Cardiff Council Are Rubbish! Victory to the Bin Men & Women!

Wolfie Smith from North Cardiff Left Alternative reports on the upcoming bin strike on Monday.

Recently City Boss, Rodders (Rodney Berman, Leader of Cardiff Council - Ed.) has been trying to act the hard man facing down the unions. Berman is, of course, singular inappropriate to play the role of hard man as he doth more resemble a petulant child prone to temper-tantrums, but there is a nasty edge to the LibDem/Plaid Council and its attacks on council workers and trade unions: The petulant child is turning into a bully.

A few months ago it was the attempt to introduce a new tough regime for workers who dared to take time off sick, now it is the attempt to impose new shift patterns with no proper consultation.

Traditionally local refuse collectors have done a shift beginning at 7 am and wrapping up at 3 pm at the latest. But now the Council has taken a unililateral decision to change workers contracts and terms of employment, and replace shifts with two new shifts from 6 am to 2 pm, and 2 pm to 10 pm related to the introduction of new weekly food waste collections.

In response, to the failure to properly discuss these changes with the workforce, 90% of GMB members voted to stage a strike beginning on Monday. There seems no recognition from Cardiff Council that working from 2 pm to 10 pm would count as anti-social hours, especially if you have a family (ten minutes to see your kids at the breakfast table?!), and workers should receive a raise in wages accordingly. There also appaars be no recognition of the impact that such a radical change of working patterns might have, and the basic need to be led by workers representatives to facilitate any transition.

More disturbing is the report that our taxpayers money is going to be used by the LibDems and Plaid in Cardiff to pay for scab labour. Why not contact your local councillor to complain? We would also suggest putting signs on your rubbish saying, 'To be collected by GMB members only, Scabs don't touch!'

Left Alternative members and supporters of the People before Profit Charter will be sure to visit picket lines and workers to show support and solidarity for their just cause, for the workers united can never be defeated!

Sign the People Before Profit Charter

The Credit-Crunch threatens communities with devastation as workplaces close and jobs are lost. People’s lives will be wrecked as their homes are repossessed.

Most of the media presents the collapse towards recession as a natural disaster.

For them, and the politicians, all we can do is sit tight, accept cuts in our living standards, and wait for better times to return.

Gordon Brown’s government only answers are to demand that people stop throwing away food and that we “tighten our belts” to help the economy recover.

But the crisis is not natural and we can do something about it.

That is why trade union activists and other campaigners have launched the People Before Profit Charter.

The Charter challenges the logic of a system that puts profits before people. It puts forward clear proposals to improve workers’ lives and insists that ordinary people should not pay for the crisis.

The Charter can be a rallying point for the resistance that is taking place across the country.

Inflation and recession are now tightening their grip on the economy with every day that passes. Working people face rapidly increasing prices, especially for food and fuel; government led pay restraint; rising unemployment and a disastrous housing crisis. At the same time the super-rich continue to enjoy huge profits, salaries and bonuses - yet pay less tax than under the Tories. The desperation felt by many is having equally serious political effects: the resurgence of the Tories and an increase in anti-immigrant and fascist arguments. We need a coordinated response to these threats. As part of this response please add your name to this Charter and then move support for the Charter at your trade union, party or campaign organisation.

1. Wage increases no lower than the rate of inflation as given by the Retail Price Index. No to the government’s 2 percent pay limit.
2. Increase tax on big companies. Introduce a windfall tax on corporation superprofits, especially those of the oil companies.
3. Repeal the Tory anti-union laws. Support the Trade Union Freedom Bill.
4. Unsold houses and flats should be taken over by local councils to ease the housing crisis. No house repossessions. For an emergency programme of council house building.
5. Stop the privatisation of public services. Free and equal health and education services available to all.
6. End the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and use the money to expand public services. Stop the erosion of civil liberties.
7. Abolish tax on fuel and energy for old people and the poor. Re-establish the link between wages and pensions.
8. No to racism. No to the British National Party. No scapegoating of immigrants.
9. Reintroduce grants and abolish tuition fees for students.
10. Increase the minimum wage to £8.00 an hour. Many workers and trade unionists are now engaged in strikes and protests to defend their pay, jobs and services. We pledge ourselves to support their action and to support the campaigns that are dedicated to protecting working people, including:


* Unite Against Fascism
* Public Services not Private Profit
* Defend Council Housing
* Stop the War Coalition
* Keep Our NHS Public


Please return to: People Before Profit Charter, BM 6035, London WC1N 3XX or email your name and details to peoplebeforeprofitcharter@gmail.com

"The People Before Profit Charter is important because it allows us to debate the economic crisis facing ordinary people outside the boundaries fixed by the mainstream media and the political class it represents.

