Bits And Bobs

- The Refugee Council, the TUC, STAR (Student Action for Refugees), and other organisations are calling for the government to allow asylum seekers to work. This would help intergration, reskill refugees to offer a better future, and combat destitution. As well, the Coventry Refugee Centre is thinking of bringing this project to Coventry. Currently, the only overnight housing for destitute refugees and asylum seekers is at the Peace House's night shelter.

- A street in Birmingham (Green Lane in Great Barr) has cut its energy consumption by 20% (an average of £200 in bills per household). Caroline Handley told BRMB radio: "It was a bit difficult because a lot of it is behavioural changes and then suddenly you're thinking I can leave this on, I can't leave that on. But over the 12 months gradually you just do things without thinking now."

- Gordon Brown giving a speech to a joint session of Congress ... bless. Enjoy it whilst it lasts, Gordon, since the centre of power in the world economy is moving to India, Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia. Steve Bell is skeptical about the UK closing its own tax havens, but when you're redrawing the rules, it's "the perfect time to build important [arms control] nonproliferation goals into the world’s banking system."

A few other things to read:

- Saudi Arabia's oil production peaked in 2005.
- Libby Brookes on the 100th anniversary of the war on drugs
- A fifth anniversary next week
- PeaceJam is this weekend in Bradford
- A victory for Tesco over competition and market share
- The TUC has a new pamphlet out: Unlocking Green Enterprise

Aid To Jaguar Land Rover

Especially over the last month, local media (papers in Coventry and Birmingham), the city council, and local Labour MPs, have been focused in securing aid for the motor industry (primarily Jaguar Land Rover).

I think we should walk more and cycle more, and use public transit more. But, I don't have a rose-coloured glasses expectation that people will stop driving. I do think the future of the car industry will be focused on the phasing-out of the internal combustion engine. As such, I don't see the point in aiding the car-industry-as-it-is, without attaching provisions to shift the car industry to how-it-should-be.

That is, aid to Jaguar LandRover if 20% of its production is low-emission by 2010, 40% of its production low-emission by 2012, 60% by 2014, etc. Or this idea, to give consumers a £2000 rebate if they trade in older inefficient vehicles for low-emission ones.

EU Court Rules And Worker Unrest

Peter Mandelson was on BBC Breakfast this morning saying that the problem isn't the EU, or the actions of Total, but judgements by the European Court of Justice.

The judgements (Laval, Rüffert, Luxembourg, and Viking) were in December 2007 and April 2008. Laval and Viking, for example, stem from corporate actions as far back as 2003 and 2004.

In 2003, Viking, which is a Finnish company that runs ferries, employed an Estonian crew and cut its wages by 60%. Laval, which is Latvian, sent workers to Sweden to build schools in 2004. A Swedish construction union asked Laval to honour the existing collective agreement for the building sector. Laval refused, keeping to Latvian pay conditions that undercut the Swedish workers.

In both of these cases, the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of Viking and Laval. The court "effectively outlawed industrial action where unions are trying to win equal pay for migrant workers and banned public bodies from requiring foreign contractors to pay such workers local rates."

The EU shouldn't be a labour market where workers get the lowest common denominator.

Over the last 10 years, we haven't heard Labour talk about union conditions coming second across Europe. We haven't heard about the negative aspects of an economy dependent on more agency work, on an increase in short-term contracts, subcontracting, and the corporate sector using more people who are "self-employed". That's because they were fine with it.

As Jon Cruddas points out:

"Exploitation, precarious jobs and exploitative levels of pay could be offset by cheap credit and then hidden behind the sparkle of consumerism. Those times are over. With social insurance in short supply, people's key source of economic security was the rising asset value of their homes. That's gone. There is no cheap credit to make up for falling or stagnant wages."

