next five years, we will be in double-dip recession," he warned.

"We have to make sure that this crisis never happens again. The Bank of England has a duty and role to rein in excessive bonuses."

"I would like to have seen him say more about manufacturing as there is a lot more unemployment coming in the pipeline."

GMB general secretary Paul Kenny said: "The truth is that he presided over the Bank of England and he never spoke out when he should have done.

"He failed us."

RMT general secretary Bob Crow, who boycotted the speech, said: "RMT delegates want to hear from the people suffering from this economic crisis, not waste time being lectured by the people who created it."

Left Economics Advisory Panel co-ordinator Andrew Fisher said of Mr King's pro-cut comments: "The only way to cut the deficit sustainably is to grow the economy - and that means investment in the public sector, not cuts.

"The £120 billion tax gap must now be a priority for the coalition government in place of devastating public sector cuts"

TUC supports push for 1m green jobs

Louise Nousratpour in Manchester
Wednesday September 15, 2010
The Morning Star

TUC Congress: TUC delegates have set out a working-class agenda to tackle the dual scourge of unemployment and climate change by investing in high-quality green jobs.

Congress threw its weight behind the One Million Green Jobs campaign already supported by a range of unions including the CWU, RMT, TSSA, NUT and UCU as well as the Vestas workers and several NGOs.

The campaign, launched last year, details how a million public-sector jobs can be created through investment in green manufacturing, energy-efficient house-building and a fully integrated public transport system.

By putting sustainability and the planet's health before profits Britain could grow its way out of the economic crisis without punishing the poor, delegates argued.

CWU delegate Tony Kearns said that the ambitious goals outlined in the campaign pamphlet were not a "flight of fancy" but could be achieved if Britain was serious about tackling rising unemployment and led the fight against climate change.

"These are jobs that actually need doing today - investing in alternative energy, building homes, reopening rail networks and developing safe cycle lanes," he told delegates in Manchester.

PCS delegate Adam Khalif said that his union planned to create a network of green branch reps to encourage activism among members.

"We must build on the magnificent Vestas workers' struggle and start a debate about how we can defend members' jobs and conditions while protecting the planet we live in," he urged.

"The fight for jobs is the same fight against climate change."

The government was accused of failing to address the pressing issue by delaying key decisions that would ensure "a secure and balanced" low-carbon economy for Britain.

Prospect delegate Sue Ferns, who moved the unanimously passed motion on climate change, said: "We can't simply rely on the market to cut CO2 emissions."

National Union of Mineworkers vice-president Nicky Wilson moved a motion on green coal.

He called for immediate plans to replace coal-fired power stations with new carbon capture and storage plants.

"It is a scandal that Britain, despite capability of being self-sufficient, imports 60 per cent of its coal consumption," he said.

"With the right technology and investment, Britain's coal can be the most efficient, productive and safe industry in the world - and the greenest."

Teachers warn of 'apartheid'

Louise Nousratpour in Manchester
Wednesday September 15, 2010
The Morning Star

TUC Congress: Education Secretary Michael Gove's push for academies and so-called free schools will lead to "educational apartheid" and deepen class divisions, the TUC Congress has warned.

During a debate on education on Tuesday delegates declared unanimous opposition to the Tory's piece-meal privatisation of state schools.

National Union of Teachers general secretary Christine Blower said the motion "spells out our opposition to the fragmentation and privatisation of our education service and our support for a state-funded and democratically accountable education service."

NASUWT delegate Paula Roe stressed that so-called free schools were "not free at all. They cost more and deliver less than state schools."

She warned that the plans would lead to "educational apartheid," adding that recent joint campaigns by unions, community activists and parents had shown "co-ordinated action can challenge the government."

The anti-academies campaign sabotaged Mr Gove's plan to get "thousands" of schools to reopen as academies following his hasty legislation to encourage head teachers to apply for the status.

Only 32 reopened as academies this year.

Other speakers warned that academies and free schools - which are publicly funded and privately run - drained already scarce funding from local schools and higher education colleges.

And Lawrence Hunt of Ucatt said thousands of construction jobs and vital apprenticeship opportunities had been lost due to Mr Gove's decision to scrap the previous Labour government's multimillion-pound school-building programme.

Unite delegate Dave Mathieson warned: "The severe attack on our comprehensive education system will reinforce class divisions and social segregation."

NHS white paper savaged

Louise Nousratpour in Manchester
Tuesday September 14, 2010
The Morning Star

TUC Congress: THE government is gambling with the nation's health and taxpayers' money by pressing ahead with plans to rip the NHS apart, TUC delegates have warned.

The NHS white paper heralds the biggest shake-up the service has ever seen and if not resisted could spell the end of publicly-owned free health-care in Britain.

Chartered Society of Physiotherapy delegate Lesley Mercer told Congress in Manchester that the proposed changes - estimated to cost £3 billion - had made the future of the NHS "more uncertain than any time since its foundation in 1948."

Moving a motion instructing Congress to challenge the changes, she said that the "eye-watering" cuts represented "the biggest gamble with this nation's health and taxpayers' money.

"It's equivalent to floating the NHS on the stock market and see what happens.

"As the role of the state shrinks to 'light-touch regulator,' the service might even be scrapped altogether - what you can afford will dictate the quality of care you get."

Ms Mercer, whose motion was passed unanimously, called on the TUC to challenge the proposals "legislatively" and by organising joint campaigns with staff and patients.

She added that the public wanted a "publicly funded, publicly provided and publicly accountable service."

The NHS has been ordered to find up to £20bn in savings over the next few years, contrary to David Cameron's pre-election pledge to ring-fence it.

"This was a blatant lie," Unite delegate Joyce Still said, also questioning whether the Tory premier would fulfil his other much-vaunted pre-election promise of 4,000 extra health visitors.

Ms Still rejected the government's divide between frontline and other NHS staff, insisting: "All NHS workers are frontline staff and they are already seeing the impact of cuts and loss of vital jobs.

"Privatisation, cuts and the race to the bottom in pay and conditions will destroy our NHS."

Unison has already launched legal action against Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's refusal to consult the public and staff on proposals contained in the white paper.

The Green Party also passed a motion at its annual conference last week vowing to campaign against Con-Dem plans for a fully-privatised "Tesco-style" health service.

TUC pledges support for women workers

Louise Nousratpour in Manchester
Tuesday September 14, 2010
The Morning Star

TUC Congress: GOVERNMENT attacks on women and their hard-won rights are "plain criminal" and will be resisted through joint union action, TUC delegates have vowed.

They claimed government departments were breaching equality laws by "conveniently forgetting" equality impact assessments (EIAs) when slashing budgets and jobs.

The tests are vital in ensuring new policies do not discriminate against women, black and ethnic minority, LGBT and disabled workers.

"Many higher education institutions are rife with inequality and unfair treatment," Alan Whittaker of teaching union UCU told conference.

"EIAs are a powerful collective tool for unions and the TUC needs to co-ordinate campaigns to protect and enforce them," he said.

Other speakers warned the cuts would disproportionately impact on women, who make up a majority of public-sector workers and users.

More than 70 per cent of the cuts will affect women, who are already paid up to 40 per cent less than their male counterparts.

Equality group the Fawcett Society is challenging the Con-Dem budget in the High Court following the Treasury's failure to provide evidence of EIAs.

Sue Bond of public-sector union PCS warned that the cuts would lead to "the deepest level of inequality in a generation" and called for joint action to stop the rolling back of hard-won rights.

