Archive for the ‘Labour movement stuff’ Category
Election 2010: use your vote
Will Straw at Left Foot Forward has a fair review of the campaign. And his conclusion is impossible to ignore:
One thing is abundantly clear: whatever you do today, vote.
Not turning out to vote means that the votes of extremists count double. Committed extremists are certain to vote – don’t give them your vote too.
And from a trade union perspective, to add a section missing from Will’s round-up, honourable mentions to the Green Party manifesto (pp. 9-11) – but, of the major parties, only one is likely to have included this in their manifesto:
Modern trade unions are an important part of our society and economy, providing protection and advice for employees, and working for equality and greater fairness in the workplace. We welcome their positive role in encouraging partnership and productivity.
May Day 2010
Greetings on labour’s day of remembrance, solidarity, celebration and re-dedication.
Here’s three things that remind me of why May Day remains important to the international labour movement, and of what solidarity means in the new decade of the 21st century if it is to be more than just a slogan:
1. At home: the last weekend of campaigning before the general election and the next big effort to ensure the BNP doesn’t gain a seat in parliament on Thursday. Of course, HOPE not hate is actively campaigning in key target areas and its organisers still need your support. Solidarity means uniting against the fascists.
2. Internationally: the draft text of the EU’s Free Trade Agreement with Colombia has been dissected by the TUC. Solidarity means freedom of association, and free from the fear of death squads for standing up for the rights of ordinary people – yet the proposed FTA brushes this under the carpet.
3. In Europe: At the European Trade Union Confederation, John Monks’s May Day message was based on the need to stand shoulder to shoulder with Greek workers to demand social justice and that the EU act decisively to stabilise the situation. Building the European project demands strength, not vacillation; perspective, not short-termism. Solidarity means having the dream and the vision for a brighter, alternative future – and the courage to express what that is when the practical situation demands it.
A May Day worth celebrating: and achievements to be won to demonstrate in practice what solidarity means.
[6 May edit: the TUC has reported events from May Day celebrations around the world here.]
Young Fast Optoelectronics
One of LabourStart’s current campaigns concerns workers at Young Fast Optoelectronics, a Taiwanese manufacturer of touch panel screens whose customers include Samsung, LG, HTC (which supplies phones to Vodafone in the UK) and Google. Following a concerted union organising drive at the factory in the face of poor working conditions, which led to the establishment of the union in December 2009, management at the plant has sacked five union officers and more than ten active union members.
LabourStart is organising an e-mail campaign in support of the union and the sacked workers, and calling for the improvement of working conditions at the plant, which you can join either from the LabourStart homepage, or else directly here.
It’s a telecoms industry plant, and these workers need to know that they’re not alone. Please do what you can to support them.
Solidarity – Anna Walentynowicz
One of those to die in the crash of the Polish airplane taking senior Polish officials to commemorate the victims of the Katyn massacre at the weekend was Anna Walentynowicz, veteran of the struggles to establish what became Solidarność – and independent trade unionism – in Poland.
John has a well-put tribute here, and John’s Labour blog features a link to a blog post giving some more of the history of the ‘woman of iron’.
Future pensions: the view from the NAPF mountain
A state pension worth around 1/3rd of average earnings to provide a robust floor of benefits, supplemented by a workplace pension built around auto-enrolment and mandatory contributions, the whole supervised by a new regulatory settlement based on a standing Retirement Savings Commission analogous to the existing Low Pay Commission.
That’s the vision of the National Association of Pension Funds, the industry body representing scheme sponsors, in Fit For the Future, a new report on pensions published yesterday (press release; full report). Praised by the TUC as offering ‘serious and constructive proposals for the future of pensions‘ there’s a lot in the report to commend, as well as some items for debate.
It’s hard to disagree with the NAPF’s view of the pensions landscape: workplace saving has fallen dramatically both in terms of numbers and in terms of the value to ordinary workers of the pensions generated there. Rightly, the NAPF doesn’t spend too long analysing how this situation has come to pass, but is oriented more towards what can be done to stop the decline and get the principle of workplace saving back on track.