Everyone knows privatisation has been a disaster, that Gordon Brown’s PFI has been theft by another name, that the City of London’s games and power are unaccountable, that the priorities of public expenditure are distorted – £4 billion for two aircraft carriers, peanuts for public sector workers – and yet orthodox discussion remains stuck in a sterile world of party fortunes and personalities (If only they had personalities!).

Every opinion poll shows a clear public majority in favour of the principle of public services before profit. That should be the starting point.” - John Pilger, Writer & Broadcaster

Council Workers Strike

If you are around during the day, there are two events which you can attend to show support for striking council workers, LEFT alternative supporters hope to be out in force!

Wednesday 16 July

Rally at The Point, Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff Bay, 11.30am.

Thursday 17 July

Lobby of the Senedd, the Welsh Assembly, Cardiff Bay, 12 noon.

Solidarity Forever! Support the Local Strikes

The politcal elites are using the credit crisis to drive down our wages, they hope to stabilise their profits by squeezing the working class. They seek to impose a cut in living standards on all public sector workers, as the first step in attacking the wages of all working people.

There has been (or will be) strike action across a huge section of the union movement: Teachers, Postal Workers, Civil Servants, Council Workers, Railway workers, Lecturers and others. If all these unions were strike on the same day - a general strike of the public sector - it would turn an economic dispute into a political blow against New Labour.

Brown has been using divide and rule - in his references to public sector workers enjoying privileges that most workers don't enjoy - but if the attack on pay in the public sector succeeds it will send a clear signal to big business to start cutting wages for workers in the private sector: They divide each to conquer all.

Therefore, each individual struggle of a group of workers against the pay freeze is a fight for all working people, because they are part of a fightback against the attempt to impose a cut in living standards and wages on ALL working people.

In our group we have been trying in a modest way to support groups of workers on strike - taking collections at our workplaces for striking workers, setting up an informal network of rank and file unionists, trying to make people aware that these disputes are in defence all working people, and trying to push for co-ordinated strike action. We also seek to build a grassroots alternative to the union bureaucracy and Labour Party link. Sure it's not perfect, but if we can help build a fighting coalition of the working class on some level, then that will be something.

Supporters of the LEFT Alternative will be on strike this week, and others will be visiting picket lines. It's all about basic working class solidarity. For us, any working class people trying to fight back against the bosses merit support.

This strike is taking place against the backdrop of wider unrest. Currently a huge proportion of people in Wales work in the public sector, the attempt at a wage freeze comes at the same time as workers are already feeling the pinch of rising fuel prices, electricity and water bills, rising council tax, rising food prices. We also know that it's not everyone being told to tighten their belts - for the rich, they've never had it so good!

As socialists we support the trade union movement. We believe that if this strike is successful it will build confidence among other workers to organise and improve the lot of our class. People in Britain now work the longest hours for the worst pay in Europe - why? Because the trade union movement was smashed under Thatcher. Supporting these seemingly small disputes is part of rebuilding the combativity of working class organisations so that we can begin to improve the life and conditions of people in Wales and start pushing back against the continued dismantling of the Welfare State and the reforms won in 1945 like free health care and free education. Because of their strategic power under capitalism, workplace organisation is very important, the best weapon for social justice that we have.

The strikes this week are not just a dispute between one group of workers and the council, but rather about working people as a whole bettering themselves through collective organisation and collective struggle.

Support the Strikes!

Two trade union reps are standing for Cardiff Respect under the banner LEFT Party. Vote Joe Redmond in Adamsdown & Karen Tyre in Butetown! You can meet them tommorrow at the NUT strike rally at 10.30 am, St Peter's Hall, St Peter's Road (off City Road) where they will be showing support for striking teachers: THE WORKERS UNITED CAN NEVER BE DEFEATED!

Left List supports call for strike action
22/04/2008

Gordon Brown is facing the biggest political crisis of his premiership over the abolition of the 10 percent income tax band for Britain's lowest earners. There is now serious speculation that he could even be forced from office. But if Brown has found himself in a hole, he has only himself to blame.

It is his commitment to big business and his determination to make the poorest in society pay for growing economic turmoil has led him into this storm. We are both workers who have been hit by Brown's attempts to clamp down on public sector wages - and we are both taking strike action on Thursday of this week to break through his pay limit.

We will be walking out alongside hundreds of thousands of teachers, lecturers, civil service workers, council workers and others.The strike is a great chance for workers to ramp up the pressure on the prime minister. It is a chance for us to put our demands - for decent pay, housing, public services and living standards - at the heart of the political storm that Brown now faces.

The attacks we face are caused by Brown's commitment to policies of profit, privatisation and war. That's why we need a political challenge to New Labour. On Thursday of next week we'll have a chance to show there is an alternative - by voting for the Left List in the London and local elections on 1st May.

The Left List is standing to represent ordinary working people who have been betrayed by New Labour and sold short by all the mainstream parties' challenge to the neoliberal drive of Brown and his New Labour cronies. That's why we're calling on everyone to back our strike this Thursday, 24th April - and to vote Left List on Thursday, 1st May.