Many of those rights gained under Labour are now under attack from the coalition, which has already slashed pregnancy grants, Sure Start nurseries, and funding to combat domestic violence.

Ms Bond reported that the Equality and Human Rights Commission budget would be slashed by more than half.

"This is plain criminal and must be resisted," she declared.

Delegates also condemned the new Equality Act being phased in from next month which seeks to dilute equality responsibilities by employers and deny equality reps statutory rights.

Moving a motion on behalf of the TUC Women's Conference, Unison's Clare Williams called for an organised fightback.

"Women will not pay the price of an economic crisis created by the corporate elite dominated by men," she said.

TUC urged to back debt cancellation

Louise Nousratpour in Manchester
Tuesday September 14, 2010
The Morning Star

TUC Congress: TUC affiliates have been urged to join campaigns for Haiti's national debt to be cancelled following the disastrous earthquake in January which killed more than 200,000 people.

The country is struggling with 1.3 million people still homeless and hundreds of thousands of children left orphaned as authorities attempt to slow the spread of disease without a proper health structure and amid a collapsed infrastructure.

Presenting a motion from the black workers conference Micky Nicholas called on delegates to support a Jubilee Campaign demand for Haiti's debts to be cancelled.

He added: "I hope affiliated unions encourage branches to continue to send aid to Haiti. They need to know that we stand in solidarity with them."

Unite delegate Alexis Chase argued that if the country had had the resources for better infrastructure and a properly funded health service the disaster would not have killed so many.

She added: "We should look to countries like Cuba and Venezuela who were the first to arrive in Haiti after the disaster and are doing a good job in flood-stricken Pakistan."

In a separate motion, TUC delegates reaffirmed their support for the people of Vietnam and their "incredible" achievements in rebuilding their country after defeating the US 35 years ago.

TUC kicks off with clear message to Con-Dems: No Cuts

Louise Nousratpour in Manchester
Monday September 13, 2010
The Morning Star

TUC Congress: THE spectre of nationwide resistance is haunting the Con-Dem axemen after TUC delegates from across Britain returned to the birthplace of the movement to organise joint action against the cuts.

The right-wing media were hard-pressed to find the hoped-for cracks in the movement as one union leader after another stepped onto the Congress platform to declare unequivocal support for co-ordinated industrial action across all sectors.

In his opening speech to delegates in Manchester, TUC leader Brendan Barber attacked the "demolition government" and said it was "time for us to build a diverse, dynamic and progressive alliance for change - a coalition against cuts."

There was a consensus among delegates that it was vital to build "progressive alliances" with service users, community activists and charities to bolster public support for action.

Congress rejected claims that public-sector cuts were necessary, arguing that the TUC's alternative proposals for progressive taxation and investment in manufacturing and other productive industry would wipe out the deficit, create jobs and stimulate economic growth.

The emergency Budget would cost over a million jobs, drag the economy into depression, increase inequality, hammer women and children, turn the NHS into a mere logo and "rip the heart" out of Britain's welfare system, it declared.

Moving a composite motion on defending public services, Unison general secretary Dave Prentis vowed to build alliances with charities and local groups, and "move to co-ordinate industrial action" to defend services.

"The coalition is taking a chainsaw to our services, hoping no-one will notice the amount we lose every year in tax evasion and avoidance by big corporations - more than enough to wipe out the deficit at a stroke," he said.

"If there is money available to bail out banks, if there is money for war, for Trident, there's money for our public services."

Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail warned that women were in the firing line.

"Seventy-two per cent of the cuts will hit their income as they make up 65 per cent of public-sector workers. It will set back by decades the already unacceptable gender pay gap."

FBU leader Matt Wrack said: "This is a Cabinet of millionaires who do not need or use public services and therefore don't care a hoot about them."

GMB national secretary Brian Strutton reported that his union would "begin preparation for national industrial action next month," while Unison and PCS have already teamed up for co-ordinated action.

PCS leader Mark Serwotka said tax evasion cost the Treasury £120 billion and added: "There is no need for a single job cut or a single penny cut in public-sector spending."

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: "We can pass all the resolutions we want but, ultimately, we either lay down or stand up and fight."

The composite motion was passed by all but one of the 700 delegates - Balpa leader Jim McAuslan, who insisted it was wrong to say that "not a penny" needed to be cut and that the "tone" of the debate would not resonate well outside the conference hall.

Commons craves more war

Louise Nousratpour
Thursday September 09, 2010
The Morning Star

In an unprecedented Commons vote the government rubber-stamped continued war in Afghanistan even as bereaved military families published an open letter demanding Britain's immediate withdrawal.

In a sparsely attended debate that lasted much of the afternoon MPs voted on a motion put forward by the newly established backbench business committee stating: "This house supports the continued deployment of UK armed forces in Afghanistan."

There have been many ministerial statements and Parliament discussions since the invasion in November 2001, but this was the first time a motion was presented to MPs. Even the decision to join the US-led war was taken without a Commons vote.

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP expressed outrage after her amendment arguing for the "swift withdrawal of troops" was not selected for debate by the deputy Commons leader.

"Even though more names were supporting it than two other amendments, my amendment wasn't selected," she told the Star.

Labour MP John McDonnell, who supported Ms Lucas's amendment, said: "The failure to introduce the possibility of peace talks to solve the criminal impasse in Afghanistan confirms this government's addiction to military excess, whatever the cost."

Fellow Labour MP Paul Flynn, who opposed the war, accused ministers and military officers of being "in denial" about it.

"The majority of the public would like to see the troops home before Christmas, and Parliament is not reflecting that," he added.

The latest opinion poll found that 72 per cent of the public believe troops should be withdrawn.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox repeated the government's mantra that a withdrawal now would unleash the terror of "jihadists everywhere" and threaten "our national security"

He also told MPs that "our influence in the region would be severely deminished" if Britain pulled out now.

As Mr Fox sought to justify the continued slaughter in Afghanistan, military families published their letter calling for an immediate withdrawal from the "unwinnable" war.

"This war is not making the world a safer place and not helping the Afghan people. Wounded troops are not being given proper treatment," it read.

"The casualty rate is going up on both sides."

Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German has dismissed Commons debate as an attempt by the government to place a democratic fig leaf over the conflict.

She added that a cross-party group of MPs, called Troops Out of Afghanistan, had been set up to bolster the anti-war argument.

Unions dismiss Cable moan

Louise Nousratpour
Thursday September 09, 2010
The Morning Star

Union leaders have hit back at Business Secretary Vince Cable's inflammatory remarks in which he accused them of "public posturing" over threats of industrial action on impending spending cuts.

Even as his Tory colleagues sharpen the axe for the looming public-sector cull, Mr Cable insisted that the government was not seeking confrontation with the unions and that he hoped for a "productive working relationship."

Looking ahead at next week's TUC conference, which is expected to see a growing mood for co-ordinated action against the cuts, the Lib-Dem backpedaller claimed that the public would have little patience for talk of industrial action to defend workers' jobs and livelihoods.

He went on to dismiss much of the talk of action over cuts as "public posturing" and singled out "militant" RMT general secretary Bob Crow for criticism in light of the successful London-wide Tube strike on Tuesday.

"Several British public-sector unions are threatening action over cuts, though the extreme rhetoric of Bob Crow - who talks of 'fiscal fascism' - is almost certainly regarded as an embarrassment by leaders of bigger unions," Mr Cable blathered.

