http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/ Weblog of a union leader en http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/images/billyhayes.gif http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/ Billy Hayes, weblog of the general secretary of the British Communication Workers Union (CWU). Billy Hayes Copyright 2008 2008-05-01T15:01:10-00:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P953 MERSEYSIDE TUC THURSDAY, 1 MAY 2008 953@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/ THURSDAY, 1 MAY 2008

First of all, we must congratulate Merseyside TUC on organising today’s event.

It is important to celebrate May Day. This is the day that we acknowledge our place in the international working class movement.

Despite all the talk of globalisation, there is precious little effort by people in power to draw the connections in our lives.

So May Day is when workers throughout the world demonstrate their connections, as a pointer to a better future.

And there are many things we have in common. Workers and oppressed people generally want peace. So today we must first remember those peoples who are denied this simple condition of life.

Our duty, in the trade union and labour movement, is to say to the Government that it is time to end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The invasion of these countries has not brought peace, prosperity or democracy.

It has brought hundreds of thousands of deaths, hundreds of thousands of injuries, millions of refugees.

Today, is very important that workers in Britain, and the US, say to our Governments, it is time to go.

Equally, today we must say to the same politicians, that under no circumstances must they consider armed action against Iran.

Whatever our views of nuclear power, nations which have both nuclear power and nuclear weapons have no right to threaten Iran for developing nuclear power.

Our movement must stand up against such hypocrisy. If we are to represent the workers interests, then we must first of all take a stand against imperialist wars.

Now what we also have in common is our opposition to racism and fascism. This week a fascist was elected Mayor of Rome. This week, the fascists of the BNP have been delivering leaflets across this country.

Make no mistake, the growth of fascism in Europe is continuing. There can be many arguments why this is. But one thing we must not do is blame migrant workers for this. The fascists aren’t growing because of the movement of migrant labour. The fascists are growing because main stream politicians are giving ground and encouraging them.

At the moment, the BNP’s big target is the Muslim community. They regard Islamophobia as the key to their march to power.

But surely this is linked to those politicians who believe that there is a war between civilisations, and that waging wars against Muslim countries is essential to our security.

Yes, the BNP’s Islamophobia is possible because it reinforces the prejudices behind the wars for oil and control of the Middle East.

Today, we must pledge ourselves to oppose Islamophobia and oppose the BNP.

Our communities, and our workplaces, must be free of racism, and the murderous intimidation it breeds.

Of course, there are positive events when we look internationally.

Most importantly, in many Latin American countries, we see radical politicians being pushed into power.

For too long, the peoples of South America have been subjected to the experiment of Chicago School Economics.

Now the workers, the peasants, the shanty town dwellers, and the indigenous peoples have demanded change.

There are many difficulties – but we must follow their led. What little support we can give them, we must.

So I say, you should join campaigns like the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, The Venezuela Information Centre, and all those campaigns which allow us to lend a hand to some of the biggest struggles taking place in the world.

Now, I know that today is not just a celebration of internationalism. We have many problems at home which the labour movement must address.

So, we give our greetings to the NUT, the PCS, the UCU and all those workers in the public sector who are refusing to meekly accept cuts in real pay.

Perhaps it’s only the Government who believes that paying decent wages in public services is inflationary.

Certainly, if you read the financial press, no serious commentators are suggesting that rising public sector wages are behind the increase in the price of food stuffs or oil.

It is only the Government that assumes that holding down wages is in some way going to reduce inflation.

We have to say to our Government, our Labour Government, that if it wants to use economic resources more efficiently, it should start by cancelling the Trident replacement.

That will be up to £75b saved, in a stroke, as Edward Heath once said.

Now, before I finish, I want us to remember the people who need our solidarity the most.

At the moment the Palestinians in Gaza are being held in a huge prison camp. Food, energy supplies, and medicines are all running out.

Many of the elected leaders of the Palestinians are in prison. Twenty thousand Palestinians are in Israeli jails.

Sixty years ago, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out of their homes. Many of these people are still in refugee camps.

How long can this go on?

A small nation dispossessed and tormented while the big powers go along with the collective punishment of the Palestinians.

I hope you will all make a point of taking up the case of the Palestinians.

There is a national demonstration in London on 10 May, and I hope many of you can make that.

If you can’t, make sure you organise something in Liverpool for the Palestinians.

So, I hope that you are successful in your struggles in the coming year. The workers united will never be defeated.

Thank you for listening.




WH/SB/JM
30/04/08
]]> 2008-05-01T15:00:10-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P951 VICTORIA PARK, LONDON 951@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/
Sisters, brothers and comrades I bring you the greetings of around a quarter of a million members of the Communication Workers Union.
We represent workers in financial services, telecommunications and the postal industry.
We are strong supporters of Unite Against Fascism, and I have the honour of being the National Treasurer of the UAF.
Thirty years ago, I attended the Rock Against Racism Festival here. It was a great day, and a turning point in the struggle against the fascists of the National Front.
A whole new generation of young people, young workers, were won to the anti-racist struggle.
I was already involved in that struggle. But that day gave me great heart and encouragement. Events like thirty years ago – and events like today can change your life.
If you are attracted to radical music – then you can also be attracted to living a radical life.
That is to say that what you do makes a difference.
You can be the one, and the ones, who take a stand.
You can be the people who defeat the racists.
You can be the ones who refuse to accept discrimination, poverty, war and the destruction of the climate.
All you need to do is to work – study – and work some more to make a difference.
You must stand up against the racists and fascists of the BNP.
You must make sure that women are treated equally.
You must make sure that lesbians and gays are not victimized.
From today keep up the fight. Join a trade union – and get your workplace organized.
We want our communities and our workplaces free of racism – free of fascists.
Join Unite Against Fascism and organize against the BNP.
Remember you can, and must, make a difference – the future is in your hands.
Thanks for listening.
WH/SB/JM
23/04/08

]]> 2008-04-27T12:01:05-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P950 AT THE BLESSINGTON CARRIAGE, CHAPEL STREET, DERBY ON SATURDAY, 26 APRIL 2008 AT 12.30 PM 950@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/ ON SATURDAY, 26 APRIL 2008 AT 12.30 PM


