The January Trades Council meeting received a report on the Government's plans to reorganise the NHS.

Previous Trades Council Meetings had been critical of Labour Party plans to encourage Primary Care Trusts to concentrate on “commissioning” healthcare and to split off NHS community staff – handing them over to NHS Trusts or encouraging them to become part of “social enterprises”, where they would compete for contracts with private and third sector organisations.

The new Conservative Government was now proposing to abolish PCTs – but it was doing so in order to entrench the process of managing through contracts rather than by administration.

The plan is to replace the 152 PCTs with 500-600 “consortia” of GPs, which would become responsible for the purchase of services through contracts. All NHS Trusts would be moved to “Foundation Trust” status, other potential “providers” would be encouraged to enter the market and NHS organisations would be encouraged to become “social enterprises” (with their staff cut off from NHS terms and conditions of service).

The outcome will be that hospitals and community NHS service providers will have to stitch together much more complicated patters of contracts from a bigger range of “purchasers” in order to maintain their budgets and have a sufficient resource base to maintain an adequate range of essential services.

Clear public lines of accountability will disappear. The Secretary of State will hand over national responsibility for the NHS to a new NHS Commissioning Board and Regional Strategic Health Authorities will also go. The business of trying to harness all these “market” forces to ensure that they did not run completely out of control will go to a body called “Monitor”. Monitor will become at the same time “an economic regulator, to promote effective and efficient providers of healthcare, to promote competition” whilst also expected to “regulate prices and safeguard continuity of services”.

There will be no set model for how the GP consortia will be organized. Each GP contract holder – whether it be a single GP or a GP practice – will be expected to send at least one “appointed member” to a consortium; after that, however, each consortium will be responsible for how it discharges its responsibilities to purchased services for the patients it is supposed to represent. It can employ staff made redundant by the PCTs or it can pay a private sector organisation to do the work for it or it can ask a Local Authority to manage its business.

The system will be presented as “bottom up” as opposed to “top down”. It threatened, however, to be chaotic and unaccountable and the “market” would generate a need for more staff whose role would be to manage “commissioning” both within Trusts and within consortia.

As in other areas, Labour’s opposition to these plans was more that they “went too far”, rather than that they are on the wrong road altogether. Opposition to them should be on the basis of standing up for accountability and administration as the basis for running public services.

KTPP

The December Trades Council meeting was addressed by Carl Webb, Regional Secretary of the CWU.

Carl gave the meeting a detailed briefing on the campaign against privatisation of Royal Mail.

Whilst the general public was aware of the sell off plans in broad terms, there were some aspects of the situation which had been less well covered. The sell-off, for instance, would involve splitting off the Royal Mail from the Post Office. One of the main threats posed by this was that there was no guarantee that the privatized Royal Mail would not elect to use other outlets – such as supermarkets or stores – for business currently conducted through Post Offices, making the latter progressively less viable.

Other points of concern were rising prices and loss of services. The Regulator had already approved a 5p increase in stamp prices next year and it will review the criteria for a “universal postal service” within the next 18 months.

It was welcome that the Government would take responsibility for the deficit in the Pension Scheme, but it did not have to privatise to do this. It was claiming that privatisation was needed to ensure “modernization”, but this was already well underway – with investment committed and Trade Union involvement won through the last national dispute.

There was nothing to prevent the Royal Mail running as an efficient and profitable public service. What was required was not a change of ownership but a change to the financial and regulatory environment in which the organisation had to operate. It should be able to raise finance on the open market and it should be free of rules such as that which forced it to deliver the post of other companies, like TNT, at a loss and made it add costs to its own bids for bulk contracts (“access headroom”).

A YouGov poll in August 2010 showed that only 15 per cent of the public agree with privatising Royal Mail while 60 per cent believe the Royal Mail should remain a wholly publicly-owned organisation.

An ICM poll last year found that 78 per cent of the public believed selling Royal Mail would be a bad deal for the taxpayer and 82 per cent of believed prices will go up.

Up to date details of the campaign to keep the post public can be found on the "keep the Post public website".

Trades Council Voices Health and Safety Concerns

The November meeting of Blackburn and District Trades Union Council considered a Report from the TUC on the potential impact on Health and Safety of the Comprehensive Spending Review.