"British Jobs For British Workers"

I'm sure, at the time, that Brown thought it was a coded way of drawing support back from the BNP, but his "British Jobs For British Workers" slogan might backfire. So far, there are hundreds of workers, at 13 locations up and down the country, who have walked out, due to Total giving a £200 million contract, at a Lincolnshire oil refinery, to an Italian firm.

Of course, Total gave the contact, since British workers weren't willing to accept inferior terms and conditions, but that's not the spin the media coverage (and the union slogans and placards) are giving it. It's being portrayed as nationalism, rather than a class issue.

80% of new jobs (from 1997 to 2007) went to immigrants, both EU and non-EU. This, combined with answers to Tory written questions on youth who are not in education, employment or training, paints a picture of an entire generation who didn't benefit from the economic "boom". That generation will now pay a high price during a steep economic downturn ... and will be rather susceptible to this kind of nationalistic sloganeering.

The Hooper Review And Royal Mail

Richard Hooper is a former deputy chair of Ofcom who was asked to look at the postal system (size and scale of distribution network, does it need to "modernise").

His report will be published this week, so look out for it.

Peter Mandelson is the minister who will make the decision. He's already told the Financial Times that he wanted to part-privatise the Royal Mail ten years ago, when he was head of the DTI. The current fear is that the government will take over the pension liabilities of Royal Mail (it has a £22 billion pension scheme), thus making it more attractive to buy.

Keeping the Royal Mail publicly-owned was a Labour manifesto commitment. Privatisation would also contradict the policy agreed by Labour’s National Policy Forum for a "wholly publicly owned, integrated Royal Mail group."

It's surprising that services that benefit everyone (the post, the railways, the buses) either remain in private hands, or may go that way, after 11 years of a Labour government.

Services that benefit everyone shouldn't be run for profit. If the Royal Mail is run for profit, there will be profitable parts of a city or a region and unprofitable ones. There will be profitable areas of postal delivery (next day business) and unprofitable ones. Large areas of the country (rural areas, more deprived urban areas) will lose out under part-privatisation, or a full sell-off.

How can that be a good thing at a time of economic instability?

£9 Million In City Council Cuts

Coventry City Council is considering £9 million in cuts in services.

They blame the rising energy/fuel prices for council buildings, the downturn in the housing market (a six-figure drop in revenue from planning application fees), and the need for 3% government efficiency savings.

- If we had shifted council buildings to having their own solar panels, and their own micro-CHP units, they would be "insulated" from energy price rises.

- I've sent an email to the council's head of "Finance and Legal" to see if their "corporate risk register," as of 1st Jan 2007, and as of 1st Jan 2008, had assessed the risk of a housing collapse. 5 times earnings, and 120% mortgages, were not going to go on forever.

- If central government can bail out corporate banks, why can't they give a "holiday" for a year to efficiency savings made by local government? Do you cut the fat when you're starving?

Unite And Bank Rescues

Christopher Hope in the Telegraph notes that Derek Simpson, the joint general secretary of Unite, said the partial bank nationalisations "must be bound to undertakings by the banks of no job losses, no repossessions and an end to the bonus culture." Unite donated £1.5 million to Labour in the three months to June of 2008. That was 40% of Labour's donations for the second quarter.

"World Day For Decent Work"

The World Day For Decent Work is on the 7th of October. The TUC will be holding a day of activities at Congress House in London which will focus on rights at work and ending inequality in the workplace.

Only 2% of state schools in Britain have introduced some form of restorative justice into discipline codes. A successful pilot project that has led to a 45% reduction in rates of exclusion may change all of that.

US election: the Vice-Presidential debate was last night, but this story on the iPhone was interesting. John McCain has also pulled out of Michigan, which makes the "electoral math" harder for him.

You wait for stories on electric cars, and then two come along at once: "Renault sees demand for as many as 50,000 electric vehicles in 2011, the year the carmaker will begin selling such zero emission cars in Denmark, Israel and Portugal."

Mark Serwotka On Labour's "Workfare"

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS union:

"James Purnell's green paper, No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility (pdf), proposes to abolish income support."