I welcome this opportunity to discuss the issue of privatization and public services. It is always useful for activists to meet and strengthen their policies through debates such as this.
The CWU represents workers in both a privatized industry – British Telecom – and an industry where privatization has been defeated – Royal Mail.
Certainly the experiences of privatization in BT has demonstrated how important it is to oppose privatization. The Unions which preceded the formation of the CWU – the NCU and the UCW – fought against the privatization of BT.
This involved a broad campaign and some industrial action by NCU members. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful.
The result was pretty stark. The BT workforce was halved. There were no compulsory redundancies, and redundancy terms were generally good. But these were valuable jobs which should not have gone.
Indeed BT actually transferred many of these jobs to agency and contract working. Hence a two tier workforce was created inside BT, which the Union has been unable to remove.
Wage rates for permanent staff, who remain, have generally been protected. But the non-permanent staff rates have stagnated in comparison.
Privatization also created a management culture which was rather conservative in some ways. BT was the dominant provider of telephony in the country – yet it missed out on the growth of the mobile market.
Now the experience with Royal Mail is interesting. The situation for workers inside Royal Mail is hardly perfect. But had Royal Mail been privatized, postal workers would face all their existing problems plus those arising from privatization.
The Union has fought two major campaigns against privatization with Royal Mail, and it took place under very different circumstances - one under a Tory Government and the other under a Labour Government.
The first campaign took place at the start of the 1990s when Michael Heseltine, then Minister at the DTI, pushed for a Bill to privatize Royal Mail.
The Union built a campaign which involved a number of initiatives inside and outside of Parliament. This was in some ways a fairly traditional campaign.
We produced a range of material for our Branches and activists – stickers, leaflets, balloons, badges etc. We organized meetings up and down the country – public meetings, lobbies, stalls, etc.
But the campaign also focused on the precise balance of forces inside of Parliament. As you may remember, after the 1992 Election, the Conservative Government’s majority inside Parliament was small in comparison to the previous Elections in 1979, 83 and 87.
With the majority of just over twenty, the Union focused on lobbying Tory MPs in marginal constituencies. Royal Mail privatization is not a popular policy – and we worked on the basis that MPs would vote against the Government rather than lose their seats.
We hired the services of a lobbying firm – Low Bell. This was definitely controversial.
This firm was one of Margaret Thatcher’s favorite lobbying agencies. But for us it was simply a tool to get inside the Tory Party, and into the marginal constituencies.
And it worked; Heseltine’s Bill fell because of an internal revolt by the Tory Party.
Now the second campaign involved a different approach. In 2004 the Chairman of Royal Mail, Allan Leighton, had an announcement made in newspapers sympathetic to him.
The announcement was a proposal from him that the Government should distribute 51% shares in Royal Mail. 20% be given to the staff in the form of shares, and 31% would be floated on the stock market.
Of course, it is quite something for a public servant to campaign for a change in ownership. But the announcement had been made and the Union had to react.
We needed to adjust our tactics. This was taking place under a Labour Government. The Union is affiliated to the Labour Party. So the first difference was to use the more direct levers the Union had inside the governing party.
Of course, we had to address our own membership differently too. After all management were offering a fairly substantial bribe to our members, in exchange for the Union dropping its opposition to privatization.
So we prepared some initial material for our members outlining the Union’s continued opposition to privatization and management’s proposals. We also had useful briefs with activists to carry the message through on the shop floor.
But the biggest difference was that being inside the Labour Party, our campaign was to get opposition to privatization adopted as Labour Party policy.
Our first tactic was to get agreement with other affiliated unions. This we did in the National Policy Forum at Warwick in 2004. After negotiations with the Government, the unions got opposition to Royal Mail privatization as part of the Warwick Agreement.
This was subsequently endorsed by the whole of the Labour Party at Annual Conference.
Our next tactic was to win the support of the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party. This we did through intense lobbying by our members around an Early Day Motion which opposed any distribution of Royal Mail shares.
Eventually, this EDM secured the support of 199 Labour MPs. A remarkable amount given that only around 230 Labour MPs – i.e. those not on the Government payroll – were eligible to sign it.
And we got the pledge into Labour’s Election Manifesto in 2005 – again through coordinated work with other unions.
Of course, management did not like any of this. Immediately after the General Election management changed their position to say that it was only 20% share distribution of staff that they wanted.
Obviously we understood that this would only be a staging post for a full privatization. So we continued campaigning. And finally in January 2007, the Government formally turned down management’s proposals for a distribution of shares.
Our experience shows that it is possible to defeat privatization, although we have some advantages other unions may not have had.
Certainly in BT where privatization was carried through, we were unable to exploit the range of tactics we used in Royal Mail.
But I believe we must promote a positive expansionary policy for our industries and public services.
Our opposition to privatization needs to be part of a rounded policy.
If we are to defeat privatization we have to have a progressive, alternative economic strategy. Developing such a policy lies before us.
Good luck with your campaigning – and thanks for listening.
WH/SB/JM
23/04/08

]]> 2008-04-26T12:30:03-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P949 It is a great honour to address this rally commemorating the brave struggle of Derby’s workers in 1833-34. 949@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/

The women and men of Derby who took a stand then speak to us still today.
Their wisdom and bravery in being trade unionists echoes along these streets. Because of their efforts, workers in Derby and the rest of the country today have trade union organizations, and rights which allow us to raise the living standards of millions of people.
When we remember them – their struggle lives again.
Of course, things sometimes do not appear so different today. We read that the bosses in Derby demanded that workers sign a document renouncing their union.
Is this so very distant from bosses in Britain today using union busting firms to prevent the workers gaining union recognition?
Now the living conditions workers faced in Britain have considerably improved – exactly because trade unions in the past two centuries have reduced the exploitation of workers.
But if we look at the struggle of workers in the developing economies we can see parallels today of just how hard it was for those women and men in the silk mills.
None of the efforts of trade unionists and socialists since 1833 have been in vein.
Every liberty and comfort that we have today has been won in struggle.
Behind every achievement – whether it’s the vote or maternity rights – lays the efforts of many people who history has rendered nameless.
But we refuse to forget them. We are the descendents of those gallant people. That is why we will refuse the embrace that David Cameron is now offering the unions. Because we can’t forget.
We can’t forget that when we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Silk Mill Lockout in 1984, it was a Tory Government then that was destroying the mining communities.
On the benches in Parliament behind David Cameron are the descendents of the slave owners, the descendents of the mill owners, the descendents of the land-owners and the land-lords.
And they kept their fortunes – the ones they inherited. The fortunes they made from exhausting mill workers in Derby and elsewhere.
Today’s Tory Party remains true to its traditions.
These are the traditions of the workhouse, the Combination Acts, the Master and Servant Acts, the Taff Vale case, the Trades Disputes Act, the Industrial Relations Court, and all that anti-union legislation of the 1980’s and 1990’s.
We can’t forget what the Tory Government is, and where it comes from.
Of course, we have our criticisms and disagreements with the Labour Government.
We were promised action to establish equal treatment of agency and temporary workers.
The Labour Government must now deliver for these 1.4 million workers who are discriminated against in Law.
We were promised that the Government would pull millions out of poverty. All the progress that this Government has made will be undone unless they rethink the removal of the 10p tax band for the low paid.
And rather than see our Prime Minister cozying up to George Bush, we want a clear end to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Time to bring the troops home Gordon.
Still, critical as we are of some of the Government’s policies – we’re not buying into a Tory, or a coalition Government.
Robert Owen’s socialism lay underneath the union of the Derby Silk Mill Workers.
For us today too, a view of socialism continues to lay beneath our commitment to the unions.
Our society is changing. The majority of trade unions in Britain today are women. Nearly one in ten people are from ethnic minorities.
Our workplaces are more diverse than they have ever been.
So our trade unionism – and our socialism – must be informed by these changes.
But what is constant – and hundreds of years of years old now – is the determination of working people to change the world we see before us.
To take control of our lives – and make a difference for our descendents, and in honour of our ancestors.
Thanks for listening.
WH/SB/JM
17/04/08

]]> 2008-04-26T12:11:44-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P952 If Livingstone were to win against the odds, it would be a springboard to challenge the direction of Brown's government Seumas Milne The Guardian, Thursday April 24 2008 952@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/
Seumas Milne The Guardian, Thursday April 24 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/24/london08.localgovernment


By any reckoning, Alistair Darling's announcement yesterday that low-income losers from the abolition of the 10p tax rate will, after all, get backdated compensation, was a stunning climbdown - and nonetheless welcome for that. For the first time since New Labour came to power, the party's core voters have forced a U-turn in government policy of the kind normally reserved for corporate lobbyists. Having lost the argument, and facing meltdown in next week's local elections, the government bowed to political necessity. As Jon Trickett, a leading backbench rebel, put it, this was a "victory for the party's sense of social justice".

But it has also left Gordon Brown floundering before Tory accusations of weakness. Labour is talking up the prospect of a council wipeout next week to discount the impact of what is widely expected to be a dismal performance. But given the fact that these seats were last contested in 2004, when Labour came third with 26% of the vote on the back of hostility to Tony Blair over the Iraq war, the outcome may be less decisive than the spin would suggest.

That will certainly not be the case in London, where the fallout from the mayoral election is likely to be felt in national politics for years to come. Nor is it a contest that can remotely be characterised as a Tweedledum-Tweedledee affair where voters struggle to put a cigarette paper between the candidates. For all Ken Livingstone's accommodations with the City of London and Boris Johnson's jokes and floppy hair, the dividing lines could not be clearer. This is a battle between a veteran radical who has used his powers to redistribute, to protect the environment and help make London one of the most successful multicultural cities in the world, and a Thatcherite privateer and opponent of the Kyoto treaty who backed the Iraq war and has managed to alienate almost every one of the ethnic minorities who make up 40% of the capital's population.

Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that this election has also been the focus of the most poisonous media onslaught for almost two decades. The relentless attacks on the mayor by London's only paid-for newspaper, the Evening Standard, which has in effect run Boris Johnson's campaign throughout, have turned election rules on their head with character assassination ads displayed on an almost daily basis on newsstands across the city. Genuine investigations into cronyism or development grants have long since lapsed into smears, reaching a new low last week with the mendacious "Suicide bomb backer runs Ken campaign" banner headline.