A spokesman for civil servants' union PCS, which has teamed up with Unison to co-ordinate action against the looming cuts, declared "full support for Bob and his union."

He added: "We are looking forward to getting together with other unions next week to formulate our response to his government's shameful and unnecessary spending cuts."

Mr Crow said unions would take "no lectures" from Mr Cable, who had "postured his way right into the Cabinet.

"He represents a party that said one thing to the voters before polling day and then immediately leapt into bed with the most right-wing administration since Margaret Thatcher strutted the stage."

Responding to Mr Cable's personal dig, Mr Crow added: "When you use economic power, with the support of your unelected allies in finance and the courts and the rest of the state apparatus, to try and bully and control the working class, that is fiscal fascism in the raw."

Mr Cable made his unsavoury comments in an article in the New Statesman on Thursday and expressed "disappointment" at the withdrawal of his invitation to address the Manchester conference.

This means that next week's gathering will be the first in more than a decade to have no address from a government minister.

Con-Dems 'playing games' over gender assessment

Louise Nousratpour
Monday August 23, 2010
Morning Star

The Fawcett Society has accused the government of "playing games" over delays to its demand for a gender assessment on the Budget.

Filing legal papers at the High Court on Monday, the Treasury argued that it could not respond to the request until September 20 due to staff being on holiday.

The original date agreed was August 31.

Anna Bird of the Fawcett Society said the Treasury's argument "smacks of game playing."

She added: "It is fairly cut and dry - either they have done an equality assessment or they haven't."

Under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Gender Equality Duty, the government must carry out a gender impact assessment on its policies to ensure they are not discriminatory.

The society believes that the emergency Budget cuts are having a disproportionate impact on women and therefore breach equality laws.

Earlier this month, the group filed papers with the High Court seeking a judicial review of the Budget after its request for a copy of the gender impact assessment was ignored by the Treasury.

Ms Bird warned yesterday that the Treasury's "delaying tactics will have serious consequences" for equality and women in particular.

"The Budget decisions are being implemented right here, right now. The longer the measures are in place, the harder they become to repeal," she said.

Even a top-line assessment of Budget measures shows that 72 per cent of cuts will be met from women's income as opposed to 28 per cent from men's, the society calculated.

And women will be worst affected by the cuts to public services as they make up 65 per cent of public-sector workers.

Representing the Fawcett Society, Samantha Mangwana of Russell Jones & Walker solicitors warned of the "widespread ignorance" among ministers and local authorities about equality laws and how to implement them.

"The case law is crystal clear," she said earlier this month when she filed the High Court papers on behalf of the group.

"Firstly, an equality impact assessment must be conducted before policy decisions are taken. Secondly, where an assessment reveals a risk of discrimination, urgent action must be taken to address those risks."

Minority groups challenge cuts' racial bias

Louise Nousratpour, Equalities Reporter
Thursday Augus 5, 2010
The Morning Star

A coalition of black and ethnic minority groups is to launch legal action against the government's "potentially illegal" spending cuts.

Cuts and job losses in the public sector could result in these communities facing unfair losses of essential front-line services in both the state and voluntary sectors, campaigners warned on Wednesday.

The cuts were also likely to lead to "unfair and huge redundancies and sackings" of black and ethnic minority public workers, they said.

The coalition, including Operation Black Vote (OBV) and the 1990 Trust, has written to ministers reminding them of their legal duty to complete a full race equality impact assessment on the looming budget reduction.

At the same time, it said it was seeking "advice and support" from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in launching legal action against any breaches of the Equalities Act 2010.

It emerged on Wednesday that Home Secretary Theresa May had written to her Cabinet colleagues back in June outlining the legal requirement to evaluate and consult black and ethnic minority communities before wielding the axe.

1990 Trust chairman David Weaver said that ministers had failed to heed clear warnings that they would not only be breaking the law but also run the risk of worsening race inequality.

"We see no alternative but to initiate a judicial review," he said.

Mr Weaver stressed that this would not only be a test of government credentials around equality but also the solidarity of BME communities to effectively work together to demand justice and hold Westminster to account.

The women's campaigning group Fawcett Society has already filed papers with the High Court seeking a judicial review of the cuts.
louise@peoples-press.com

Coalition scraps law for domestic abuse victims

Louise Nousratpour
Wednesday August 4, 2010
The Morning Star

A scheme to help people escape domestic abuse by banning violent partners from the family home is to be abandoned by Equalities Minister Theresa May due to government cuts.

Under the previous Labour government's "go orders," police would have been given power to remove violent partners from their homes for up to two weeks.

The domestic violence protection orders, which passed into law in April, would have given victims the chance to seek help and break the cycle of violence.

The scheme was to encourage police to take a pro-active approach to domestic violence and was aimed at improving conviction rates.

Almost 750,000 incidents are reported to the police every year, yet fewer than a third of them result in criminal charges.

But according to reports on Wednesday, Ms May wants to scrap the orders, which were to be rolled out across England and Wales next year.

The Home Secretary insisted that she had made the decision following pressure from the government to slash £2.5 billion from the Home Office's annual budget.

Wednesday's revelations followed a leaked letter from Ms May to George Osborne on Tuesday, in which the Equalities Minister warned the Chancellor that his spending cuts could be in breach of equality laws.

Ms May wrote "there is a real risk of successful legal challenge" by ethnic minorities groups, women, the disabled and elderly people.

Anna Bird of Fawcett Society, which has already filed a legal challenge, said the letter revealed that ministers were aware of legal requirements to assess the impact of spending cuts on different groups.

"Despite repeated requests, the Treasury have not provided any evidence that any such an assessment took place," she noted.

"The Fawcett Society filed papers last week with the High Court seeking a judicial review of the government's recent Budget."

The group argued that even a top-line assessment of the Budget measures showed 72 per cent of cuts will be met from women's income as many of the cuts are to the benefits that more women than men rely on.

Also, women make up the majority of public-sector workers whose jobs and pensions are under threat.

HSBC bank wig-wigs brag of super-profits

Louise Nousratpour
Monday August 2, 2010
The Morning Star (frontpage)

Banking giant HSBC has boasted that it had more than doubled half-year profits to £7.2 billion - prompting demands for a windfall tax and the nationalisation of the banking system.

The British-based group's super-profits roared 121 per cent ahead in the first six months of this year as bad debts plunged to their lowest level since the financial crisis.

In Britain, where HSBC cut 4,600 jobs last year, profits totalled £1.3 billion, an increase of 26 per cent. The bank has also set aside £6.2bn in staff pay, bonuses and benefits for the first half of the year - up 7 per cent on a year earlier.

Left campaigners said that the recent super-profits announced by the corporate sector confirmed that we are not "all in this together," as Prime Minister David Cameron keeps telling the nation, with big business flourishing while Chancellor George Osborne "robs ordinary people of £6bn in austerity measures."

Left Economics Advisory Panel co-ordinator Andrew Fisher said: "The eye-watering figures from HSBC reinforce the fact that the corporate sector has had a good recession.

"We are seeing the same phenomenon whether it's BT, British Gas or the banks - corporate profitability restored to or above pre-recession levels, while the recession they barely felt is used as an excuse to cut jobs, suppress wages and raise prices."

Mr Fisher warned that a "stark class warfare" was being waged by the Con-Dem government and "its corporate pals who were given £25bn in tax breaks in the last Budget.