"By withdrawing benefit from parents and carers you also withdraw support from their children ... The government is already preparing to withdraw income support from lone parents whose youngest child reaches age seven. It is claimed there is sufficient childcare provision to enable these parents to work. But, in outlining the government's next steps on childcare, Gordon Brown has acknowledged that key pieces of the jigsaw may not be in place for some time."

"What we are seeing is an adoption of "workfare", a policy that Labour explicitly rejected in 1997. The government may say that this only applies to those who have been on jobseekers allowance for two years, but their proposals will mean the biggest group on such a scheme would be lone parents, resulting in a carbon copy of the appalling US menial labour schemes, that have failed women and their children in poverty. It was absolutely right that the TUC voted unanimously to oppose the proposals. The adoption of Tory slogans, such as "work shy Britain", still less Tory policies, offer no way forward in the fight against poverty."

Green Jobs In The USA

In the US, on 27th September (the day after the first US presidential debate), there will be a Green Jobs Now national day of action. So far, over 500 events are being organised in all 50 states in the US -- teach-ins, house parties, service and work projects and living room discussions. Van Jones, the founder and President of Green For All, is the moving force behind it. He's an interesting guy.

"We will have a special focus on low-income communities, communities of color and indigenous people. This will send a message to our leaders that, when it comes to creating green jobs for a more sustainable economy, PEOPLE ARE READY!"

"Right now, there are millions of people ready to work and countless jobs to be done that will strengthen our economy at home. There are thousands of buildings that need to be weatherized, solar panels to be installed, and wind turbines to be erected. There are communities that need local and sustainable food and people ready to farm the crops. There are public transit systems and smart electricity grids in need of engineers and electricians. Americans are ready to build the new economy. It's time to invest in saving the planet and the people. It's time for green jobs now!"

Jeremy Kyle And Labour

This week, it was revealed that the government wants to spend £400 000, so Jeremy Kyle can "highlight the role of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and explore how government policies can help people get jobs."

Meanwhile, in the real world, Elaine Peace, children's services director at the charity NCH:

"I think [Jeremy Kyle's show] is exploiting vulnerable young people ... But because of the extent of their problems, are they really able to consent to it rationally; are they really aware of the repercussions? It seems that these vulnerable people who are bullied and humiliated in their own lives are then bullied and humiliated on screen. The audience jeers, shouts, stamps. It's like a grotesque gladiatorial combat, watching people abuse each other."

Sounds like a perfect match for the DWP so far ...

And today, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says that Kyle's show:

"could be viewed as a rather brutal form of entertainment that is based on derision of the lower-working-class population ... The inference to be drawn is that (those experiencing poverty) are not like us and are not deserving of what we have. Public support for anti-poverty measures is that bit more difficult to achieve when programmes such as the Jeremy Kyle Show continue to present those less fortunate in society as undeserving objects to be used for the purpose of public entertainment."

It's hard to take Harriet Harman seriously when, today at the TUC Congress, she talks about tackling the gap between the rich and poor.

Compass found, in 2007, that life expectancy had worsened under Labour, and that infant mortality in the working class had grown under Labour. The share of wealth owned by the top 1% rose, and the share owned by the bottom 50% fell. 1 in 7 children lived in bad housing after 10 years of Labour. Two-thirds of ethnic minorities lived in the 88 most deprived wards after 10 years of Labour.

For 11 years, Labour has maintained the pro-war, pro-privatisation, status quo. It hasn't changed society to benefit working people in Britain. If you choose Jeremy Kyle as your DWP messenger, it just confirms what people are experiencing in the 11th year of a Labour government -- Labour isn't working for working people.

See also: Chicken Yoghurt

Unison Strike In Coventry

For the next two days, nearly 600 000 members of Unison will be on strike.

It will be one of the biggest strikes since the general strike of 1926.