There are many factors which help to account for why this situation has come to pass, as these pages have already argued; though it would be perhaps rather churlish in this context to remind that decisions to close schemes appear to stem largely from the unsympathetic and ruthless cost-cutting actions of scheme sponsors themselves. The Connect Sector of Prospect has some experience of negotiating alternatives where employers are looking to move away from defined benefit provision; outside this experience, that employers have tended not to stop anywhere in the middle of the pensions continuum but have leapt straight from defined benefit to defined contribution is less of a reflection of the lack of risk-sharing alternatives, as the NAPF directly suggests, than of the realities of employment relations in the 1990s: employers have done so because they can; and because the will to do something more creative (but evidently more costly) has not, except in a few, admirable cases, been found.
Despite the acknowledgement that ‘workplace pensions remain central to providing people with an adequate
retirement income’ and that workplace provision is ‘at the heart of good pension provision’, the central role in the NAPF’s vision is occupied not by workplace saving, but by a beefed-up state pension scheme – perhaps rather surprisingly, for an organisation representing (workplace-based) scheme sponsors, but perhaps a reflection that what has been lost will be hard to replace other than by slow incremental steps, starting from the 2012 reforms. Even within the context of workplace savings, the primary place in the NAPF programme is taken by a suggestion for a maximum of twenty ‘super trusts’ whose role would be to offer members of small schemes the low charges facilitated by the benefits of scale – a worthwhile, and supportable, idea alongside the NEST but whose contribution to revitalising workplace provision might well turn out to be less than dynamic.
Other suggestions from within the workplace savings context include offering ‘core’, unindexed pensions to scheme members only (it seems to me that indexation is an under-appreciated pensions benefit; while a focus on the scheme member only might be supported when retirement is far away, but deeply regretted once into retirement since ensuring loved ones are provided after your own death becomes much more important the closer you get to that point); improved mandatory contributions to the NEST (definitely supportable); better advice to accounting standards bodies on accounting for pensions (likewise); and a new statutory objective for the Pensions Regulator to promote good pensions provision (clearly a good idea).
So, there are some worthwhile things to explore in this document and the NAPF is to be congratulated for putting it out. It would be a shame if its publication at this point in the electoral cycle led to its many good ideas being lost to public debate. Nevertheless, in the meantime, I’m reminded once again that quality pensions expanded and became more beneficial at a time of labour strength; their contraction at a time of labour weakness simply proves that advances in benefits have to be won by collective action and are not given away by employers for free.
BA and the online newspaper ethos
One of the more interesting features of the newspaper industry is its long-standing use as a bulletin board: from quirky, ‘disgusted of Tonbridge Wells’-type letters to letters to The Thunderer and to other newspaper editors setting the world to rights or getting something on record, whether from the establishment, interested individuals and opinion formers. Letters usually had the resonance of importance and their publication in print frequently added weight to the arguments expressed, not least to the usual readerships of the newspapers concerned, whose leanings and approaches are well-known. Given this, their role in changing views might have been pretty limited – preaching to the converted is never going to change the world – but at least they had a role in commencing debate at some level. And you could open your favourite newspaper knowing that it wasn’t going to turn you a nasty shade of apopletic red.
Which is why I turned to yesterday’s letter to the Guardian by 95 leading academics criticising the behaviour of British Airways in its dispute with Unite with some interest. At the last count, there were 495 comments on the story and, at the (early) point at which I stopped reading them, a large percentage of people were using the piece to hang anti-Unite, frequently anti-trade union views, regardless of the debate which the academics had sought to start about BA’s actions.