"The reality is that the government still holds over £850bn in bank assets.

"There is no need for a single job to be cut or for a penny to be taken away from a single public service."

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffiths renewed the labour movement's demand for a windfall tax on all super profits and for the banking sector to be brought in-house to plug the deficit and fund public services.

"Banks were kept afloat because the government and the Bank of England pumped £1.3 trillion into Britain's financial system, yet the working class are being forced to pay the cost of the crisis while the fat cats grow fatter on their ill-gotten gains," he added.

Britain's other major banks are due to report their results later this week. Part-nationalised Lloyds is forecast to report £800 million in profits, while the 83 per cent state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is expected to post interim profits of around £200 million.

Labour leadership frontrunners David and Ed Miliband have both called for the recently introduced banking levy to be doubled.

David Miliband told a south London party meeting on Sunday that the tax, expected to raise £2bn a year from banks, was "incredibly small."

Housing swap scheme could mean forced relocation

Louise Nousratpour
Wednesday July 28, 2010
Morning Star

Council house tenants in properties with more than one spare room could be forced to move into smaller accommodation under the Con-Dem austerity drive.

Announcing the proposals on Wednesday, Welfare Reform Minister Lord Freud claimed the housing swap scheme would tackle overcrowding.

Statistics show 234,000 households in the social tenant sector are overcrowded while 456,000 are "under-occupied" - meaning people have more than one spare room.

Former banker Lord Freud declared he was "putting fairness" back into the system by uprooting working-class families from their home and community because they have a spare room.

Housing campaigners branded Lord Freud's proposals "nasty" and called for more investment in council house building instead.

Defend Council Housing chairwoman Eileen Short said that with 4.5 million people on council house waiting lists, the proposals were yet another "cynical cut" disguised as helping tenants.

"It would attack the poorest, the sickest and the oldest in society," she said.

"If a fraction of the public money used to subsidise private developers and high rents was diverted into building new council homes, the problem of housing would be solved."

Ms Short urged the government to identify the thousands of empty houses owned by property speculators and take them into council control.

Recalling Prime Minister David Cameron's comments in a newspaper interview before the election that he did not know how many homes he owned, Ms Short quipped: "Maybe he can turn some of his homes into affordable housing."

National Housing Federation (NHF) assistant director Paul Rees said the policies would penalise some of Britain's poorest families and tear them away from their communities.

"Higher-income families living in private homes won't be told that their house is too big for them," he observed.

Wednesday's proposals are part of the government's welfare reform agenda, which will also see a maximum housing benefit cap of £280 a week for a flat and £400 for a house.

An NHF report last week warned that the raft of proposed changes to housing benefit could lead to up to 750,000 people at risk of becoming homeless.

"Ministers should go back to the drawing board and rethink the plans," Mr Rees demanded.

Leaked files reveal Afghan atrocities

by Louise Nousratpour
Monday July 26, 2010

The leaked military documents detailing the brutality of the Afghanistan war are "fantastically damaging" to Nato forces and could spell the end of their bloody venture, peace campaigners have said.

Thousands of secret military documents have been leaked by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks revealing details of incidents when civilians were killed by occupation troops in the country.

The cache contains more than 90,000 US records giving a blow-by-blow account of fighting between January 2004 and December 2009.

They include references to incidents involving British troops.

The files reveal the operations of a secret special forces unit which is allegedly responsible for the "kill or capture" of Taliban leaders.

They also claim that 195 civilians have been killed in "error" and 174 wounded.

But campaigners argued that the real numbers ran into tens of thousands.

Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German said: "UN figures estimated that 10,000 Afghan civilians were killed by the end of 2001.

"We could easily triple that number now."

Ms German welcomed the revelations as "fantastically damaging to Nato forces and could be the beginning of the end of the war as the truth will turn public opinion overwhelmingly against it."

Recalling former defence secretary Des Browne's remarks that the Afghan war was the "most noble cause of the 21st century," she said: "The leaks tell a very different story about a sordid, brutal and unwinnable war. It's time to get the troops out."

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange defended the leaks, which he said had showed "the true nature of this war.

"The public from Afghanistan and other nations can see what's really going on and take steps to address the problems."

In response to the leaks, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "It would be inappropriate to speculate on specific cases without further verification of the alleged actions."

But he insisted: "Reducing the risk to local civilians has always formed an essential part of all military operations carried out by UK forces."

Former British commanders, nervous about the personal implications of the exposé documents, claimed yesterday that the leaks could compromise operational security.

Colonel Richard Kemp claimed: "It's potentially damaging to operational security," while Colonel Stuart Tootal groaned: "This is going to be seen as more bad news coming out of Afghanistan."

Peace campers driven off Parliament Square

Louise Nousratpour
Tuesday July 20, 2010

London's Parliament Square was sealed off on Tuesday after bailiffs stormed the site and forcibly evicted peace protesters who had camped there since May 1.

The protesters in the makeshift camp known as Democracy Village were removed in the early hours after losing a Court of Appeal battle last week to stay there.

However, veteran peace activist Brian Haw, who has been camped out since 2001 near the Houses of Parliament, was not affected by the eviction order sought by London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Court officials arrived at 1am to move campers on, with protesters claiming they were left "bruised but unperturbed" after a short-lived attempt to stop the bailiffs moving in.

Dozens of activists remained outside Parliament for most of Tuesday after temporary metal fencing was put up around the square.

Londoner Maria Gallastegui, who has camped outside Parliament for four years, said: "People were forcibly removed. There are certainly a few bruises."

Eywitness and Democracy Village activist Phoenix reported that the bailiffs had "kicked and punched people, including one protester who has been on hunger strike for 25 days. He was later treated in an ambulance."

He noted that the camp had received "considerable" backing from current and former servicemen expressing their support for immediate troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

He added that the peace activists had walked in the footsteps of the Chartists and the Suffragettes who also occupied Parliament square and engaged in civil disobedience to achieve their demands.

"You have to break the law to change the law," he declared.

A message on the group's website on Tuesday encouraged supporters to join in "ongoing mass civil disobedience" around Parliament Square throughout the day.

Campaigners have also called a "people's assembly forum" to discuss future action. This will be held on Saturday between 1pm and 5pm at Victoria Tower Gardens public park next to Parliament.

Police confirmed that they had made no arrests during Tuesday's eviction. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said officers were "in a supporting role to High Court enforcement officers."

A spokeswoman for mayor claimed that the protest had caused "considerable damage" to the site, adding: "The square will now be closed temporarily, during which time the site will be restored."

Delivering a united fightback


Louise Nousratpour talks to the victimised Burslem postal workers making a stand

Sunday July 18, 2010
The Morning Star

Just weeks after the 2007 national postal dispute Burslem delivery office managers summarily sacked 12 union activists in what the union describes as a "conscious decision" to bust the "strongest and most organised" postal branch in the country.

Dave Evans is one of four men who have taken Royal Mail to an employment tribunal to win their jobs back and expose the company's "corrupt" and "bullying" management.

The Burslem 12 were locked in the canteen for the best part of that morning, weren't allowed out, and were eventually told that they had been suspended due to "complaints and allegations" made by members of staff, Evans says.

The sackings triggered a five-and-a-half-week solidarity strike by the entire workforce of the Burslem office over the 2007-8 Christmas period.

The solid strike, the third longest in the Communication Workers Union's history, forced management to launch an internal appeals process which resulted in six of the workers being reinstated and all charges against them dropped.

