Tupe or not Tupe?

Well, it's been an interesting 24 hours.
I think it's fairly safe to say that my councils stock transfer is rapdily becoming a bit of a sick joke. It was originally supposed to happen last month, but was put back due to "Technical difficulties". It was then supposed to happen on Monday, and lo and behold, all the staff were in their nice new uniforms and raring to go.
Unfotunatley, as we got told yesterday, there are still some "difficulties" in finalising the documentation. Considering that this has been a project of the councils for at least two-three years, the thousands (probably hundreds of thousands or more) spent on consultants and legal advisers, not to mention the smallish team of dedicated staff directly employed by the council, they haven't got the documents right!
Now they aren't saying anymore than that at the moment, no details, but considering the amount of work that needs to be done on the stock (so much so that 16,000 properties, the land they sit on and associated land actually has a negative value!) and the fact that there will be some sizable warranties involved in the transfer, it's not beyond the possibility that someone is getting a little worried about what they are taking on....ho hum.
And of course the 500 staff due to transfer are in limbo. When the story originally broke that transfer was to be delayed, it was suggested that Novemeber was pretty much as far as the council could push it before having to reballot the tenants on whether they wanted to transfer or not. Have to wait and see what happens, although should it all go tits up, it will be the staff who moved prior to TUPE who'll be in the most trouble, as if the transfer collapses and the company folds, they have no-where to go except down the road.

Anyway, I've spent today in the big smoke at a TUPE conference run by these lovely people. Was very interesting, there were some very good speakers and the opportunity to ask questions was a godsend. I've picked up some useful case law to through at HR and also some useful negotiating points. I won't got into much detail here, although the conference did note with concern that any new government is likley to try and reduce the, sometimes meagre, protection TUPE currently affords those of us unfortunate enough to be transferred out of the public sector.

The next generation of Trade Unionists

Found out today (of all the days of the year) that my wife is pregnant with our second child. Very early days yet, but we don't subscribe to any of the superstitions (we told everyone about Rayne as soon as we knew pretty much!).
I'm absolutely over the moon. Mrs Plymdaz is also, she's always wanted to be a brood mother! I must confess, having several children is starting to appeal to me, if only so I can train them and have enough to cover any picket lines I may be involved in. Considering her repeated attempts to ban me from using the words scab and blackleg around the house, I may be in for a tough time on this plan though.
Am back to work on Monday, so may actually have more material to blog about, especially as the leader of the local labour group wants to talk to me about planned tory cuts in the council, and the fact that they want to sell our bus company.

Withdrawal symptoms

After nearly a whole week without dealing with anyone's problems other than my own, I'm starting to go into withdrawal. I partially treated this (in a kind of methadone to treat heroin addiction way) by looking for health and safety hazards whilst we were out and about today. Considering it's been sometime since my training, I was quite surprised by how easy it is to find hazards if you are looking for them hard enough!
No wonder those of us with an interest in Health and Safety sometimes get a bad reputation. There is an amusing series of articles on the HSE website concerning times when the HSE has been incorrectly blamed for something being banned. From my personal experience, it's nearly always been insurance issues rather than H&S that causes things to be closed, fireworks displays, school trips and float parades at carnivals being some pertinent examples. I used to love going to a local community centre that did a cracking fireworks display every November, but the rising cost of insurance soon put paid to that.
And of course there are regular stories about union HSW Reps being overzealous. I must be honest and say that those I've met, no matter which union, have been well trained and quite capable of utilizing common sense when needed. But we all hear of stories like this from time to time, and everytime I do I sigh, and wonder why people do it.
Now if that's not a meandering post I don't know what is!

Love, Marriage, and a funny feeling of apprehension....

I got married on Saturday.
A very short way to sum up about 6 months of planning, 5 years of intent, and finally proving (to myself at least) that someone would actually want to marry me, but that's another story.
When I started writing this blog, it was originally meant to be largely a union blog in the style of this one (which I enjoy greatly and indeed blame this post for finally getting me moving), but having recently discovered that an old friend and former boss has an absolutely fantastic blog I think it's worth expanding a little bit perhaps. Plus, to be honest, a lot of the really interesting stuff I do I can't talk about anyway, as I would actually like to keep (both) my jobs....
Having worked for the same company as  TUWG did, it is interesting to see that they made people redundant and then took on temps a few months later. I left when they screwed with my job and took away all the parts that I actually got any enjoyment or fulfillment out of, a process which my experiences in the Union over the last 18 months have shown is exactly the sort of thing a Union can help deal with - the classic "sign the new contract or you're history" kind of deal - but hell, that was 4 years ago, and to be honest, I've not looked back since. I'll say this for 118118, they gave me two things: Katrina and the confidence to say "bugger this, I'm off".
Still, back to the wedding. Or more specifically, the quasi-honeymoon I'm now on. We can't afford any kind of actual holiday, so we've just got a week off work and time to ourselves (and our son). I'm under strict instructions from Domestic Gold that I am not (under pain of death) to contact (or be contacted by) work under any thing other than life or death circumstances...and even then she may still reserve the right to seriously injure me.
This is due to the fact that I have (a) a Blackberry and (b) the tendency to want to be involved and know what's going on. This is exemplified by the fact that the last time I had a week off, I actually cancelled 1 day of it to do a disciplinary hearing, and went in for a half day to do an appeal. Not to mention reading emails (via my councils remote access) and making phone calls. Suffice to say I was spending at least 2 hours a day doing union stuff - so I didn't get much of a holiday. Kat gets wound up enough when I get a call/email outside of normal working hours anyway, so during a holiday is a big no-no.
That was the first time I've ever actually taken time off from the branch secretarys role since I was elected - and to say I was niave is an understatement. It's not the sort of job you can switch off from easily, or if it is I haven't learned how to yet. But once bitten, twice shy, and with the possibility of a swift death in the offing, I have made thorough arrangements to ensure no-one needs to contact me. It didn't help that during my last holiday, the assistant branch secretary (who works in a school) was generally incommunicado as well, but he's here now and fully briefed as well, which is always helpful. With the exception of being told which way a crucial vote goes at branch committee, I shall hopefully be hearing nothing from anyone this week.
And yet, despite having absolute confidence in the branch administrator (who's been working for us over ten years) and the other lay officers, I still, despite everything, want to know what's going on. It's not that I don't trust them, it's just I don't like not being invovled, and despite moaning about never getting away from the job, I just don't like being on the sidelines.
Gah.
Bit of a long post, but then I can't sleep so no surprises there!