Clearly, not so many typical readers of The Guardian among them. The question is, I guess, why – why would you hang around on a newspaper site, to the leanings of which you are not instinctively sympathetic, just to have a go? Well, because you can, probably: Web 2.0, where your opinions are not only desired but an integral part of the experience, has some things to answer for. Dialling The Times today re-directs you to a page (no doubt in the short-term) inviting you not just to read the thing but to ‘listen to it, watch it, shape it, be part of it‘, as part of its charging-based re-vamp, but the outcome in practice is frequently the facilitation of opportunities for wind-up merchants and trolls of all types.
I really don’t want to open the online version of The Guardian and be assaulted by a range of closed-minded views straight from the pages of the Daily Mail. If I want that, I’ll open the Mail. I’m as happy to engage in debate as the person stood next to me – and I’m not frightened of views opposed to mine. But what I do want is the sensible and rational, not the mindless. And I want it focused, not random. And I want debate, not diatribes. OK, no-one’s forcing me to read this stuff (and indeed I didn’t get very far with it, thus – at some level – wasting the time of all those whose views I didn’t trouble myself with, natch) but Web 2.0 does have the power to extend debate and that power is dissipated when debates are dominated by those whose purpose is not to engage but to flame. And that’s evidently a lost opportunity.
The answer – more active moderation, perhaps. That might be asking a lot for popular newspaper sites but, at the same time, if the benefits of Web 2.0 are to be realised, perhaps that lies in fewer articles and better moderation. A sort of approach based on ‘never mind the width, feel the quality’. It has to be possible. Alternatively, perhaps one of the benefits of charging for online access is not just support for journalistic quality, as these pages have argued before, but also a re-focusing of the debate engendered within such sites by making them less open to passing trolls.
As regards the academics’ letter: they’ve got more than a point about some of the actions of BA in this dispute and, from the perspective of this particular academic manqué, I like the phrasing of their approach around the issue of the ‘representation gap in UK employment relations’. Such a gap clearly does exist in all too many workplaces up and down the country. From the point of view of this debate, Keith Ewing has taken this on in today’s The Guardian in arguing that there is a human right to engage in strike action. The current laws of this country do not provide a right to strike, but industrial action is never undertaken lightly and remains a legitimate weapon to use against an intransigent employer. The increasingly hardline, right-wing approach to the taking of industrial action over the last twenty years is one that continues to divide this country from our European neighbours and the quality of our democracy is all the poorer for it.
International Women’s Day
8 March is International Women’s Day (loading very slowly, today) – a day adopted by the United Nations in 1975 to build support for women’s rights and participation in the political and economic arenas. The banner under which events are taking place this year is ‘Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities, Progress For All‘ and they include an event at the TUC tonight promising ‘a night of comedy, music, poetry, politics and campaigning‘. LabourList is also commemorating the event with a day of women-only blogging, under a female guest editor following Rowenna Davis’s turn in the hot seat last year.
Justice for Colombia, to which Prospect is affiliated, is holding a one hour vigil at the Colombian Embassy today at 4pm to mark International Women’s Day and protest against the ongoing detention of human rights defender Liliany Obando, while Prospect members can download an excellent newsletter celebrating the achievements of women in Prospect.
For as long as inequality remains, we need to be reminded of why, so such special days as these continue to be useful. But, as Michael Foot said:
Describe the challenges by all means, but don’t confuse analysis with action. The one must lead to the other if it is to be useful to people. (Hat-tip: Roger Darlington)
Making International Women’s Day useful to women across the globe via practical action will, I suspect, continue to be a source of challenge for the organisers of such events, and policy-makers more generally, for some time to come.
Reminder: Work Your Proper Hours Day…
… is today. Today’s the day when the average person who does unpaid overtime would start earning for themselves if they did all their unpaid overtime at the start of the year. Celebrate it!
To coincide, the TUC has published some new analysis of official statistics to highlight those occupations that have the most working hours, particularly those working ‘extreme’ levels of unpaid overtime – i.e. people working more than ten extra hours per week. For this group, this level of unpaid overtime means that Work Your Proper Hours Day is not until at least 26 April (or later, for those working more than ten additional hours per week).