And after a further six months, a year to the day, another was reinstated.

Of the remaining five, one has since left the industry. Evans, along with Mick Gardner and former reps Dave Scarratt and Paul Malyan, took their case to the tribunal, fully backed by the union. The tribunal finished earlier this month with the results due in September.

"Not one person crossed that picket line for five and a half weeks," Evans recalls. "One of the guys on the picket line told me: 'My kids aren't going to have a great Christmas, but I'll explain to them when they are older why they didn't have any presents that year'."

Paul Dawson, one of the original 12 who was reinstated, says: "They would not have walked out for so long over the busiest time of the year when they could have earned the most money if we were bullying anybody.

"They stood up for us and we are forever indebted to them."

I caught up with Evans and Dawson at this year's CWU conference in Bournemouth where they were minding a stall adorned with framed cut-outs of local press coverage of their fight, and offering passers-by solidarity badges and information leaflets.

Dawson made front-page news locally when he was sacked for a second time last August after staging a rooftop protest at the Burslem office demanding a written apology from Royal Mail, part of the deal during the initial reinstatement victory.

"My protest was successful in that I got my apology faxed to me on the spot," Dawson says proudly. "But a few weeks later, I received a letter saying I had been sacked for 'gross misconduct.'

"I exhausted all the legal channels with Royal Mail to get the apology, to clear my name and for the unnecessary trauma my family and I had gone through. But they were not big enough to give it to me until I climbed the office roof."

Dawson says he cannot understand why he was originally reinstated, but Evans and the others weren't.

"I believe it was a clear divide-and-rule tactic, but it didn't work because we're still here, shoulder to shoulder," he adds.

Evans, who has been unemployed for nearly three years and has had to rely on his wife's income and financial support from the union, brands the sackings a "total stitch-up."

He explains that the allegations of bullying and harassment levelled against the 12, all of whom happened to be reps or active members of the branch, were based on complaints made by one member of staff.

As for the internal appeals hearings, Evans says: "There were no witnesses, just one judge who decided to sack us all on balance of probability, even after admitting that the evidence wasn't there."

Dawson adds: "The corrupt managers wove a cunning plot and coerced one person in a 100-strong workforce into making complaints against 12 people and that stood."

He also says that, the day after the initial suspensions on September 11 2007, the managers ransacked the Burslem branch office and removed union documents.

"They got a locksmith to break into the filing cabinets and took agreement books containing records of union meetings and staff complaints against management harassment and bullying," says Dawson. "These books suddenly went missing."

Thanks to Thatcher's anti-union laws brought in during the 1984 miners' strike, even if the four win their tribunal case Royal Mail has no legal obligation to reinstate them.

"I have no doubt that I'll win the case but whether or not I'll get my job back is another matter," Evans sighs.

Dawson, whose latest sacking will be dealt with through separate channels, declares his readiness to defend his colleagues till the bitter end.

"If they lose their case, or win it but don't get reinstated, I think we should organise a fightback, including strike action and even a trip to the EU Court of Human Rights.

"If we let them get away with it, they will do worse in the future. It's no longer a question of individual cases, but an attack on the whole movement."

And both Evans and Dawson say that their ordeal has made them even more determined to get involved in union business and continue to defend workers' interests.

BT workers threaten to go on strike

Louise Nousratpour, in Bournemouth
Wednesday May 26, 2010
The Morning Star

More than 55,000 BT workers could walk out on strike next month unless the telecoms giant bows to their demands and improves its "derisory" pay offer.

Communication Workers Union delegates voted unanimously on Wednesday to give BT until June 4 before serving formal legal notice to bosses of the union's intention to ballot for industrial action.

The decision came just hours after BT's annual financial report revealed that its chief executive Ian Livingstone and three other directors had raked in bonuses totalling £2.7 million last year.

More than 1,000 delegates crowded into the Bournemouth conference hall to hear impassioned speeches calling for a united stance to see the fight through.

The CWU postal members took the unusual step of suspending their sectional conference nearby and joined fellow telecoms delegates in a defiant show of solidarity and strength.

Opening the charged debate, deputy general secretary for telecoms Andy Kerr said that he had "no doubt in my mind that we will win this fight," evoking a standing ovation.

Mr Kerr attacked the company's "double-standard" attitude to pay as it emerged that Mr Livingstone had received a bonus of £1.2 million last year on top of a salary of £860,000.

Company chairman Sir Michael Rake pocketed £670,000 last year for doing part-time work and former Labour Cabinet minister Patricia Hewitt, who is a BT director, was paid £128,000.

Mr Kerr argued that the union's 5 per cent pay claim accounted for a fraction of BT's £1bn profit in 2009 - up from a loss of £244 million previously.

"With a pay freeze last year and inflation now running at 5.3 per cent, BT's attitude to pay is insulting and the staff deserve more," he charged.

Members have already rejected the company's 2 per cent pay offer, arguing that it amounts to a cut and will have a detrimental impact on their pension.

CWU telecoms executive member Alan Eldred said: "They're offering us a pay cut and we're not having it."

East Midlands branch delegate Linda Woodings said that members' goodwill gestures last year to forgo a pay rise in light of BT's heavy losses had been rewarded with "a kick in the teeth."

She vouched for her branch members that "they will walk," not just over pay but in protest at "a workplace tyranny which has left them with a sense of aggrievement and mutiny."

Croydon South London delegate Steve Browett said that members were fed up with bosses' divide-and-rule tactics to break the union.

"When you keep kicking a sleeping dog, don't be surprised when the dog wakes up and bites you in the backside," he said to roaring laughter.

A BT spokesman insisted on Wednesday: "We have made the CWU a very fair offer."

And in a provocative move that laid bare BT's unwillingness to return to negotiation, the company confirmed that it has put contingency plans in place to deal with a possible walkout.

BT has asked its managers to provide details of their skills with a view to mobilising a scab workforce in case of a strike.

The last time BT workers walked out was in 1987 - three years after it was privatised.

louise@peoples-press.com

Tribunal for sacked staff

Louise Nousratpour in Bournemouth
Tuesday May 25, 2010
The Morning Star

Sacked postal workers are taking Royal Mail to an employment tribunal next month over management "victimisation" and unfair dismissal, a CWU conference fringe meeting heard on Tuesday.

A couple of months after the 2007 postal dispute, 12 CWU activists at Burslem delivery office in Stoke-on-Trent were sacked on what the union says were trumped-up charges.

The sackings triggered a five-week strike by CWU members at their delivery office, forcing bosses to agree to an independent appeals process which led to six of the affected workers being reinstated.

Of the remaining six, two have since left the industry for other jobs and the other four are taking their case to a tribunal, fully backed by the union.

One of the four, Paul Malyan, told the CWU fringe meeting in Bournemouth on Tuesday that his three-year battle for reinstatement was no longer just a "personal" issue but one that concerned all union activists.

He added that the ordeal had "solidified" his principles as a trade unionist fighting for workers' collective interests.

CWU deputy general secretary for the postal sector Dave Ward said that the workers had been targeted because they led a "strong and organised" workplace.

He noted that the primary aim of the tribunal was to "get them their jobs back," but admitted that the result could go either way.

The tribunal is expected to start on June 21 and will last three weeks.