The chief issue is the cost of living and wages. Inflation was 3.8% in June. That monthly figure was the highest since June 1992. The Local Government Association is offering 2.45% to workers. The LGA is crying poor, but if central government stepped in, they could pay public sector workers a living wage. It's a gendered issue as well. As many as 250 000 of those balloted earn less than £6.50 an hour. Of these, 75 per cent are women.

It's an EU-wide issue. Across the 27 countries of the EU, average wages have grown by just 6.7% between 2000 and 2007 -- less than 1% a year. There has also been, across the EU, a "widening gap between productivity improvements and wage growth, with real pay lagging around 10 points behind increased output per employee."

So, we have increasing worker productivity, rampant inflation, and poor treatment of women workers on minimum wages in the public sector. What should Labour do?

The New Statesman captured it well in a recent editorial:

If millions of workers lose purchasing power by below-inflation wage settlements, we will quickly be in a recession. Is it realistic, or even morally acceptable, to call on the lowest-paid not to defend their families' living standards?

Tony Blair continued a Tory tradition of disdain for public servants such as teachers, social workers and probation officers. Brown must break with it.

Fighting them will not win him votes from the middle ground, because anything he can do on that front, the Tories will always do better. George Osborne has already made it clear that his response to strike threats will be tougher trade union legislation.

For the past decade, the country has been held to ransom, with Labour's blessing, by the richest in society. That is why an appeal to those seeking only a living wage to act for the greater good sounds hollow indeed.

National link: Green councillors respect town hall pickets

"Hard Work, Hidden Lives"

The first report from the TUC's Commission on Vulnerable Employment comes out this week:

"We spoke to agency employees who worked long days and nights for less pay than their permanent colleagues and who received no paid holiday or sickness leave."

"We heard from construction workers who were injured at work but were not entitled to welfare protection."

"There were workers who had spent 70-hour weeks on around £2 an hour who had no choice but to keep working when they were ill, as they could neither afford to lose a day's pay nor risk the sack."

"I particularly remember the chambermaids who had to be available to work from 8am, seven days a week, but who were not paid for the extra hours if rooms were vacated in late morning."

The New Cuddly Conservatives

Dave Osler on the old class instincts of the Tories:

Workers, Osborne insultingly claimed, go on strike "at the drop of a hat." This is nonsense, of course. For a start, thanks to the anti-union laws that formed a key plank of Thatcherism’s offensive against the working class, it takes weeks to go through all the legal hurdles necessary to take lawful industrial action.

You can see the impact in the statistics. The total number of strike days taken last year, at just over 1m, is minimal compared to the average of 12.9m in the 1970s and 7.4m in the 1980s.

The truth is, Britons have substantially fewer rights at work than workers in any other industrialised country.

Even after Labour’s introduction of a national minimum wage, the European social charter, union rights at GCHQ and the Employment Relations Act, they remain arguably the worst in the EU.

However much the Tories try to present themselves as the human incarnation of the Care Bear Bunch, their project remains that of providing a political voice for the minority of wealthy people that control society.

That’s why they have opposed everything in history that has helped the poor at the slight expense of the rich, from the abolition of slavery and the Factory Acts right through to the minimum wage. However slick the marketing, they remain at bottom the nasty party.

The "Family-Friendly" Conservatives

I always get a bit confused when David Cameron starts talking about being family-friendly.

Cameron wants to take the UK out of the EU's Social Chapter ... which would remove legal protection for part-time workers and end the rights of women to extend maternity leave.

With the EU Social Chapter, 7 million part-time workers have gained protection against discrimination. 4 million parents have gained the right to take unpaid parental leave. Everyone with a caring responsibility has the right to take unpaid emergency leave.

So, er, not families that have caring responsibilities for older parents, or families that depend on part-time work, or, basically, families with women in them?

David Cameron doesn't want you to pay attention to what he was saying in March 2007, that withdrawal from the EU Social Chapter would be a "top priority."