The fact that the Standard and its parent company, Associated Newspapers, have an interest in the renewal of the contract for the exclusive distribution of their Metro freesheet on the London Underground next year can only reinforce the paper's long-established ideological hostility to Livingstone and everything he stands for. The flipside is that the Tory challenger is given the gentlest of media rides. Johnson is, after all, a candidate who underestimated the cost of his plan to build a new generation of Routemaster buses by a factor of 12, who wants to reprivatise the tube but isn't quite sure how, and whose minders' main concern is to keep his pronouncements to a bare minimum, in particular about who would be running City Hall if he were elected.

Even more alarmingly, this is a man who struggles to apologise for calling black people "piccaninnies" or for insisting after the 2005 London bomb attacks that "the problem is Islam", the "most viciously sectarian of all religions", and that Islamophobia seems a "natural reaction". It's scarcely surprising that the British National party has called for its supporters' second preference votes to go to Johnson, which the latter's disavowals will do nothing to restrain. The prospect of such a figure uniting London in the event of another 7/7 beggars belief.

Nevertheless, the intensity of the media assault, Labour's national unpopularity and the fact that Livingstone has been in office for eight years combined to put the mayor on the back foot early on and trailing in the polls. And while the not-so-liberal Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick has evidently tilted towards Johnson, Livingstone's initial irascibility and over-egged efforts to project a statesmanlike image helped undermine a crucial part of his appeal.

With most polls now showing the two main candidates neck and neck, that is clearly changing. Meeting community activists in a church hall in Herne Hill, south London this week, Livingstone was visibly relaxing into his more popular persona. Sitting next to the Blairite minister for the Olympics Tessa Jowell, he cheerfully described the private train operating companies as "rapacious thieving criminals" and the management of the Post Office as a "dodgy couple" who were "only interested in the bottom line". "Well, there you are," Jowell responded awkwardly.

Livingstone's track record of leadership and competence is without doubt an essential weapon against Johnson's lack of experience and breathtaking inability to master a brief. But the mayor also needs to distance himself from Brown and remind voters of his continuing radical edge if he is to mobilise his strongest support among young, ethnic minority and women voters: from his return of privatised tube lines to public hands, to the extension of free transport to the under-18s and over-60s, to the requirement that 50% of all new housing be affordable, to the imposition of a £7.20 an hour living wage, to the new £25 congestion charge on gas guzzlers - along with multibillion-pound investment plans for transport, housing and training. To underscore his commitment to the coalition behind him, now stretching from Jowell to George Galloway, Livingstone yesterday committed himself to appointing Greens and Lib Dems to his administration.

The implications of next week's London contest for national politics are obvious. If Livingstone is ousted, it will be a dramatic blow to Labour's attempts to pull itself out of its tailspin and an emblematic boost to David Cameron's efforts to put the Tories in a commanding electoral lead. But if London's mayor were to win a third term, it would be a powerful springboard for the growing challenge to the government's warmed-up Blairism - and an unanswerable demonstration that there are alternative routes to electoral success.

s.milne@guardian.co.uk
]]> 2008-04-24T16:19:46-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P948 TUC conference, Congress House, 18 April 2008 TUC spokesperson on Europe 948@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/ TUC spokesperson on Europe

Chair, colleagues,
Love it or hate it, the EU isn’t about to go away.

It affects us in all sorts of ways, and we need to be proactive and not just reactive.

We have European Parliament elections coming up in just over a year’s time, in June 2009, and those elections will be crucial to the future of Europe.

In the past we have seen some voters using these elections to express their feelings about all sorts of issues, rather than the future of Europe.
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In the old days that might not have mattered.

But now the European Parliament has much more influence. –

We saw it used positively in the co-decision process that drew the teeth of the Services Directive, where the European Parliament backed the trade unions against the Governments and employers of Europe.


The Lisbon treaty will make the European Parliament even more important, giving it the power of co-decision with the Council of Ministers in more areas.


____________________________________

If left wing parties win in 2009, it will be possible to use the European Parliament to check and even reverse the current neo-liberal European agenda – and not just through co-decision, but through changes in the Commission too.

Under the new treaty it is the Parliament which has the final say in the choice of Commission president. If the PES wins, it is very likely that Mr Barroso will be replaced by someone from the left.

In that context, then, what are the issues that trade unions should be pushing?

Let me make one broad point, and then some specific suggestions.


____________________________________

My broad point is the importance of defending the European social model.

Yes, we have been unhappy with the way things have been going in recent years – very little new social legislation and a drive to liberalise and to deregulate.

But what we have in Europe is still far better than what we see elsewhere in the world –

and the fact that social Europe exists has been very important for our struggle to maintain social Britain.

Do you ever wonder why Rupert Murdoch is so anti-European? Let me hazard a guess.

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In the world today there are really only two models: the European one and the American one – or the social market economy versus jungle capitalism.

No, the Murdochs of this world don’t want strong unions, social partnership and collective bargaining; -

they don’t want European Works Councils; they don’t want strong public services; -

they don’t want strong environmental protections, health and safety or the rest of European social legislation; and the Rupert Murdoch of Page 3 fame certainly doesn’t want equality.

They want the US model every time.
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I’m not saying Europe is perfect, it’s not; but I am saying that it’s a damn sight better than what the American worker has to put up with.

Which brings me to Mr Cameron. In a speech given on 27 March in the City – where else? –

Mr Cameron said that a Tory government would ‘reverse the historic mistake of the Labour government in signing the EU social chapter’.

What do he and his party really object to in the social chapter?

The right to time off when you have a baby?

____________________________________

The right to four weeks’ paid leave?

Or the same health and safety rules across Europe so that workers are protected and the cheapskate cowboys can’t undercut their rivals by lowering standards?

Mr Cameron says he realises that it could be difficult to persuade all the other 26 member states to agree. There, he is right. Why on earth should the rest of Europe agree to Britain competing on the cheap?

In fact the situation would be immensely more complicated than even Mr Cameron realises. The so-called ‘social chapter’ is only a small part of the treaty. It is, in fact, only a part of the section on social policy.

____________________________________

If he wants to repeal the working time directive and take away our holidays, he will also have to ask for major changes in that part of the treaty dealing with the internal market - (hold on: aren’t the Tories supposed to be in favour of the internal market?!)

And if he wants to repeal the posting of workers directive, he will have to ask as well for major changes in that part of the treaty dealing with free movement.

In reality, Britain could only withdraw from the social chapter by withdrawing from Europe altogether.

Perhaps that’s the plan – I certainly wouldn’t put that beyond William Hague.

____________________________________

Of course, some of our own people want that too.

I think their motives are quite different, of course – they certainly don’t want the triumph of the US model in the UK, and they don’t really want to lock our borders and throw away the key, along with migrant workers and global trade.

But I think many trade unionists are fed-up to the back teeth with privatisation, marketisation and neo-liberalism generally. I certainly am.

We’re fed up with being told all the time that globalisation is good for everyone when the benefits keep going into the same people’s pockets –


____________________________________

the tax dodging super-rich who believe that playing by the rules is only for the little people.

And we are also profoundly concerned by recent judgements of the European Court of Justice – I’ll come back to this in a moment.

But what do we do when we have a government that does things we don’t like? Unfortunately we have a lot of experience of that.

Do we abolish the country, or do we try to change the government?

I think the same applies to Europe. The point is, to change it.

____________________________________


The EU isn’t going to go way. In or out we would have to deal with it – ask the Norwegians. They’re not members of the EU but apart from not having a vote they are bound by practically all of the EU’s rules.


So let me now list some of the specific changes I would like to see in the EU and in the UK’s attitude to the EU – and I invite you to add your own suggestions.


First, the legal disaster created by the Viking, Laval and now Ruffert judgments in the European Court of Justice must be sorted out.
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Their effect is to deny the right of trade unions to stop employers stealing a competitive advantage by undercutting wages and conditions.