By occupation, the Work Your Proper Hours Day for some key groups of employees for which high levels of unpaid overtime is more common is as follows:
Functional managers – 25 April
Corporate managers and senior officials – 7 May
Business and statistical professionals – 30 April
Quality and customer care managers – 20 April
Legal professionals – 20 April
ICT – 15 April
Business and financial professionals – 2 May
For members of Prospect in a major private sector employer with which we deal, our most recent survey of terms and conditions found out that the average level of unpaid overtime was 8.14 hours per week. At the median salary level of £40,500, this took people’s hourly rate down from £21.56 to £17.58 – indicating an average value to the employer of unpaid overtime of nearly £7,500 per year. And countless costs as regards personal and family lives and relationships.
Getting a work-life balance that works for you as an individual has been at the heart of the union’s continuing worktime, yourtime campaign seeking to promote options that can provide a better work-life balance for individuals. That might entail making small, simple changes or making more significant long-term changes to your working pattern.
The worktime yourtime pages within the Connect sector of Prospect also give more specific advice about particular issues and options for achieving a better work-life balance. Use them!
The Flowers of Guatemala
Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, has written to the Guatemalan ambassador in the UK to protest at the murder of Pedro Antonio Garcia, the fifth trade unionist to have been killed in Guatemala since November 2009, and at the attempted murder of Abel Barsilai Giron Roldan.
The letter points out that the murders and attacks are:
The most blatant aspect of a far wider policy which seems designed to destroy any form of independent trade union organisation and meaningful social dialogue in Guatemala
against the background of an escalation of attacks since 2005 documented by the ITUC. Shockingly, the local police commander is reported to have said, in the context of the attempted murder of Mr. Roldan, that ‘firing a weapon is not a crime’ – a phrase which not only gives succour to the murderers and to their sponsors, but which also appears to lend support to their campaign of terror.
Pay: prospects for 2010
In recognition of today’s joint TUC/Incomes Data Services conference on pay bargaining, the TUC has produced a list of ten myths on pay in the context of the recession which you can find both here and on Richard Exell’s post on ToUChstone.
The myths, which are drawn from the different parts of the union movement, are common ones and ones that are likely to appear again and again over the next few months, not least since the spring months are the most significant ones for pay negotiations, with the largest number of pay deals concluded during the January-April period; and there’s also the issue of the forthcoming general election. They’re well worth repeating in these specific contexts, and they do need to be tackled whenever they occur, so here they are in brief:
1. MYTH: above inflation wage increases could set off a damaging wage spiral. REALITY: wages are not driving inflation at the minute and it’s normal in the long-run for wages to increase above the rate of inflation
2. MYTH: further freezes and cuts are needed to make companies profitable again. REALITY: Some companies may be struggling but rates of return remain generous and cuts are likely to be damaging to growth
3. MYTH: Wage freezes have been widespread through the private sector. REALITY: Two-thirds of companies gave rises last year, with a median increase of 2.3%
4. MYTH: Wage freezes will be just as widespread in 2010. REALITY: the economy is growing again and inflation is on the rise. Wage claims, and pay agreements, are likely to follow suit
5. MYTH: Unions have accepted wage freezes because they are too weak to negotiate pay rises. REALITY: Wage freezes have occurred where there are genuine cases of hardship but unions are wise to cases of wage restraint designed to boost company profits
6. MYTH: Public sector pay freezes are an alternative to job losses. REALITY: a false choice, since short-term pay restraint has a limited effect other than on staff morale
7. MYTH: A minimum wage freeze will prevent job losses in the private sector. REALITY: this makes little sense socially, given the background to the recession, or indeed economically since the lowest paid are likely to use more of their wages on spending than on saving
8. MYTH: Raising the minimum wage for young people will make it harder for them to find jobs: REALITY: The recession has hit young people hard, but employment has fared better in low-paying sectors
9. MYTH: Public sector wages rocketed while private sector wages contracted last year. REALITY: data changes caused the discrepancy, not least given the dominance in the average wage figures of the nationalised banks. Since 1999, public sector wages have grown more slowly than those in the private sector.