The Government has said that it will cut its contribution to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) by 35% over the next 4 years.

The number of HSE staff has already been falling over the last 10 years and so has the number of inspections. In 1999/2000 there were 75,272 inspections. This had fallen to 23,004 in 2008/2009.

Health and Safety inspections by Local Authorities are also expected to come under pressure because of cuts to Council budgets.

The TUC has announced that the results of its biennial survey of Trade Union Health and Safety representatives suggests that almost half of Britain’s workplaces have never been visited by a Health and Safety Inspector.

Trades Council President, John Murphy, said that the cuts were bound to lead to a further decline in the number of inspections and that it would be difficult for the HSE to maintain an effective mix of advice, guidance, campaigning, inspection and enforcement.

“Premises which handle food” he said, “ can expect to be inspected at least once a year. Maybe it is thanks to this that there is far less damage done by food hygiene problems than by Health and Safety failures. The TUC estimates that 20,000 people a year die prematurely as a result of injuries or illnesses caused by work. Anyone who has attended a coroner’s court and witnessed the despair of the bereaved families will confirm that we need more enforcement of workplace safety standards, not less ” .

Trades Council raises parking issue with Borough Council

Following a discussion at its September meeting the Trades Council decided to write to the Borough Council to raise the issue of parking charges in Blackburn.

The developments of the new University Centre and the new Health Centre have seen the loss of a substantial number of long-stay parking places. The new central car park besides Waves could have been a very welcome replacement - but it has been priced in such a way as to dissuade use by those who have to spend long periods in the town centre.

The current situation appears to be that the Waves facility is standing virtually empty. Surely it would be feasible, and sustainable, to re-price it as a long-stay facility?

We have put to the Borough Council that it should actively promote the provision of more long-stay parking in Blackburn to attract trade and make it easier to work in the Town Centre. Our policy is that there should be more spaces available at a maximum of £4.00p a day.

Workers Memorial Day

WMD poster 2009

Workers Memorial Day commemorates the thousands of people who have died, been seriously injured or disabled, or been made ill through their work.

It began in Canada in 1984 and is a national day in 19 countries. Since 1989, trade unions around the world have organised events on and around 28 April, using the slogan “Remember the Dead, Fight for the Living”.

This year, the UK has officially recognised the Day for the first time.

The most updated global information shows that there are almost 360,000 fatal occupational accidents in any year, and almost 2 million fatal work-related diseases. Every day, more than 960,000 workers get hurt because of accidents and on average 5,330 workers die because of work-related diseases (Source: ITUC).

The theme this year Was the role of Trade Unions in promoting Health and Safety at work.

It has taken many years of Trade Union campaigning, in Britain and through the European Union, to deliver the health and safety legislation that the UK workforce enjoys. It takes Union know how, resources and campaigns to make workplaces as safe as possible. The Trades Union Congress and individual Trade Unions provide high calibre resources and training for Trade Union safety representatives.

In Blackburn with Darwen it has become traditional for the Trades Council to hold a mid-day assembly by a tree on the Sudell Cross pedestrian area which has been dedicated to the Memorial day.

On the Saturday before this year's assembly the Trades Council also set up a stall in Blackburn Town centre to distribute publicity about the event and Health and Safety information.

2010 Annual General Meeting

This Year's Annual General Meeting was held on 01/04/2010.

Officers were elected as follows:

President J Murphy (UCU)

Vice Presidents T Fallows (GMB) and M Berry (CWU)

Secretary I Gallagher (PCS)

Treasurer F Bradley (UNISON)

Press + Publicity T Fallows (GMB)

In his Annual Report, Trades Council Secretary Ian Gallagher noted how the local economy had suffered over the previous year.

JSA claimants in Blackburn with Darwen increased by a fifth between Jan 2009 and Jan 2010 and declared redundancies were running at an average of 130 a month compared with 73 a month in 2008. We have seen the closure of plants by EDC, Microtech, Voith Paper Fabrics and Octaveward and major job losses at Optare. In some areas workers have secured company severance terms, in others the use of administration has left them dependant on the State Redundancy Scheme. There is also a whole strata of less formal employment where conditions are already so rudimentary that redundancy rights are either ignored or avoided. According to a report to the Blackburn with Darwen Economic Regeneration Partnership Board the economic forecasters Gavurin predict a further 1300 job losses in the coming year, 860 of them in manufacturing.