We can’t walk away from this - and we in the UK can’t deal with it by ourselves. We need to fight shoulder to shoulder with our continental colleagues.

The ETUC is proposing a fundamental revision of the posted workers directive, a social progress clause which expressly guarantees trade union and collective bargaining rights in a way that the Court can’t ignore, and, if necessary, a similar clause in the European treaties. They are right to propose all this and they must have our support.

____________________________________

Second, the right of member states to provide quality public services for their citizens must be reasserted and freed from neo-liberal challenges from the EU.

It could well be that the new protocol to the Lisbon treaty on services of general interest will provide the basis for a new approach. But if not, we need a guarantee that voters should be able to decide what services are provided by the public sector.

Third, the UK should embrace the Charter of Fundamental Rights on the same terms as other member states. The government are now saying they don’t have an opt-out: well, prove it!


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It’s nonsense and demeaning for the government to imply that the UK can only be competitive by offering worse conditions to its citizens than apply across the rest of Europe.

Fourth, I’m afraid that there are many signs that the financial crisis is turning into a world economic crisis that will destroy millions of workers’ jobs.

Anglo-Saxon, casino capitalism, with its deregulation, privatisation, short-termism, and now collapses and failures, is no longer looking so good, is it?

In contrast, much of continental Europe is looking better, and certainly coordinated EU action to deal with the crisis offers the best way forward.
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Fifth, we need a new and strong EU social action programme – to deal with the social problems caused by globalisation and to help restore the faith of working people in Europe.

Hopefully, by the time of the next Parliamentary elections, new directives will have been approved on working time, on temporary agency work and on European Works Councils.

But as the ETUC’s statement on social policy, which has been distributed today, makes clear, we also need action on health and safety, pensions, migration, equal opportunities …



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I could go on. But let me stop now and invite others to put forward their ideas and proposals.


******
]]> 2008-04-18T11:30:22-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P947 LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL GROUND 947@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/

The CWU are again very proud to be one of Show Racism the Red Card’s main sponsors – it is good to see the next generation of school kids here at Anfield hearing the message loud and clear that Racism is wrong and will not be tolerated.

There have been a number of black legends playing for Liverpool - from the likes of John Barnes back in the 80’s and Michael Thomas in the 90’s to Ryan Babel and Jermaine Pennant in the current period.

___________________________________


The Communication Workers Union has a proud tradition of fighting racism and also raising awareness amongst the public that racism is not acceptable.

The message for the kids today has to be that it is not cool to be racist – the work that SRtRC does is brilliant as it works with fantastic role models such as Emanuel Adebayor, Ashley Cole, Aaron Lenon, Wes Brown and many others who all give their support to this excellent campaign.


Race and culture is an area that should be celebrated and not criticised –
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the various religious festivals that we see now in our ever increasing diverse society is to be appreciated and respected. –

Whether it is Divali, Eid, Easter or Yom Kippur -

these are all very important events for people from those backgrounds who celebrate these festivals.

Do not fall for the trickery of the far right political groups such as the BNP who have changed their bovver boots and Fred Perry tops for smart suits and sharp haircuts - they preach hate and intolerance. –
___________________________________

The message for you all to take away today has to be to adopt a growing tolerance and understanding of each other – respect one another.


– It is the best way to live.


Today is a special day and Liverpool FC should also be congratulated for its zero tolerance stance of Racism –

I hope you all have a really enjoyable day and take away with you these special messages of growing tolerance and respect between each other.
*************************************

]]> 2008-04-10T14:00:21-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P946 Copthorne Tara Hotel Scarsdale Place London W8 5SR 946@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/ Scarsdale Place London W8 5SR

Trade Unions have always recognised the importance of education and skills –

it is in the very roots of our coming into being.

So the CWU has been delighted to be at the forefront of the lifelong learning agenda pursued by the Government since it came to power in 1997.

The UK had suffered a profound lack of investment in education and skills throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
____________________________________
The Moser Report identified the scale of the legacy of under-investment.

23% of adults in the UK lacked the literacy and numeracy skills necessary to perform basic tasks in both their work and social lives, compared with 7% in Sweden and 12% in Germany.
• 1 in 5 adults could not find a plumber in the Yellow Pages.
• Another 1 in 5 could not work out from a timetable what time train to catch to get them to a job interview on time.
• 1 in 4 could not calculate the change they should get out of £2 when buying 1 loaf of bread at 68p and 2 tins of soup at 45p each.
________________________________

• 1 in 3 could not calculate the area of a rectangular space.

Moser suggested that the overall cost of poor essential skills to British industry is in excess of £10 billion per annum –

some subsequent surveys (such as one carried out by Royal Mail) have put that figure much higher (£41 billion).

These costs come from,

• Poor productivity – due to errors in calculations, poor reading of instructions and inaccurate record keeping.

________________________________

• Administration Errors – due to inaccurate recording of customer details, leading to lost orders and poor customer experience.

• Increased wastage rates – due to poor measuring skills.

• Poor customer relations – due to poor oral communication skills, again leading to lost orders and poor customer experience.

• Increased staff turnover – staff with poor basic skills are more likely to leave, this leads to added recruitment and training costs.

________________________________

• Difficulties in introducing new technology – without good essential skills it is difficult for workers to adapt to new technology and procedures.

• Less flexibility – workers with good essential skills are more adaptable to change than those without.

• Lack of confidence – more confident staff are a better advert for the company, can work on their own initiative, are more prepared to participate in company initiatives and respond better to change and urgent situations.

____________________________________

Those with essential skills problems are less confident.

Health & Safety – if H&S information is not understood then it is ignored, leading to accidents, sick leave, loss of productivity and sick cover, potential loss of employee and possible legal action against the employer.

A report from the Work Foundation found that ICT can deliver a five to seven fold return on investment but that British companies were failing to achieve the full returns on the £50 billion per annum they spend on ICT due to a lack of staff training.

____________________________________

BT sponsored research, carried out by De Montfort University identified that;

• Skills and training is one of the key factors in the digital divide

• Employers should be encouraged to broaden access to ICT training in the workplace

• Low levels of literacy and numeracy are a barrier to ICT adoption

• However, Interest in ICT training often provides an inroad to reach individuals with essential skills requirements

__________________________________
• Most participants need a helping hand when they experience problems

• Peer-group support is important to encourage participation

Moser’s recommendation was to establish the role of the Union Learning Representative (ULR) to provide peer group support for workers and the Union Learning Fund to support the development of the networks necessary to support the ULRs.

In the CWU we have now established over 100 learning centres – many in the workplace, but others in our union offices or in local community centres.
____________________________________
These learning centres are supported by a network of nearly 1,000 ULRs, who investigate the learning needs of our members, negotiate course provision with the colleges and negotiate access to resources and time off for learning with the employer.

In the CWU our members have taken a whole range of courses, from literacy and numeracy to ICT, from Chinese for beginners to English for Speakers of Other Languages, from assertiveness for women to wine tasting –

and the range of courses offered is important here.
____________________________________
Many of the people we represent have been failed by an under-investment in education that saw them leave school with few qualifications and a distrust of the education system.

This has often not been improved by the poor quality Computer Based Training that was all too often the limit of what they were offered at work.

To re-introduce such people to learning requires us to offer them 2 things

1. A trusted member of their own peer group who, unencumbered by the power relationship of employer and employee, who can offer them an
__________________________________
unbiased and sympathetic assessment of the learning opportunities on offer.

2. A range of learning opportunities that appear relevant to their lives, offering them a bridge from where they are now to where they want to be in the future. If they need to rebuild confidence in their ability to achieve then hobby courses have often proved to be a very effective way of achieving this.
We have numerous examples of individuals who would never have had the confidence to return to learning through the traditional route who have thrived with the support of Union Learning Reps and workplace learning initiatives.
____________________________________

The CWU have negotiated the delivery of learning opportunities to over 10,000 members in the last 2 years –

and we can see from the waiting lists that the demand is much greater –

this is something we need to work more closely with both the employers and the education providers to address in future.

All this work does produce concrete results for the businesses bottom line.