10. MYTH: Public servants earn more than workers in the private sector. REALITY: this is like comparing apples and pears. Where similar jobs are compared, the differential does not depart strongly from zero.
More myths to the list can always be added: from a purely private-sector perspective, for example, we have the myth (not least in a recession, but not limited to such times) that pay can be meaningfully linked to performance. In the coming weeks and months, this blog will be doing its bit to bust the myths on pay that come our way.
The myths on this list are busted more fully on Richard’s ToUChstone post, while regular readers of ToUChstone will recognise several from individual in-depth postings in recent weeks. As Richard says, the recovery remains fragile and is likely to be threatened by wage restraint. Individual sets of pay negotiations are likely to be dominated more by the circumstances of the organisation concerned, with the economy providing more of a backdrop, but, from a macro perspective, it is clear that a growing economy will be driven by people spending money – and that implies a clear economic need for real wage rises.
A 21-hour week?
The new economics foundation’s latest report, published on Saturday, seeks to argue the case for why shorter working time could help us all to flourish in the 21st century.
nef believes that shorter working time is ‘set to become the norm’ as the country grapples with the economic, social and environmental problems confronting it, not least against the backdrop of the work-earn-consume vicious circle, while a goal of a 21-hour week would, in the words of Anna Coote, co-author of the report and nef’s Head of Social Policy let us see that:
Spending less time in paid work could help us to break this pattern. We’d have more time to be better parents, better citizens, better carers and better neighbours. And we could even become better employees: less stressed, more in control, happier in our jobs and more productive. It is time to break the power of the old industrial clock, take back our lives and work for a sustainable future.
Lower working time would, via a reduction in stress patterns, certainly help to make us better people. It might also help unemployment – though probably not in the short-term – and an ending of consumerism might well conserve environmental resources. The latter might be a step too far for some in the face of the need for economies to expand, but a just transition to a green economy, preserving jobs and skills with a view to the benefits of a growing economy, differently constituted, remains the right emphasis here.
A working week of 21 hours for all might or might not be an achievable goal – but at least it’s a good hook for a general discussion on the social impact of working time. The level of unpaid overtime in the UK remains too high and, while average working hours have come down in the last ten years (ASHE reports a reduction of one hour in the mean hours of full-time employees between 1997 and 2009), the working week in the UK remains above the EU average, both for the expanded EU and for member states prior to the accession of countries in eastern and central Europe where working hours are higher.
The following chart shows the long-term decline in working time in the UK, as reported by the OECD. The measure used – average annual hours actually worked per worker – is not ideal (not least since it does not strip out the effects of a rise in temporary and part-time working, and since the reduction between 2001 and 2003 is not readily explicable), but it does show that working time in the UK has fallen by about 15% over the period.
Ahead of next week’s Work Your Proper Hours Day, nef’s report is a worthwhile contribution to the debate at the macro level. The policy solutions associated with such ‘blue sky’ thinking are frequently problematic, and this is no exception. Nevertheless, the major difficulty always lies in making this sort of debate meaningful at the micro level, where the notion of such drastic cuts in working time means little to many full-time employees focused as they are on keeping their jobs, not to say their pensions. On a day-to-day basis, the basic goal remains one of getting people to think about their own work-life balance and, in this context, such reports continue to offer useful service. A reduction of a similar order to that reported by the OECD, and over a quicker period, would be welcome and if the report contributes to that objective, well and good.
Tobin, updated
The Tobin Tax was first proposed by Nobel Laureate economist James Tobin in 1972 as a levy designed to deter currency speculation (although he was building on the wider financial transactions tax proposed by Keynes back in 1936). Some sort of financial transactions tax has been back on the political and economic agenda in recent times as a way of dealing with one aspect of the conditions which have led to this last economic crisis (and, frankly, as a means of getting the bankers to pay (back) their share). The wiki entry on the Tobin Tax is good on the background and the recent history.)