He wants to keep up the marketing job, the spin exercise, and expose his young family to TV camera attention, and build an image of being family-friendly, when he's preparing anti-family policies as soon as he's elected.

"Welfare To Work" And Labour

The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson:

I wonder how those on the left who yearned for Gordon Brown to replace Tony Blair would have felt if they'd known that he would adopt a policy recommended by a former investment banker which would invite multi-national companies to bid for a share of a £1bn market to help get the unemployed back to work?

That was what James Purnell, Brown's new work and pensions secretary, confirmed today was his policy.

On a visit to a job placement centre in Newham, I asked Purnell whether he was happy for people to get rich helping the unemployed. "Yes" he answered without so much as a blink.

Women And Unpaid Overtime

A report by the Trades Union Congress has found that 24% of women without children do unpaid overtime - the highest number of any other group:

The Fawcett Society's Kat Banyard: "Women are forced to choose between caring for a family at home or maximising their career opportunities in a workplace that measures performance by the number of hours put in."

The TUC's general secretary, Brendan Barber, said this was preventing women getting the top jobs in their profession. "It is hardly surprising that the senior levels of most organisations are male and that the gender pay gap stubbornly persists," he said.

The Green Party And Unions

Peter Tatchell, on The Guardian's Comment is Free:

Last weekend's Green Party spring conference witnessed a further consolidation of the party's position as the largest and most progressive alternative to the big three grey parties - all of which are wedded, to varying degrees, to the corporate agenda of big business. The conference passed resolutions condemning the creeping privatisation of the NHS and calling for the railways to be returned to public ownership. In debate after debate, a recurring theme was the defence of public services and the public accountability of economic institutions.

We already have a Green Party Trade Union Group (GPTUG) with its own dedicated website and blog. It supports workers' rights and is working with union members to advance a green agenda that is social as well as environmental.

Profit-maximisation and the free market imperatives of international capital threaten the future of life on earth. They put economic growth, materialism, consumerism and money-making before quality of life and human welfare. A green-union alliance is more urgent and relevant than ever before. Many union members already share our green critique of the ever-expanding, profit-oriented, market-driven nature of the globalised economic system. Unions are potential allies for the green movement. We should work with them, in solidarity.

Equal Pay For City Council Contracts

Women in full-time work earn 17% less than men. It gets worse for part-time women workers (nearly 36% less).

Currently, Coventry City Council's procurement policy states that "equal opportunities" must be observed by companies bidding for contracts. Perhaps it should be explicit that if you want the council's work, women must be paid the same as men.

A Referendum On The EU Constitution

Frank Field and Kate Hoey, two Labour MPs, continue to be persecuted by their party on supporting a referendum on the EU Constitution.

The group "I Want A Referedum" is holding mini-votes in ten marginal constituencies (including those of cabinet members, e.g. Jacqui Smith in Redditch, here in the West Midlands).

On the group's website, a Green MP in Sweden, Max Andersson, points out that:

The EU does not need a constitution to fight global warming – it needs the political will to develop policies that work, but that has nothing to do with the Lisbon Treaty. Yet the promotion of global warming policies is but one of the inconsistencies and half-truths propagated by EU leaders in their efforts to mislead the public and bypass democratic processes for ratification.

It seems as if the political elites are afraid that if they let the people have a say in the future of the EU, they are not going to like what they will hear. The distance between EU leaders and their 490 million constituents will only continue to increase if citizens do not make their voices heard.

Back in September 2007, the Green Party backed the TUC in calling for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty:

Caroline Lucas, Green MEP and advisor to the pro-European Centre for a Social Europe think-tank, said: "It's clear that the proposed EU Reform Treaty is substantially the same document as the EU constitution, on which Tony Blair promised the British people a referendum. Now Gordon Brown wants to deny us a say on whether to adopt it or not - and that's fundamentally undemocratic, whatever you think about the rights or wrongs of the treaty."