The BNP and No Platform Policies

Well, after the best hours worth of tv to come out of Television Centre in many years, I think that could be said to have been useful. The BNP must be held up to ridicule for its attitudes, policies and outright racism, and I think the BBC was right to do so.
No platform policies do not work. It didn't work when the UK government tried to suppress Sinn Fein by barring their leaders from being heard. It doesn't work in Trade Unions when the central heirarchy tries to suppress factions and groups: they just keep coming and getting bigger. If you aren't allowed to talk about it, people instinctively want to talk about it, and censoring the BNP will just make them (a) more interesting and (b) able to play the martyr card.
From experience talking to people its quite surprising how many don't realise exactly what the BNP stand for, they just see the "no to foreigners" or "british jobs for the brits" etc and tick the box.  A lot of people didn't realise what the NSDAP stood for in the early thirties, if you look at their manifesto (such as it was), the vast majority of their policies seemed reasonable to a people suffering from economic catasrophe (ring any bells). Indeed, some of their policies would not be unpalatable to those of us on the left (nationalisation and increasing the old age pension being two of them).  If all that people get told is what appeals to them, they'll vote for what sounds good.

What we have to do is make sure that the vast majority of decent people in this country don't get conned and vote for them, in the way the German people did in 1933, because they have a facade of reasonableness...and I think we're doing well on that front. However, I think we can do better, and the various anti-fascist movements (why can there never just be one group opposing someone, its not like its the Peoples Front of Judea for crying out loud) need to change tactic. "Denying the BNP the oxygen of publicity" won't get us anywhere, we need to engage them in public debate (although the demos are still a good thing) and make sure people know how vicious they are.
It would also help if there was someone we could tell them to vote for instead. None of the main parties are particularly palatable at the moment, anyone got any suggestions?

Rain Rain go away...

...and don't come back until I'm safely in work.
I wish the weather would go on strike sometimes, so we could just default to sun. It is absolutely belting it down in Plymouth at the moment, and I'm off to the local hospital to accompany someone at an Occupational Health meeting, which should be interesting as I have no idea whereabouts the unit is on the site. I feel some zen navigation coming on.
On the subject of strikes, its interesting to see the brinkmanship the Royal Mail are using to try and get the CWU to cancel their strikes. Anyone would think they were scared of them. Theres been a lot of talk about industrial action in my branch lately, due to redundancies and to changes to terms and conditions (including the possible implementation of a dress code, which has gotten the membership wound up more than anything else so far) and I would like to think that anything we do will be as effective as the action the CWU is threatening: in other words, it will get the employers back round the table before the strike.
Thats one thing that people often forget about the Local Government Strike last year: it did get us an increase in the offer (even if it was a small one after we forced the employer to go to ACAS). Call me naive (and someone probably will) but I think that's an achievement.
Anyways, I must go and find out what time my bus to the hospital is, and try and help support the comrades fighting the privatisation of our local bus company.

Victory!

Plymouth City Council implemented Job Evaluation from the 1st October 2007. The fact that no-one got their results until Feb 2008, the ballot to accept wasn't until August 08 didn't matter, October 2007 was the date for backpay and grade changes. We got three years pay protection, so it wasn't too bad was it?
Except that it was. There were many appeals, my substantive (a word familiar to many in the union movement, but not neccessarily elsewhere) post was detrimentally affected - I didn't personally lose any money as I was only on the bottom "increment" of the pay scale (Local Government pay has several grades/scales with numerous 'spinal points' in each one), but several colleagues stood to lose a substantial amount of money.
Its ok, we said, we'll do a good appeal (and we had plenty of evidence), and we'll get back to where we should be. So several colleagues spent some time toiling on the appeal document. A year after it was submitted, we got our results back. Some factors had changed (we use the NJC scheme) but the grade was still the same. Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth etc etc.
Now, if you'd believed the Council, that was it. No second bite of the cherry, as someone in authority said. But we didn't settle for that. UNISON and Unite lodged a collective grievance, GMB lodged individual ones but on essentially the same grounds. Now we were told that they wouldn't be treated as grievances, and we had all our arguments prepared for the hearings, and the tribunal paperwork had actually been submitted (and bounced back because collective grievances come under the "old" rules -d'oh) when things started moving. We were pleasantly surprised.
We were even more surprised when, this morning, letters arrived informing the affected staff that they had been upgraded. A quick phone call confirmed that, apparently, the backpay won't be an issue. Considering we were expecting a huge fight to just get the Council moving, we see this a huge victory. We are currently looking at pursuing similar claims in other areas.
Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?