____________________________________

The Basic Skills Agency has quoted examples of an engineering company that experienced a 30% reduction in rejects and a 15% rise in output, a public service organisation that raised customer satisfaction levels by 10% and another company that improved national quality standards from 60% to 65% overnight –

all as a result of essential skills programs.

This shows what can be achieved when Union Learning Reps and employers work together in meaningful co-operation.


____________________________________

ULR negotiations don’t always go smoothly – the attitude of employers to the lifelong learning agenda has been varied – even within the same company.

But I don’t want to dwell on that because I truly believe that lifelong learning is a win-win scenario and there are plenty of places where ULRs and managers are working together to deliver real and meaningful learning opportunities for the workplace.

And it is this really positive work that I would like to see us build on in the future.

____________________________________
Because this is a long-term agenda.

Recently the UK Government’s Leitch Report has highlighted that the work we have done so far is only sufficient for us to stand still. The UK is currently,
• 17th out of 30 OECD countries in the proportion (35%) with no or low qualifications

• 20th out of 30 OECD countries in the proportion (36%) with intermediate qualifications

• 11th out of 30 OECD countries in the proportion (29%) qualified to level 4 and above

____________________________________
Even progressing at our current rate by 2020 we will only,

• Improve from 17th to 15th in the No or Low Skills category

• Improve from 20th to 13th in Intermediate Skills

• And actually deteriorate from 11th to 14th in High Level Skills

And by 2020 the skills requirement of UK industry will have changed,

• Jobs requiring below Level 2 skills will have fallen from around 30% in 2004 to under 15%

__________________________________
• Jobs requiring Level 2 skills will have dropped below the 20% mark

• Jobs requiring Level 3 skills and above will have risen to 68%.

This skills shortage cannot be solved merely by focusing on those still in the education system – as important as they are.

As we approach 2020 the demographic changes and we see a big increase in the number of older workers – but these are the very people we are least likely to train.

It is a fact that nearly 80% of our 2020 workforce are in work NOW –

____________________________________

so we need to find ways of ensuring that they develop the skills we all need them to have for the future.


In order for us to succeed, lifelong learning needs to be an integral part of the skills agenda – and our members need to see real benefits for themselves.

Accreditation of prior experience or learning should be a meaningful recognition of skills acquired – but we must also offer workers the opportunity to develop new skills as well as recognising those they have already.

____________________________________

And we need to accept that sometimes hobby learning or learning for pleasure will be the route for adults to return to learning – and the funding to support these learners needs to recognise this.

The development of the Union Learning Reps is key to workers having the confidence to return to learning.

ULRs need to be included in the skills agenda – they have a uniquely intimate knowledge of the members’ learning agenda due to them being a part of their peer group.

____________________________________
ULRs can articulate that demand and their input into course and qualification models is vital if they are to truly appeal to the range of workers that is required to address the skills needs of the future.

This meeting represents a wide range of bodies with a wide range of differing interests – but one thing is clear.

All our interests will suffer if we fail to address the education and skills challenge.


*********
]]> 2008-04-09T11:11:27-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P945 NOTTINGHAM SESSION: 11.50 945@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/ SESSION: 11.50

Firstly may I congratulate the Mansfield and Nottingham TUC in joining with the United Campaign to organise today’s event.

If we are to turn the Trade Union Freedom Bill into an Act of Parliament, then we are going to have to organise a great deal of support outside Parliament first.

Local and regional events, such as this, then have a vital role in building a movement behind the Bill.

With so many other speakers today, I want to talk a little about CWU’s experience, as I know other speakers will cover the details of the Bill.

The need for the repeal of the anti union legislation follows from its basic incompatibility with the rights which should be fundamental to the Constitution of our society.

If a worker, or workers, are unable to withdraw their agreement to labour, then how can we define it as free labour?

For workers to have equality in a work place they must be able to stop work when management change their terms and conditions without agreement. After all a contract will have been broken, by management’s unilateral action.

But under existing legislation, in these circumstances, a ballot is necessary before strike action can take place.

Management, of course, are not obliged by Law to negotiate, or consult with the workers affected.

In practice, our members in the postal industry generally don’t accept this inequality. Time and time again, when management change work place agreements without negotiation, then CWU members will walk out without reference to the Law.

This practice is so ingrained that the repudiation letters that CWU HQ is obliged to circulate to unofficial strikers are completely ignored.

Now, if there was a more widespread rejection of legalised inequality, then much of the existing anti-union legislation would be inoperable.

But this isn’t going to happen – since 1979 too much ground has been lost in the unions. There’s just not the confidence in work place organisation that there was.

If, as Jack Jones has argued for, a new shop stewards movement were to emerge, then a more generalised defiance of the anti union legislation would certainly follow.

Lacking that, we must hold the ground as best we can. Even where workers display some confidence the anti union laws do undermine this.

For example, although CWU members will walk out unofficially, once out on a strike they face restrictions which are not too easy to deal with.

Management will frequently set up ad hoc arrangements to deal with the mail delayed by strike. This can involve establishing a depot, staffed with managers or strike breakers.

Now CWU strikers cannot legally picket that depot – even when they are on official strike.

That depot is defined in law as not the place of work of the strikers. Even though the work they usually perform has been conveyed to that depot.

Picketing the depot would be classed as ‘secondary action’ and therefore illegal.

So much of the legislation operates like this. The definitions used are to serve the purpose of the employers, not those of the workers.

We had an example of this in last years postal strikes. We were moving towards a settlement, in negotiations, and had announced a couple of further days action. Members had already taken eight to nine days action. Management were under considerable pressure.

Management made an application to Court to get an injunction against the further strike days.

Now this was argued on the most feeble grounds concerning the terms of the notification of the further action.

Minor administrative details concerning the work place of tiny numbers of workers was supposedly inaccurate.

Actually these details made no difference to the overall position of union members, and the union had already organised a large number of strike days.

On this quibble, management got an injunction against the action. This, like, so many similar injunctions, was awarded because, in the opinion of the Judge, there was ‘an arguable case’.

Nothing more substantial than an arguable case – and how often does a Lawyer not find an arguable case.

Yet the planned action of a hundred and thirty thousand workers was dependant upon this argument.

In this case, we actually secured the National Agreement to resolve the dispute before we had to make a decision about further challenging the ruling.

But so often, the Judges can interfere with legitimate union action, knowing that in reality the case will never come to court.

Clearly the reason such a legislation is still on the Statute Book is because the unions have been dramatically weakened since 1979.

This is nothing to do with the justice of the argument. This is simply because the employers have had a sufficiently strong grip on political and public opinion.

There have been concessions since 1997. The new positive rights secured under Labour have been very valuable.

Legislation like the Minimum Wage, and the various Equalities Acts, have had a significant impact on the lives of millions of workers.

But the Labour Government remains convinced that severe restrictions upon workers organisations are necessary for both the economy and for the credibility of the Government.

This is not our experience. An economy which is dependent upon cheapening workers terms and conditions will fail on technological innovations.

Our economy requires better trained and motivated workers. The pace of technological change remains impressive today.

If Government does not guarantee the development of the workforce skills, then the economy will get left behind.

As for the political argument, I think because Labour Ministers are out of the habit of arguing for workers rights, they don’t see the popularity of it.

John Hutton recently sounded off about how positive it was that small numbers of people received fantastic income levels. Does he really think that this is popular?

Public sector workers have been asked to accept wages below the rate of inflation.

Why is it that a Minister believes that rich people require lots of money to be strongly motivated, whilst poorer people only get motivated by having little money.

There is no real argument for denying workers rights, and depressing wages.

Instead, we have inertia by Government in the face of the wealthy and powerful in our society.

A campaign for Workers Rights, and for the Trade Union Freedom Bill, is a campaign which addresses the gross inequalities in our society.

Keep on organising – and thanks for listening.






WH/SB/JM
02/04/08
]]> 2008-04-05T12:01:34-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P944 Co.Louth, Ireland 944@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/
Good Morning,
I’m delighted to have had this invitation to visit Ireland again and meet with fraternal colleagues from CWU Ireland and colleagues from UNITE, SIPTU and other union activists. It’s good to be here at a time which coincides with the tenth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. An agreement which has had it ups and downs over this period, but it has lasted and it can only be good that there is now a local assembly representing the interests of the Northern Ireland people and democracy, with all its limitations, has finally replaced years of turmoil and violence.