Ian argued that there is bound to be a degree of uncertainty over the feasibility of economic development in the immediate future, as pressure on public funding coincides with a reduction in money available from the EU: "Key issues will be: whether and to what extent the proposed Whitebirk development comes on line and the quantity and quality of employment it affords; whether key Blackburn town centre developments (especially the Cathedral Quarter and Freckleton Street) get off the ground and can boost town centre employment, particularly in office work; whether impetus can be maintained in expanding local HE opportunities; how the new national Adult Advancement and Career Service rolls out; whether the UK Commission for Employment and Skills provokes a programme for the acquisition of “strategic skills” that we engage with locally. There still remains, however, a substantial here-and-now reserve of unskilled workers, who may gain little from any of the above. Where will decent jobs come from for these people? My best guess is that we need to be looking at “green” industries – such as re-cycling and building materials – which essentially serve a local rather than a global market. Either that or a big manufacturing plant with process work opportunities".

Many of the public sector concerns the Trade Unions have faced locally have betrayed the marks of a Government policy that has been anxious, if anything, to distance itself from this continental model and to extend the private sector colonisation of public services. There have been variations on the same theme: the attempt to de-nationalise community health services; PFI in our hospitals and schools; the embedding of CAPITA and Balfour Beattie in our local polity; the Flexible New Deal in Jobcentre Plus. In each case the involvement of the private sector has been associated with fears about the negative impact on employment conditions and/or on service standards.

Ian said that he was particularly frustrated at the absence in the UK of a social democratic current such as is found in other EU states:

"Last year saw the publication of “The Spirit Level” by Richard Wilson and Kate Pickett, which put forward an argument that more equal societies also produce a better standard of life for all across a number of measures. I don’t think it will come as any surprise that Britain, as one of the more unequal societies, performed relatively badly. Nor do I think it is any accident that the better performing European states are those where there is a solid public sector counterpoint to private enterprise, paid for out of general taxation".

Justice for Shrewsbury Pickets Campaign

The February Trades Council meeting hosted a presentation on the "Justice for Shrewsbury Pickets" campaign.

In 1972, building workers took part in their first official national strike. After this had ended there were prosecutions of Trade Unionists leading to three men receiving prison sentences.

The presentation was introduced by Mike Abbott, the national secretary for the campaign, who had himself been involved in the 1972 building workers dispute and had suffered victimization as a result.

Mike set the scene with a description of the issues facing the Labour Movement in general, and the building industry in particular, in 1972. The trial of the pickets had been initiated after the strike had ended. Much of it purported to refer to incidents at Mole in Cheshire. Pickets there had been charged with some minor public order offences at the time, but there were no major incidents.

The real bolt from the blue was the decision to deploy conspiracy charges against Trade Unionists.

The meeting watched some short films about the trial. These showed how the prosecutions were preceded by a press campaign arguing that the Union had systematically used bullying and intimidation. There was also detail of the mistreatment of Des Warren whilst he was in prison and of the effect this had on his health.

The Campaign was convinced that the only conspiracy in the case was one between business interests and the state. There was still a live prospect of the matter being taken to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Supporters researching the case, however, had found that some Government Papers were not being released precisely because they would reveal the involvement of state agencies.

The Trades Council agreed to support the campaign by writing to Justice Secretary Jack Straw on the issue.

Blackburn and Darwen United Against Racism

BADUAR logo

Blackburn and Darwen United against Racism (BADUAR) is a locally-based, broad anti-racist alliance, set up in 2003 to unite those who are opposed to the racial nationalist ideas of the British National Party and other far-right organisations.

It made three central assertions in its founding statement:

1) "That the BNP clearly and unequivocally has its roots in fascism",

2) "That there should be no place in our society for the sort of race politics promoted by the far-right", and

3) "That politics which point to race, asylum and immigration issues as solutions to social and economic problems tend to be diversionary, wrong-headed, misdirected and lacking in any sense of balance or proportion".

Local Trade Unionists have, though BADUAR, helped with the door to door distribution of literature during the recent local and general election period.