Delegates prepare to fight mail sell-off

Louise Nousratpour in Bournemouth
Monday May 24, 2010
The Morning Star

CWU delegates have declared that they are ready to take industrial action to defend Royal Mail following news that a Bill to privatise the service will be in Tuesday's Queen speech.

The new government is risking an early collision course with the "battle-hardened" postal workers, less than a year after their national strike at Royal Mail resulted in victory.

The Bill may reach Parliament by next summer and CWU general secretary Billy Hayes insisted that this would mean "a summer of discontent as far as we're concerned."

Last year, a fierce CWU campaign coupled with a huge backbench revolt shelved former business secretary Peter Mandelson's plans to privatise Royal Mail.

The coalition government is reportedly seeking advice from the man behind Mr Mandelson's defeated plans, Sir Richard Hooper, to make the case for privatisation.

"This is old politics wrapped in new language. No-one wants it," Mr Hayes told delegates in Bournemouth.

"We have defeated Royal Mail privatisation three times and we will fight it again with all our might," he pledged, expressing confidence that the union could muster enough public and parliamentary support.

Pro-privatisation MPs might have a majority in Parliament, he said, "but they don't have a majority with the electorate."

CWU deputy general secretary for the postal sector Dave Ward gave the Tory-led government an "absolute guarantee that, if we need to take industrial action to defeat Royal Mail privatisation and secure our members' jobs and pension, we will not hesitate to do it."

He added: "We are battle-hardened, not battle-weary."

Mr Ward stressed that the three-year modernisation agreement struck between CWU and Royal Mail following last year's strike "demonstrates that the business can be successfully run within the public sector."

The union will launch a special campaign committee to raise public awareness about how the plans will "destroy" the post office network, curtail universal access and threaten workers' jobs and conditions, conference heard.

Union learning at risk from college cutbacks

Louise Nousratpour in Bournemouth
Sunday May 23, 2010
The Morning Star

Incoming cuts to union education funding are a direct attack on the working class and will stop activists gaining the skills they need to fight for social justice, delegates at the CWU conference has warned.

Further education colleges in England face an average budget cut of 16 per cent for adult learning as part of "efficiency savings" worth more than £200 million between now and 2011.

Around 30,000 union activists are trained every year using union education programmes publicly funded through colleges.

But this could become a thing of the past as "catastrophic" cuts to adult education begin to take effect, the conference in Bournemouth was told.

Head of education and training Trish Lavelle called on the CWU to mount a "vigorous campaign" in conjunction with other unions to fight the cuts.

"Every single union is suddenly seeing their education programme either disappear or drastically reduced. That's going to have a massive impact on our ability to organise workers and to train the next generation of union leaders," she said.

Moving a motion on the issue, Ms Lavelle argued for "ring-fenced funds" for union education, pointing out that the current cuts are the legacy of Labour and do not include the new government's austerity plans for the sector.

"This is before the 'chuckle brothers' even got going on cuts," she warned.

Ms Lavelle also expressed grave concern about plans that in the future only courses that are fully supported by the Sector Skills Councils will receive funding.

"SSCs are employer-led quangos. So it will be only funded if it fits with employers' agenda and not in terms of wider education values for the individual," she warned.

The price of progress is eternal vigilance

Interview by Louise Nousratpour
Wednesday May 05, 2010
The Morning Star

As Mary Davis's local rabbi awarded her a cookery book for excellence in Hebrew, he intoned portentiously that a Jewish woman is "a queen in her own home."

Davis flung the book on the floor, protesting: "I don't want to be a queen in my own home."

This episode led the precocious schoolgirl to question her strong religious beliefs and, eventually, the whole basis on which society was founded.

"As I broke with the stultifying traditions of orthodox Judaism, a whole new world opened up to me," Davis tells me over a proper coffee in her immaculate kitchen.

She joined the Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (YCND) aged 15, selling the group's Sanity newspaper in school and challenging visiting politicians to explain why Britain needed a nuclear deterrent.

"The Soviet Union was branded the enemy when all they were doing was contributing to the construction of a better world," she remembers.

So Davis honed her debating skills in YCND, where her questioning of Britain's nukes led her to a socialist perspective.

"When my history teacher referred to 'a capitalist society,' I thought capitalism was to do with capital cities," she laughs.

When Davis popped into her local library to look up "capitalism," she came across "a huge shelf of books by one K Marx and I thought: 'I didn't know the Marx brothers wrote books!'

"But once I discovered who Karl Marx was, I devoured his work."

Davis comes from a traditional working-class Jewish family who, like most in the east London Jewish community, were staunch anti-fascists and respected communists for standing up to Mosley's Blackshirts.

"Though they were not political, they saw that communism was the only force capable of defeating fascism," she says.

Still, when Davis joined the Young Communist League she was nervous about telling her mum that she had effectively renounced Orthodox Judaism and joined the "atheists."

"But when I told her, she said: 'Good for you. The communists have always been on our side'."

Davis' father, who died when she was just five, and uncles were involved in the 43 Group, a militant Jewish ex-servicemen's anti-fascist organisation.

"They were particularly active in Ridley Road - the confrontations often got physical. Everyone in that group had fought in the second world war and knew all too well how to deal with the fascists."

Taking issue with the tactics deployed by some of the current anti-fascist groups, Davis stresses the importance of organising at local level and around issues that the BNP preys on - unemployment, poor housing, and general social degradation.

"The 1940s street battles against fascism took place within the community.

This wasn't a rent-a-mob from outside. These were people who lived and worked in the community.

"It's about building up an opposition within the community - otherwise there is the risk of antagonising and alienating people."

Davis became more active in the Communist Party throughout her student years and quickly rose through the ranks, first as secretary of Manchester University students' branch then as the borough secretary of Haringey, overseeing eight branches, before being elected on to the London District Committee (LDC) and later the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) executive.

She was one of the 22 members of the LDC who were expelled by the Euro-communists in 1985.

The architects of Euro-communism sought to accommodate capitalism by abandoning a class perspective in favour of so-called new social movements, which defined the working class as but one of many social forces alongside others such as race and gender.

Davis, whose major contribution to the movement has been her devotion to women's right issues, believes that this divisive approach put many of those who went on to form the CPB in 1988 off the women's movement.

"I can understand people being suspicious of what we called the movements for equality, because they were presented in opposition to a class perspective," she says.

"But we must address this - we can't call ourselves a revolutionary party unless we pay proper attention to issues of race and sex."

Davis believes the time is ripe for a "third-wave" women's movement - one that clarifies the relationship between class, gender and race oppression.

She argues that the second-wave women's liberation of the 1970s was "very middle class."

Davis, who retired from the TUC Women's Committee at April's annual conference in an emotional send-off after 25 years of invaluable service, describes the TUC women's conference as "the parliament for women."

But she fears that this, along with other union equality structures, are under threat as unions cut back amid the recession.

"That is why I use my phrase which everyone now laughs about - 'the price of progress is eternal vigilance'," she says.

Davis even quips that we might need "women vigilante groups in every locality" to spearhead the fightback.

"The public-sector cuts will increase feminisation of poverty," she observes.

Davis labels the Single Equality Act, passed on April 1, a "lost opportunity" for Labour to show serious commitment to closing the pay gap.

But she welcomes Labour's new prostitution legislation - also brought in on April 1 - which criminalises those who buy sex from anyone deemed to be "controlled for gain."

She considers it "a step in the right direction" towards the Nordic model of criminalising all buyers and decriminalising the prostitutes, while offering them financial and social support to break free of what some see fit to describe as an "industry."