In reading the report of the City Bridges ‘Moving on’ project I am reminded of the high price people here paid in terms of death and suffering. My own union, like many others, can bear testament to that. The report tells us that the violent political conflict lasted for more than 30 years and over 3,600 people died and 36,000 people were injured. If that were extrapolated to Britain it would be equivalent to 36,000 deaths, well over twice the number
of British civilians that died in the Second World War!
The Agreement is looked on by many people, in similar circumstances, as a role model that will hopefully guide them out of their own difficulties.



This report also explains that the equality legislation that emanated from the Agreement, particularly the provisions of section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, form part of one of the strongest and most sophisticated equality policies in the world.
Having legislation to promote equality, as opposed to policing it, is a real strength.

It is wholly appropriate that trade unions should play a strong role in supporting the agreement and working for peace and reconciliation. Again as the report stresses –the workplace is the main interface between divided communities on a day to day level -.
Indeed the CWU has played a prominent role in this project to contribute to peace and reconciliation and underpin the peace process.
WE simply cannot take such important issues for granted.
There have been threats to the peace process at various times but it has proved strong and robust enough to withstand them.

Its continued success will depend on the support that it is given by civic society and we as a trade union movement, form a large part of that society and therefore must continue to play our part.

“Moving On” has created an opportunity for unions to come together and undertake the special training provided by City bridges to enable our representatives to become champions for peace and reconciliation.

There have also been practical benefits.
At a time, when communications workers in Ireland, through the CWU Ireland, have been attempting to achieve recognition with BT Ireland. To date, this has been met by a blunt refusal by BT. Such behaviour by a multi-national company is simply unacceptable and my union will offer whatever support is necessary to ensure the CWU Ireland get full recognition rights with BT Ireland.

We have had the opportunity through City Bridges to develop closer fraternal links than we have ever had before. This has been to the mutual benefit of both unions and has made us both stronger.
Last year both our unions commissioned a joint banner for the Irish Congress, Belfast May Day parade and marched together to celebrate workers day. I am told that the parade and festival in Belfast is one of the largest May Day parades in Europe and I know both unions are proud to be part of it and help the affiliates of Congress continue their unique contribution to the labour movement in Northern Ireland.

I also know some CWU members from both unions were involved in organising joint meetings between Derry and Letterkenny trades councils. These meetings, in turn, have resulted in the union’s support of campaigns on other local cross border issues.
This activity represents a special feature of this City Bridges project—the ability to organise other spin off events, that are supported by local union branches, as they continue to build good relations.

Colleagues, I am conscious of the time and the fact that there are a number of other eminent speakers so in closing may I wish you well in your endeavours. The CWU is proud to be involved with the City Bridges “Moving On” project and look forward to working together in the future.

Thank You.]]> 2008-04-03T12:32:37-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P943 I appreciate the privilege of being able to address you today. 943@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/
It will not be too many years now before I will be eligible to join your organisation.

Now, I want touch on a couple of key questions, and then take some of your queries.

Last week, your position in parliament, called a debate on the future of the Post Office network.

Now, the CWU apposes the proposal to close 2500 branches.

We think the network offers a unique vehicle for delivering commercial and social services to every community.

Rather that see Government services withdrawn from the Network, we want the Network to act as a shop front for national and local Government.

I’ll come back to this in a moment. But, in the run up to the parliamentary debate, CWU headquarters was bombarded with enquiries from the media.

In particular, newspapers who traditionally have been hostile to Trade Unions and the Labour Party wanted to know whether the CWU calling upon Labour MP’s to join the Conservatives in voting against the Government.

This was the sort of lobbying that gives politicians a bad name. No longer is it the issue in hand – i.e the future of the Post Office Network.

No, instead it’s a case of will a Labour supporting Union embarrass the Labour Government?

Well, we responded by saying that we wanted the closure programme put aside by the Government. But we certainly didn’t trust the Conservatives to support the Network.

After all, we know that the Conservatives have closed 3542 branches when they were in power.

Now, we didn’t want to be partisan we just wanted to support the Network. But the media wanted a story at our expense.

This is so much the problem, when it comes to debating the future of the Network.

The facts get lost as axes are being ground.

The Government have made a commitment to spending 1.7 billion pounds on supporting the Network of 11500 offices.

That’s good – and the opposition refused to commit to meeting that spending during the parliamentary debate.

But really should such support be dependant upon closing 2500 offices? The CWU cannot accept this.

The decline in Post Office usage is a predictable result of neglect.

The Government is withdrawing services from the Post Office – like renewing TV Licenses – like insisting upon Pensions being paid by bank account. The Government must reverse this process.

Certainly it must ensure that the replacement of the Post Office card account is delivered through the Post Office. But it must go further, the Government should establish a universal banking service obligation via the Post Office.

A comprehensive banking service delivered through the Network would sustain the Network.

Post Office Network’s abroad which make a profit only do so because of their banking facilities.

So – we need such a facility in Britain. We could use this to provide financial services to the particularly vulnerable.

We need to end the curse of the loan sharks. And we want an end to scandals like the collapse of the Fair Pak Christmas Club.

Easy and favourable credit options for the poorer communities could be an important part of the Government poverty reduction programme.

I think the decision of a number of councils to take on supporting Post Office services is to be welcomed. This must not be instead of central Government support.

The future of the Network requires support from both National and Local Government.

Now, I know many of you are involved in local campaigns to keep open your Post Office.

Like you, the CWU believes that active citizenship is the only way to defend public services.

Can we change Government policy? I think so – but it’s not easy we need broad coalitions of active supporters.

I can assure you that the CWU will support effective local campaigns.

Now to move on, as a National Union we have been very active in support of pensions.

We have campaigned with the TUC in support of the restitution of the earnings link for the state pension.

I know this is going to be restored – but has been delayed by Government.

In the interim, the CWU believes that the Government should make a substantial increase in the state pension in this parliamentary term. Gordon Brown would win a lot of plaudits if he included this in the Queen’s Speech this winter.

The improvements in the winter allowance have been welcomed but there is no substitute for the increase on the basic pension.

Of course, we’re also for improving and defending the companies’ pension schemes.

At the moment there is a serious probably developing with Postal workers around Royal Mail’s pension reform.

Existing benefits are safe – but for Postal workers there are question marks over their future benefits.

All I can say now is that Postal workers are engaged in a consultative ballot which we believe will resolve in a big rejection of Royal Mail’s proposed reforms.




Our approach will be to press management, to listen to their own work force. Pension reform is always difficult but it can only be successful if it is sensibly negotiated with the work force and its representatives.

Now, I believe you may have some questions for me?








Communication Workers Union
150 The Broadway
London SW19 1RX

Tel: +44 (0)20 8971 7250
Fax: +44 (0)20 8971 7430
E-mail: bhayes@cwu.org
Website: www.cwu.org

This speech will shortly be available on Billy Hayes’ Weblog, which is: www.billyhayes.to.uk











]]> 2008-04-01T11:27:09-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P942 In the five years since the invasion of Iraq, we have seen all the justification for the war collapse. 942@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/
Something’s were quickly disproved. The coalition forces just could not find those weapons of mass destruction.

Something’s took more time to be disproved. On Wednesday this week – a US Military study confirmed that there was no direct link between Sadam Hussein and El Quida.

This study examined 600,000 documents received by the coalition forces. A lot of effort which ended in failure.

The Pentagon has now suppressed plans to publish this document on the internet.

So much for informing the public who paid for the war.

The US and British government say that things are getting better in Iraq.

Yet they don’t really believe this.

This week the British government offered 1,400 Iraq refugees the choice of being forcibly returned to Iraq – or be thrown out of their accommodation to beg on the streets.

The British government say it’s safe to return to Iraq.

Yet the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says that it is not advisable to return to Iraq – given the continuing conflict.
Of course, the British government doesn’t really believe it is safe in Iraq. That’s why these refugees who return are asked to sign a waiver absolving British government agencies from any liability for their safety.

Where does such a heartless policy come from?

Isn’t this just the by product of a cruel and an unjust war?