An updated Tobin Tax, updated for the modern times and renamed the Robin Hood tax has now been proposed by a coalition of around 50 organisations dealing with poverty, including the TUC, as a way of raising funds from banking activities towards dealing with poverty and climate change, both in the UK and abroad. The campaign features a video produced by Richard Curtis and starring Bill Nighy – and, of course, you can sign up for updates and vote (more than 4:1 in favour, so far, now that stacks of multiple ‘no’ votes have been discounted), too. ToUChstone, the TUC’s blog, has produced several posts on the initiative today as, from a capital markets perspective, has labour and capital.
[Edit 15 February: now a margin of 10:1 in favour – while the multiple ‘no’ votes appeared to have come from two IP addresses, one of which is registered to Goldman Sachs, that Great American bubble machine. Doing God’s work again, Lloyd?]
The Connect Sector of Prospect has a policy of raising awareness of and support for the Tobin Tax dating back to 2001 and this blog supports also the updated initiative: it’s another aspect of a welcome return to Keynesian economic views; in deterring short-termism, it may well have a role to play in improving (long-term) corporate governance; the activities the target of the tax are those which fit well within the definition of being, in Adair Turner’s neat turn of phrase, ‘socially useless’; and the funds it will raise ought clearly to help with the worthwhile central mission of the coalition.
Without going into all the arguments of the naysayers, some of which are less worthy than others, it seems to me that, to be successful, the initiative needs to recognise the following:
1. this is not a cheap way of raising finance to meet long-term UN goals of all countries providing 0.7% of GDP for international assistance – it has to be extra
2. this is not a way of providing bankers with a route back to social acceptability, and neither does it deal with the behaviours which caused the crisis and the need to inject huge amounts of capital to bailing out the banks – both of which are issues which need to be properly tackled. Nevertheless, we do need to understand what role (very) short-term trading plays and why those engaged in it do it, given the tiny margins being quoted; at the same time, the tax needs to target what is demonstrably ‘socially useless’ activity undertaken within the financial services sector – and this itself needs to be cut off. The City needs to recognise this, too, much more than it does.
3. the potential for City creativity needs to be recognised and the issue of accountability to pay the tax properly covered
4. the monies need to be properly ring-fenced and used for specific goals. What can’t be allowed to happen is that money raised and sent overseas then finds its way back to this (or any other western) country in carbon trading schemes.
Overall, however, an initiative well worth supporting.
Haiti event at the TUC
Just time for a short welcome for tonight’s event, supported by Prospect, and to express the hopes that all going have a great time. Don’t forget to take your folding stuff!
Tickets for the event are as rare as hens’ teeth – so well done if you’ve got one! – but, even if you can’t attend the event, you can still buy the t-shirt…
The TUC has also published news of how trade union assistance is arriving in Haiti and being used for the good of the people there (and see also Owen Tudor’s post over at Stronger Unions) – so you know your donations are reaching their destination.
Not just a picture from my hols…
… but also a reference not only to this week’s welcome economic news but also to the TUC’s forthcoming Going Green at Work conference, taking place on 15 March and being chaired by Prospect’s own Paul Noon.
Haiti: trade union action
Amidst news that the death toll in Haiti may be as high as 200,000 people (over 70,000 people have already been buried), and that cruise ships have continued to find private places to dock just 60 miles from the earthquake zone, TUC Aid has launched its own appeal for funds for emergency relief. You can find further information about the TUC Aid appeal and a chance to donate online – via justgiving.com, so you can be sure that funds will find their way to where they are intended – here. Over 3m Haitian people are in desperate need of food, clothes, shelter and essential medicines and tens of thousands are facing their sixth night out in the open.
You can also find full news on what trade unions are doing in response to this disaster over at LabourStart.
Make Me Wanna Holler…
Research published today by the TUC shows that UK workers gave away £27bn in unpaid overtime in 2009.