Davis dismisses the liberal trend which seeks to legitimise prostitution as "empowering" women.

"This is a setback for our liberation," she argues, warning: "If we don't combat this now, we'll end up having to fight the old battles again.

"We must challenge the patriarchal ideology that lies behind the degrading sexualisation of women and young girls on the one hand and the oppressive religious traditions on the other," she emphasises.

Though she has decided to relinquish her positions in the CPB and trade union movement following her retirement last September as the London Metropolitan University Professor of Labour History, Davis has no intention of retiring as a campaigner.

As the author of the Charter for Women, she is keen to put into practice the demands highlighted in the document and link them to the People's Charter - perhaps as a stepping stone towards that third-wave movement.

Davis, who has authored several books including Comrade Or Brother and Women & Class, also wants to devote more time to writing.

She has a new book coming out in July, Class & Gender In British Labour History, and she is already working on another about the 1910 women chainmakers strike leader Mary Macarthur and her vital role in advancing women's status in trade unionism.

"Hopefully I can continue to make a contribution to the movement," Davis says with characteristic modesty.

Victory for female council workers

By Louise Nousratpour
Wednesday April 28, 2010
The Morning Star

Thousands of women council workers are celebrating after they won an equal pay case which could lead to payouts worth millions of pounds.

An employment tribunal in Birmingham found in favour of more than 4,000 low-paid female workers employed by the Tory-controlled authority, including cleaners and care assistants.

The women, mainly represented by the Unison and GMB unions, successfully appealed against the council's decision to exclude them from bonuses paid to men worth up to 160 per cent of their basic pay.

During the course of the seven-week-long tribunal, the council had defended the bonuses as a genuine reward for productivity.

But on Tuesday, the tribunal judge comprehensively rejected the justifications as "a fig leaf" to conceal a desire to pay male workers "significantly more" than their female counterpart.

In a 160-page judgement, he concluded that Birmingham council "acted unreasonably" in resisting the claims.

The tribunal will now go on to assess the level of compensation to the women, which union lawyers estimated to be worth around £30 million.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis called on the council to pay up.

He said: "This has cost council taxpayers huge amounts of money in legal fees.

"This money would have been better spent on providing vital local services, many of which are facing damaging cuts."

GMB national officer Brian Strutton said the council had "known for years that it owes equal pay to their low-paid women workers but instead of paying up it's tried every trick in the lawyers' book to try to delay.

"But we've persevered and we've won."

Tuesday's major test case against Birmingham City Council is just the tip of the iceberg as 80,000 more equal pay claims are still outstanding.

Union officials said that 80 per cent of councils across Britain had already paid up, with 20 per cent still dragging their feet.

Mr Strutton said that Tory-controlled councils were the worst offenders as they "employ very expensive legal firms to delay their day of reckoning in the hope that the women workers give up or unions run out of money."

A Unison spokeswoman stressed that Birmingham council's behaviour was a "real case in point." She said: "Some women have died waiting for their claims to go through.

"Equal pay is not an option. It's a legal requirement and the sooner employers realise this the better."

Mr Strutton condemned some councils for using loopholes in the Equal Pay Act to slash men's pay to comply with the law rather than improve women's lot.

"GMB has fought massive battles over this, with the most high-profile one being the 13 week-long strike by Leeds City Council refuse collectors."

He identified "two fundamental weaknesses" in the law which he said must be addressed.

"Firstly, it says 'equal' when it should be saying 'equal up' to stop employers dumbing down pay. Secondly, the law is incredibly complicated and must be clarified and simplified," he argued.

Scandal of 'racist' health services

By Louise Nousratpour in Liverpool
Sunday April 25, 2010
The Morning Star

TUC black workers conference: Delegates to the TUC black workers conference branded Britain's mental health services "profoundly racist" on Saturday and demanded action to address this injustice.

Racism not only contributes to mental ill health among black and ethnic minorities (BME) but also heavily influences decisions about treatment and diagnosis, conference heard.

Opening the debate on mental health, Usdaw delegate Maureen Williams said: "Racial stereotyping still holds sway.

"Black people with mental health problems are far more likely than white people to be misdiagnosed, restrained, sectioned and given drugs rather than counselling."

She warned conference that the overrepresentation of black people on locked wards, often in overcrowded and squalid conditions, had led to a crisis that must be addressed.

BME people are 18 times more likely to end up in a mental institution than the national average. African Caribbeans are 44 per cent more likely to be sectioned and 29 per cent more likely to be forcibly restrained than white patients.

Unison delegate Sam Singh said: "The service is profoundly racist and research shows that employers are doing little to accommodate workers with mental health problems."

Speaking on behalf of the TUC race relations committee, Elena Smith warned that the recession had led to a sharp increase in mental health illnesses among workers, particularly those of BME background.

She argued for a more "holistic" approach to the illness, noting that too many BME people ended up on drugs treatment than effective alternatives such as psychotherapy.

Campaigners have criticised the government's New Horizon strategy for mental health as "out of touch" because it fails to recognise institutional racism or address lack of resources and workplace support.

Ms Williams, who also sits on the TUC race relations committee, stressed that unions had a "key role" to play in supporting and representing black workers with mental health issues.

"Union reps need to be equipped to deal with this and to understand the effects racism has on access to treatment," she added.

During a panel debate, Afiya Trust charity chief executive Patrick Vernon slammed the wholesale closure of community-based mental health services across the country.

Addressing delegates, he said: "You must encourage community workers to join trade unions so they can fight for their rights and protect the service against cuts."

Delegates demand support for Operation Black Vote

By Louise Nousratpour in Liverpool
Sunday April 25, 2010
The Morning Star

TUC black workers conference: The TUC black workers conference in Liverpool has called for action to mobilise the black and ethnic minority vote as a vital tool in defeating the fascist BNP at the ballot box.

Delegates said they were appalled by the BNP's electoral advances - both in Britain and the European Parliament - last year and attacked the BBC for allowing prime-time coverage of the party at taxpayers' expense.

The BBC sparked outrage last October after it invited BNP leader Nick Griffin, who is contesting a parliamentary seat in east London, to join its prestige Question Time panel.

Last Friday, the public broadcaster aired the BNP manifesto launch in Stoke-on-Trent, at which Mr Griffin claimed that "Britain is full - it's time to shut the doors" and remove all "bogus asylum-seekers and foreign criminals."

And the BNP election broadcast will go out all over England, Scotland and Wales on Monday.

Delegates stressed the importance of voting in the general election, reminding conference that the BNP electoral advance in the 2005 election was the result of voter apathy.

They called on trade unions to support Operation Black Vote's (OBV) campaign to mobilise the black vote against the fascists.

OBV has organised what is set to be the biggest political rally of this election, with more than 2,500 black and ethnic minority people are expected to attend Wednesday's event in London.

A recent OBV survey of the black electorate showed that, in the closely fought political race, the ethnic minority vote will hold the key to who wins the election.

Napo delegate Pauline Anderson said: "We no longer have the option of not voting because every vote lost is a vote for the BNP."

GMB speaker Warrinder Juss, while acknowledging people's frustration with politicians, stressed: "We must go out there and not only vote but vote Labour to keep both the Tories and the BNP out."

In an address to conference on Saturday, Runnymede Trust director Robert Berkeley argued that the most important tool to defeat racism and fascism was building "solidarity with our white working class."