Casting out in our Iraq refugees may please all the pro-war tabloids, but this can’t be squared with any defence of the interest of the people of Iraq.

We are here to day to say that five years is more than enough.

No more lies – no more hypocrisy – let the people of Iraq make their own future – end the occupation now.

Of course, Bush has learnt nothing, this week we saw the ousting of Admiral William Fallon – US Military Commander in the Middle East.

It appears that Admiral Fallon was warning the Bush government against an attack upon Iran. Hence his dismissal.

This is a frightening prospect – in the last months of the Bush administration there are those still considering a war upon Iran.

We must keep working against this ruinous foreign policy.

Make sure that your Union branch, your community organisation and your local party branch are affiliated to the Stop the War coalition.

We must keep raising funds, and raising activity for the anti war movement. You are the hope for a better future – keep organising – keep writing.

Thanks for listening.









Communication Workers Union
150 The Broadway
London SW19 1RX

Tel: +44 (0)20 8971 7250
Fax: +44 (0)20 8971 7430
E-mail: bhayes@cwu.org
Website: www.cwu.org

This speech will shortly be available on Billy Hayes’ Weblog, which is: www.billyhayes.to.uk











]]> 2008-03-15T10:27:29-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P941 The budget suggests that Brown and Darling have failed to recognise the cost of ignoring working-class alienation Seumas Milne The Guardian, Thursday March 13 2008 941@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/
Seumas Milne The Guardian, Thursday March 13 2008

You'd never know it from the way these things are discussed by politicians and the media, but most people in Britain - 53% at the last count - regard themselves as working class. And however hard it may be to agree on definitions of class, that majority is reflected across a range of statistical breakdowns of modern British society. Getting on for 40% of the workforce are still manual workers, for instance; add in clerical workers and you're getting on for two thirds.

Yet despite the fact that class continues to dominate the country, it's treated almost as a taboo by the political elite. Even when working-class life does make it into medialand, it's typically in the form of contemptuous "chav" caricatures, as in the comedy show Little Britain. And when politicians do stray into class territory, they use euphemisms like "hardworking families" or proxies such as child poverty - the object of Alistair Darling's best pitch to his own party in yesterday's budget.

So the BBC's decision to commission a series of programmes about the marginalisation of the working class in New Labour's Britain should have been a rare opportunity to shine a light on the heart of modern life. Instead, under the banner of "The White Season", the programmes have been focused entirely on the impact of immigration and race on the white working class, as if it were some sort of anthropological study of an endangered tribe.

The message was unmistakeably clear in the series trailer, where a shaven-headed man's face is blacked up with writing by brown hands over the words: "Is white working-class Britain becoming invisible?" White working people were being written out of the script, we were given to understand, and multiculturalism and migration were to blame. But in reality, it is the working class as a whole, white and non-white, that has been weakened and marginalised in the past two decades. By identifying the problems of the country's most disadvantaged communities as being about race rather than class, the BBC has reinforced stereotypes and played to the toxic agenda of the British National Party.

It's also wrong. Of course, mass immigration in the past few years - overwhelmingly from eastern Europe - has had a disproportionate impact on working-class communities: in housing, public services and pay. The government has deliberately used the unregulated European Union influx as a sort of 21st-century incomes policy, and employers have ruthlessly exploited migrant labour to hold down wages. No one should be surprised if demoralised and powerless people reach for the nearest scapegoat - and it's no coincidence that some of the worst racism is found in the most economically deprived areas.

But it wasn't immigration that ripped the guts out of working-class Britain, white and non-white. It was the closure of whole industries, the rundown of manufacturing and council housing, the assault on trade unions, the huge transfer of resources to the wealthy, the deregulation of the labour market, and the unconstrained impact of neoliberal globalisation under both Tories and New Labour. Almost none of that has had a look-in so far in The White Season.

Hopes that Gordon Brown would take the government in a different direction look increasingly forlorn. Labour MPs who invested heavily in Brown are now concluding that Brownism is little more than Blairism without the glitz. Diehard Blairite ministers such as the new work and pensions secretary James Purnell, and business secretary John Hutton, have been given free rein to promote an aggressive pro-corporate and privatisation agenda. Hutton's declaration this week that Labour should celebrate "huge salaries" and individualism was almost a parody of the early days of high Blairism. But Brown himself went out of his way on Monday to commit the government to accelerated privatisation in health, education and welfare.

Meanwhile, Darling's budget confirmed his watering-down of the plan to tax the non-dom super-rich and his retreat on capital gains tax under corporate pressure, while Brown has resolutely resisted demands from trade unions and Labour MPs to give equal rights to agency and temporary workers as a way of relieving some of the worst abuse of migrant labour to undercut existing pay and conditions. The prime minister will only allow the issue to be considered by a commission with an employers' veto. Corporate lobbying has also seen off the threat of a windfall tax on the grotesque profits of the energy companies - which could have given Darling some of the cash he would need to halve child poverty by 2010.

With a gathering economic crisis likely to deliver lower growth next year than Darling predicted and a continuing squeeze on public-sector pay, the political price of Labour's failure to deliver for its core voters can only grow. The New Labour outriders used to argue that working-class voters could be taken for granted because they had nowhere else to go. Since the 2005 general election, that can no longer wash. Of the four million votes Labour lost, the largest number were from the working class, north and south, white and non-white. As Jon Cruddas, who ran a powerful challenge for Labour's deputy leadership last year, points out: "Those voters didn't go to the Tories, they went to the nationalists, the BNP, the Liberals and Respect - or they stayed at home".

Blairites who insist Labour must once again concentrate on swing voters in southern marginals and "run up the flag" to pacify the rest are, he argues, 15 years out of date and threaten the social coalition needed to win - which can only be rebuilt by focusing far more on housing, insecurity at work, inequality in public services and public-led investment in deprived areas. This is the faultline that is now emerging in the parliamentary Labour party, with the revived centre-left around the pressure group Compass increasingly making the running and Brown tilting unmistakeably towards the Blairite right.

The next test of where this is leading will be the local elections in May, when the BNP, among others, is expected to make significant gains. Unless Labour is prepared to represent the interests of increasingly angry working-class voters, others will certainly fill the vacuum - and the ever narrower three-party stitch-up risks blowing up in the faces of the whole political class.
]]> 2008-03-14T16:12:07-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P940 A mood of outrage at the hugely rich has gripped the nation - but you'd never know from John Hutton's paean to money Polly Toynbee The Guardian, Tuesday March 11 2008 940@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/ A mood of outrage at the hugely rich has gripped the nation - but you'd never know from John Hutton's paean to money

Polly Toynbee The Guardian, Tuesday March 11 2008





Let us now praise very rich men. So says the business secretary, John Hutton. "Rather than questioning whether huge salaries are morally justified, we should celebrate the fact that people can be enormously successful in this country," he exhorts in his speech tonight to Progress, the Blairite thinktank. "Rather than placing a cap on that success, we should be questioning why it is not available to more people."

This is no throwaway remark. His speechwriters' briefings yesterday made clear that this is a challenge to what he sees as entrenched Labour party resistance to wealth. He urges: "We must be enthusiastic - not pragmatic - about financial success ... Any progressive party worth its name must enthusiastically advocate empowering people to climb without limits [his emphasis], free from any barrier holding them back."

On the eve of the budget, Hutton means this to be a tide turner, the point where Labour kicks off the last irksome remnants of egalitarian nonsense. It is a counterpunch to any expectation that Labour's limp jab at the non-doms will be followed by sterner action against exorbitant boardroom pay and the tax-avoiding culture at the top. He's punching a straw man, of course, because no one has suggested capping anyone's pay - unless he means modest attempts to collect their fair taxes.

Hutton carefully repledges Labour to tackling poverty, but says that has nothing whatever to do with how much money people may have at the top. I doubt any Tory frontbenchers would embrace fatcatism so flamboyantly - if they did, you can bet David Cameron would hasten to squash them. I wouldn't make the same bet about Gordon Brown, though.