Some five million of you regularly worked unpaid overtime last year – with the average amount of unpaid overtime being 7 hours and 12 minutes per week. On the basis of a 36-hour week, that’s exactly one additional new working day per week. The absolute number of people working unpaid overtime fell back slightly on 2008 levels, but the individual annual value of all that unpaid overtime was some 5% higher on 2008, at £5,402 (an increase of £263).
The figures (which include some interesting data at the level of the nations making up the UK and the English regions) have been released as part of the TUC’s preparation for Work Your Proper Hours Day – the day when workers start getting paid if all their unpaid overtime for the year was worked from 1 January. Pressures on workers in a recession are huge and workers susceptible to losing their jobs are, understandably, likely to do all they can to keep them – including putting in extra hours. This is why the TUC’s message this year for Work Your Proper Hours Day is that bosses ‘should thank staff for the extra work they are putting in to help businesses through the recession’ (as well as that ‘pointless presenteeism’ is bad for staff and businesses).
These figures are close to those we have found from our own surveys. The 2009 BT survey, for example, found that full-timers worked an additional 8 hours and 10 minutes on top of their contractual working week (that’s a normal week which extends not only across Saturday as a normal working day but into Sunday too). We also regularly find that stress rises significantly with working time – and 2009 was no different.
This year, Work Your Proper Hours Day is Friday 26 February. But you don’t have to wait ’til then to start claiming your life back.
Copenhagen – your help wanted
Owing to a mini-breakthrough at Copenhagen concerning the inclusion of the need for a ‘just transition’ in the negotiating texts, so that the transition to a green economy is properly planned with regard to jobs and skills, the TUC is asking people to let Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, know of workers’ support for the concept and requesting that he lobby hard in favour of the words ‘just transition’ being included in the final ministerial agreement.
You can find a draft e-mail to Miliband – and further information about what a just transition means, as well as the significance of the mini-breakthrough, at ToUChstone here.
Twitter users might like to use this to sign the simultaneous Twitter campaign.
Act now!
Trade union action points ahead of Copenhagen
Environmental issues feature all too rarely on this blog, but I’ve been prompted to put fingers to keyboard today by a series of e-mails that have dropped into my inbox over the last few days and which could individually all benefit from a bit more publicity.
Firstly, Stop Climate Chaos is holding an event in London on Saturday 5 December called The Wave – a series of events including a march and rally in support of a low carbon future, starting at 10 am and culminating in a circling of the Houses of Parliament. Blue gloves are required for the latter – an action symbolic of the threat that faces the UK if climate change is not tackled and the UK comes more closely to resemble the winter temperatures appropriate to this latitude. Stop Climate Change Scotland is also holding a mirror Wave event in Glasgow.
Secondly, the European Trades Union Congress will be participating in Copenhagen in support of its view of the need for a sustainable environment. You can read – and view – more about the ETUC’s approach here. Closer to home, the TUC’s Brendan Barber spoke meaningfully on green awareness as a way out of the recession at the TUC’s Post-Crisis conference last month while Philip Pearson has a series of thoughtful posts on Copenhagen over at ToUChstone.
Thirdly, HOPE not hate are organising an online petition following the news that BNP leader Nick Griffin is to attend the summit. The HOPE not hate petition is intended to point out to Copenhagen representatives that Griffin does not represent the UK people and that Griffin’s attendance is not symptomatic of a concern for the environment but to propound the latest BNP stance that environmentalism somehow represents an ‘anti-white hate guiltfest’.
If you do nothing else in support of Copenhagen, the sight of Griffin jumping on one bandwagon – a ‘global Marxist mantra’ designed to ‘impose a one world government’ indeed – ought to be more than enough to convince you of the need to take a much closer interest in environmental issues henceforward.
Welcome to this blog of my observations on pay, pensions, regulation and competition policy, and the labour movement. Hope that you find something interesting to read - let me know if so!
Connected Research 