Don't give BNP a platform, urges activist

By Louise Nousratpour in Liverpool
Sunday April 25, 2010
The Morning Star

TUC black workers conference: Black student activist Bellavia Ribeiro delivered a withering blow to arguments by some on the left that giving the fascist BNP a platform helps expose its poisonous ideology.

"We cannot debate away fascism," Ms Ribeiro told TUC black workers conference on Saturday, urging delegates to reaffirm their support for a "no platform" policy.

She demolished liberal arguments, supported by some unions, that the BNP should be given a platform under the principle of the freedom of speech.

"Our no-platform policy is not about stifling fascists' freedom of speech but to protect our freedom to exist," said Ms Ribeiro, who is the National Union of Students black students officer and anti-fascist campaign convener.

She warned that the BNP was "very active" in the student movement and reported an increase in racial tension and abuse on campuses in Stoke.

In her closing remarks, Ms Ribeiro urged delegates to take the anti-fascist message back to wider communities to ensure that "people realise that, if we don't vote in this election, the fascists will win."

Black workers conference opens with calls to fight fascism

By Louise Nousratpour in Liverpool
Saturday April 24, 2010
The Morning Star

THE TUC black workers conference kicked off in Liverpool on Friday with debates ranging from the disproportionate impact of the recession on black and ethnic minorities to institutional racism and the rise of fascism.

In her opening remarks, conference chairwoman Collette Cork-Hurst urged delegates to encourage more black and ethnic minority workers to join unions and become "active participants" in the struggle against fascism and for equality.

She accused mainstream politicians of treating black and ethnic minority communities like "the enemy within," blaming them for everything from housing shortages and unemployment to crime and terrorism.

"The backdrop of this conference is the general election and once again black people are in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons," she said, referring to the main parties' crude focus on immigration.

TUC deputy leader Francis O'Grady said that rather than pandering to the far right, politicians should address issues of unemployment and housing used by the BNP to gain support among impoverished white communities.

In her conference address, Ms O'Grady expressed fears that planned cuts to public spending would further increase racial tensions and have an undue effect on jobs and specialist services for black and ethnic minority people.

She condemned all main parties for seeking to make workers pay for the crisis "caused by the greed of white, male City bankers.

"The TUC has made a clear case for the Robin Hood tax - a 0.05 per cent average tax on banks - which could raise billions every year to build new homes, schools and hospitals."

During a debate on public spending cuts, delegates warned that black and ethnic minority workers were bearing the brunt of the recession.

A staggering 48 per cent of black people and 31 per cent of Asians aged 16 to 24 are currently unemployed, compared to 20 per cent of white youth.

PCS delegate Zita Holborne said: "If the main parties are serious about tackling inequality and protecting services, they should address the £200 billion tax avoidance, the £70 billion tax evaded by the wealthy, and close the pay gap between white and black workers.

"They should also take a hard-line approach to employers who breach race laws."

Ms O'Grady called on delegates to use their vote "wisely" in what she said was "perhaps the most important election in a generation."

Victory for female council workers

By Louise Nousratpour
Wednesday April 28, 2010
The Morning Star

Thousands of women council workers are celebrating after they won an equal pay case which could lead to payouts worth millions of pounds.

An employment tribunal in Birmingham found in favour of more than 4,000 low-paid female workers employed by the Tory-controlled authority, including cleaners and care assistants.

The women, mainly represented by the Unison and GMB unions, successfully appealed against the council's decision to exclude them from bonuses paid to men worth up to 160 per cent of their basic pay.

During the course of the seven-week-long tribunal, the council had defended the bonuses as a genuine reward for productivity.

But on Tuesday, the tribunal judge comprehensively rejected the justifications as "a fig leaf" to conceal a desire to pay male workers "significantly more" than their female counterpart.

In a 160-page judgement, he concluded that Birmingham council "acted unreasonably" in resisting the claims.

The tribunal will now go on to assess the level of compensation to the women, which union lawyers estimated to be worth around £30 million.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis called on the council to pay up.

He said: "This has cost council taxpayers huge amounts of money in legal fees.

"This money would have been better spent on providing vital local services, many of which are facing damaging cuts."

GMB national officer Brian Strutton said the council had "known for years that it owes equal pay to their low-paid women workers but instead of paying up it's tried every trick in the lawyers' book to try to delay.

"But we've persevered and we've won."

Tuesday's major test case against Birmingham City Council is just the tip of the iceberg as 80,000 more equal pay claims are still outstanding.

Union officials said that 80 per cent of councils across Britain had already paid up, with 20 per cent still dragging their feet.

Mr Strutton said that Tory-controlled councils were the worst offenders as they "employ very expensive legal firms to delay their day of reckoning in the hope that the women workers give up or unions run out of money."

A Unison spokeswoman stressed that Birmingham council's behaviour was a "real case in point." She said: "Some women have died waiting for their claims to go through.

"Equal pay is not an option. It's a legal requirement and the sooner employers realise this the better."

Mr Strutton condemned some councils for using loopholes in the Equal Pay Act to slash men's pay to comply with the law rather than improve women's lot.

"GMB has fought massive battles over this, with the most high-profile one being the 13 week-long strike by Leeds City Council refuse collectors."

He identified "two fundamental weaknesses" in the law which he said must be addressed.

"Firstly, it says 'equal' when it should be saying 'equal up' to stop employers dumbing down pay. Secondly, the law is incredibly complicated and must be clarified and simplified," he argued.

Volcanic ash halts Iranian woman's deportation


By Louise Nousratpour
Tuesday April 20, 2010
The Morning Star

The volcanic ash blowing from Iceland may have temporarily saved Iranian woman refugee Bita Ghaedi from being deported back to her country where she risks imprisonment and even death.

Ms Ghaedi, who is currently being held at the notorious Yarl's Wood detention centre in west London, was due to be deported to Tehran on a BMI airline flight from Heathrow Terminal 3 on Tuesday night.

But a BMI spokesman has confirmed that all the airline's flights from Heathrow are still grounded as the volcano ash continues to cloud Britain's skies.

"This news gives us hope that we may now have more time to save Bita," said Diana Nami of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation which has been leading the campaign against her deportation.

"The Home Office is responsible for Bita's life as she could face death by stoning if she is deported."

Ms Ghaedi arrived in England in 2007 to escape domestic violence and threats of "honour" killing from her family.

She was taken to Yarl's Wood last Friday following a traumatising early morning raid by immigration police officers.

East London health workers raise cash for Haiti


By Louise Nousratpour
Wednesday April 14, 2010
The Morning Star

East London health workers sang gospel songs, recited poetry and displayed their Brazilian martial arts skills on Tuesday night to raise money for disaster-stricken Haitians and to let them know that they have not been forgotten.

The talent show, organised by the East London NHS Trust workers, took place exactly three months after the devastating earthquake which killed more than 200,000 Haitians and left one million homeless.

The Community Choir, made up of former and current mental health service users, won hearty applause from the 200-strong audience at Funky Mojoe bar in South Woodford.

But the Abada Capoeira UK group stole the show with their arresting martial arts performance.

Event organiser Sandra Griffiths, who founded the trust's pioneering Mellow campaign to improve the experience of African and Caribbean people with mental health problems, said she was "bowled over" by the array of support and talent.

"We wanted to do our bit to help Haitians rebuild their country," Ms Griffiths explained, adding that the £700 raised would go to the British Red Cross Society's fund for Haiti's victims.