This may turn out to be a historic speech of sorts, as it crystallises everything Labour got wrong over its relationship with the City, private equity and the explosion of extreme salaries in the past decade. There is something almost poignant about how out of kilter with the times Hutton is. Just as the great bubble bursts and the financial world reappraises its recklessness, here is a Labour business secretary still mesmerised by cascading cash.

Last week in Rio de Janeiro the Institute of International Finance - the association of global banks - met to discuss for the first time a voluntary code of conduct on pay. This was revolutionary and penitential, acknowledging that a cause of the credit crunch was wild risk-taking with other people's money to secure higher bonuses for themselves. Suggestions included deferral of bonuses until the impact of a strategy was clear, or even clawing back bonuses in the light of later worse performance. A Financial Times leader on Saturday welcomed it: "Bankers do have to understand that if they do not act to curb the worst excesses themselves, regulators are likely to be under fierce pressure to do something." Not if Hutton is in charge of regulation, they won't.

If international banking thinks it has overstepped the mark on pay, why is Hutton stuck in a pre-sub-prime, pre-Northern Rock time warp? In his paean to money, you might expect a cautious backward glance at what went wrong.

History will wonder at Labour's naivety and its fixation on finance, which accounts for only 7.9% of GDP. The City took off when Brown was persuaded to cut capital gains tax from 40% to 10% by those who pretended it would spur start-up enterprises. But as intended by its lobbyists, the effect was an explosion of private-equity buyouts - many sucking the value from public companies and spitting them back out. Labour said nothing. When the rich flocked to this new tax heaven, Labour boasted that it was the prowess of the City that drew them.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies finds that the richest 10% take 28% of income - and that's only what they declare. Wealth is as unfairly shared as it was before the second world war. In two decades the earnings of the average FTSE 100 chief executive have gone from 17 times the average employee's pay to 75.5 times. Is it deserved? The economics commentator John Plender says too many executives "have come to expect entrepreneurial rewards for managerial performance". Work Foundation reports find no merit explanation for soaring salaries. The Economist annual survey says income is "distributed more unequally than in almost any big rich country except America".

Hutton doesn't dispute the facts; he says they don't matter. Forget envy and egalitarianism. But that's not what voters think: according to British Social Attitudes, 76% think the gap is too wide.This was echoed in February's Guardian/ICM poll, where 75% were concerned about it - the highest figure yet. Politics is the art of touching symbolic issues at the right time - and there is a mood of outrage at the rich taking unwarranted pay and kicking up a stink when expected to pay the same taxes as everyone else. While half the cabinet is trying to strengthen communitarian feelings of Britishness and endeavour, Hutton celebrates people "as individuals not as part of a collective". As belts tighten, voters will feel injustice all the more - but don't hold your breath for the budget speech to catch that mood.

Hutton argues that child poverty can be abolished while "people at the top are very wealthy. It is not only statistically possible - it is positively a good thing". However good, it is profoundly implausible. The only countries to abolish child poverty are also more equal, notably the Nordics. Britain's levels of poverty and inequality are no coincidence.

Politically, Hutton's is the most extreme of a series of recent demarches by the retro Blairites - Flint, Purnell, Straw, McFadden - outdoing each other in promoting counterintuitive, counter-Labour policies by being toughest on the weakest. But in the how-Tory-can-you-be stakes, Hutton has hit the jackpot. As they seize the nasty party mantle, this is a challenge to Brown's authority. The decent faction in the cabinet - Cooper, Harman, Johnson, Alexander and the Milibands - may wonder: where is the clunking fist to restrain these increasingly out of order boot boys? This is a gathering heart-and-soul storm.

Cynics might think Hutton's speech a good win-win bet. Either he succeeds in making Labour more Tory than the Tories, which he wrongly imagines is the way to win again - or if Labour loses, here is his public bid to join Blair in some of the plusher investment bank boardrooms.

polly.toynbee@guardian.co.uk
]]> 2008-03-11T10:18:24-00:00 http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/rssfeed.php?id=P938 In the name of supposed efficiency, politicians are destroying a vital social network that helps us live green, local lives. Jenni Russell The Guardian, Wednesday March 5 2008 938@http://www.billyhayes.co.uk/
Jenni Russell The Guardian, Wednesday March 5 2008

Just imagine you are part of the government. Among your principal concerns are how to hold society together at a time of rapid change. You worry about social and community cohesion and the practical, psychological and economic isolation of the elderly, the disabled, rural-dwellers and the poor. You set up a Department of Communities and spend billions on initiatives to create thriving, sustainable communities that will offer a sense of community, identity and belonging. Sustainability is another key concern. You care about the planet and exhort people to make fewer car journeys and walk or cycle more.

You inherit, all around the country, a network of local offices which happen to provide many of the functions you seek. They give people access to cash, benefits and government services, as well as connecting them through the post. The majority are combined with a shop, which makes them a social hub and meeting point. The postmasters who run them are an informal source of support and advice on everything from benefit claims to what to do in the event of a death. In cities almost everyone lives within half a mile's walk of one, and frequently their presence is what sustains a small shopping parade. In rural areas they allow people to lead local lives, and are often the last service left in places that have been steadily stripped of buses, shops and schools. So what do you do? In the name of economic efficiency, you take government business out of their hands, and then start closing them down, in their thousands.

Few issues have aroused such passions in individuals and such indifference amongst politicians. In 2006, 4 million people signed petitions against closures - that's four times as many as marched against the Iraq war. Last year the government invited responses to its plans and had an unprecedented 2,500 submissions. Reading the weasel-worded summary of that consultation you would imagine that the majority of respondents sympathised with the official arguments. I suspect that's sheer misrepresentation. Of a random sample of 40 responses, all but one were deeply opposed to the strategy, and in many a sense of near-desperation was evident.

Old ladies in villages wrote in quavering handwriting about losing the heart of the community and of replacing a gentle daily walk with the stress and exhaustion of having to wait, in all weathers, for infrequent buses to the local town. The Welsh assembly warned that for people who could no longer drive, post offices were the last lifeline enabling them to live independently. Parish councils wrote of increasing loneliness. One man wrote that the minister responsible, Alistair Darling, was "the Beeching of the post office network", destroying a national infrastructure which, once closed, would never re-open. Respondents pleaded for a holistic assessment of the impacts on well-being, local businesses and the environment. But some recognised, grimly, that the Post Office's principal concern was simply profitability, not the needs of the people it serves.

The Post Office is not an independent actor. Its strategy is decided by the government which, as its sole shareholder, defines its purpose and the level of financial support. Labour has already shut 4,500 offices and made many more unprofitable by moving key business, such as the payment of pensions or TV licences, to banks or the net. Now it is demanding that the network must close 2,500 of the remaining 14,000 offices because they are making "unsustainable" losses of £200m a year. The government announces that it will carry on subsidising the network, at £3m a week, but only for the next three years. I asked the Post Office press officer what the company's mission was. "To go into profit by 2011," she said. What about community needs? "You'll have to ask the government about that."

What is so outrageous about this strategy is that the government is acting within completely artificial constraints. Separating the Post Office from Royal Mail 20 years ago, removing key functions five years ago, and defining the network as a business, are all political decisions, not a matter of economic fact. In this area the government is acting as if it were a commercial board, for whom making profits is the sole definition of failure or success. It is nothing of the sort. Politicians aren't running Tesco; they're providing public services. I don't see a demand for profits from the army, road building, hospitals or schools.

There is a dismal lack of imagination or drive behind the government's strategy. Already it has let it be known that it expects further contraction and would be happy with a network only 7,500 strong. Other European countries do things differently. In France, La Poste has an explicit social function, connecting people to the government by maintaining a state presence in all areas, particularly rural or disadvantaged ones. It has flourished by diversifying into providing local authority services, finance and railway tickets. Here, as a select committee report warned last month, the government's attitude means that the long-term future of the network depends on the entrepreneurial flair of Post Office Ltd, "which has not been conspicuous in the past".

There is an even simpler solution. Develop the business, but simultaneously redefine the issue. The loss-making, shrinking network is part of the Royal Mail group. In 2006 the group's overall annual profits, despite the Post Office's losses, amounted to £233m. Given that fact, can anyone really believe that it is a commercial imperative to slash the network?

jenni.russell@guardian.co.uk
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