Oliur Rahman, East London Respect/Left Party councillor, PCS union member and candidate for London Assembly
Sara Tomlinson, joint branch secretary of Lambeth NUT teachers union (pc)

We won a minimum wage - Now we need to fight for a living wage

Many RESPECT activists & elected representatives are signatories to this petition - why not add your name?

Hi

I am an activist and a public sector worker from Merseyside. I am running a petition on the 10 Downing Street website in support of a living wage, which has 380 signatures so far. Please can you take a minute to read my e-mail and if you wish to sign, click on the link below and fill in your personal details.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/living-wage-2007/

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to take steps to replace the national minimum wage with a living wage based on the level of pay and conditions that enables a full-time worker to make ends meet for themselves and their family. Official regional living wage figures should be announced such as the one given by Mayor Livingstone for London (and increased by the GLA in April 2007 to £7.20 an hour).

I have also now started a blog to run alongside it, which will be regularly updated and expanded over the coming months, with useful information including what the living wage campaign is about, who supports it, and details of recents news stories and events :

http://livingwageuk.wordpress.com

The information below is copied from my blogsite :

Why a living wage?

The national minimum wage does not allow many workers to escape poverty. The Low Pay Commission do not take into account peoples actual needs in setting the NMW. In the UK 4¼ million adults aged 22 to retirement were paid less than £6.50 per hour in 2006. Two thirds of these were women and a half were part-time workers. A living wage could ensure that no workers receive poverty pay or have to rely on benefits, and could allow contract workers to lay claim to the same pay and conditions as staff directly employed by government and local councils.

Some would say that a living wage would actually harm poor people by losing vital jobs. This is exactly the same argument that was trotted out innumerable times against the introduction of the NMW. And what was the effect of the NMW ? According to the government's own evidence last year to the Low Pay Commission, "UK academic research to date has not found any firm evidence that the adult minimum wage has reduced employment rates or raised unemployment; this is consistent with the available international evidence."

Why now?

In the USA since 1994, over 120 city and state governments have passed living wage ordinances following pressure from local campaigners. Living wage campaigns have raised levels of pay and provided benefits like health care for thousands of workers. Studies there have shown that the living wage has had no significant adverse impact on jobs, business or the economy.

Following pressure from campaigners, London mayor Ken Livingstone has given his backing to a living wage in London. A living wage unit has been set up in City Hall, through which figures for the London living wage are calculated and published. Implementation has so far proved a thornier problem, but the publication of the figures has already started to change the pay bargaining landscape. It follows on some notable victories for low paid workers, in particular cleaners in East London Hospitals and cleaners in Canary Wharf and the City of London, thousands of whom have secured a living wage. Last year QMUL became the UK's first first living wage campus :

The college council committed itself to making Queen Mary the first "living wage campus" in the UK. This means no one will be paid less than a living wage (currently set at £6.70 an hour), or receive fewer than 28 days' holiday and 10 days' sick pay. Crucially, the change includes all staff on campus, not just those directly employed by the university. Queen Mary's cleaning staff are going to get a rise.

For Christine Martin, cleaning supervisor at Queen Mary for 12 years, the living wage will make a huge difference. Martin is employed by the university's cleaning contractors, KGB, and receives £5.20 an hour - the £5.05 minimum wage plus a pitiful 15 pence an hour as supervisor. "It is difficult to survive in London on this kind of money. Sometimes you think you might as well not work for what you earn," she says. "I do a second job and have to claim housing benefit just to make ends meet, so the living wage really has given me something to look forward to."

Guardian April 11, 2006

London's problems are not unique. Everywhere you go around the country, there is poverty pay, and there is a need for a living wage. A living wage in every region in the UK would be a huge boost to millions of low paid workers.

Jean Lambert (Green Party MEP) said in support of my petition

British people work some of the longest hours in Europe yet 7 out of 10 people working over 48 hours per week say they would like to work fewer hours. For many however this is impossible as they simply cannnot afford to do so. It is currently possible for someone to work more than 60 hours a week and still be paid less than £11,000 per year. The number of people living below the poverty line in the UK is higher than the EU average and continues to increase. The long hours culture is endangering our health and acting as a detriment to our family life. We can't have a culture that says you can not rest. We need a national living wage immediately to ensure this changes and everyone can make ends meet without working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Labour Party councillor Richard Bertin (Vale of Glamorgan) added these comments

Yes we have now thankfully got the minimum wage, and yes it is helping thousands of low paid workers. But with the economy doing so well there are repercussions one of which is the rising house prices. Unfortunately, the gap between the rich and poor continues to grow and this needs to be addressed now ! - How ? By rightly establishing a national living wage to ensure that we improve the lives of those on low pay and also do our bit to remove poverty from the 4th largest economy on the world - Great Britain. We need a living wage and we need it now!

Thanks for your time

Nick Wall