One of our favourite blogs no 1

One of our favourite blogs is False Economy - a great site that shows the devastating impact and false economy of the government's failed austerity measures.

The site is run by Clifford Singer, the person who brought us all the wonderful My David Cameron website.

Check it out - it is well worth a read.

UNISON says - time for Plan B Mr Osborne

Responding to reports that government borrowing increased in July, while tax receipts dropped in the same period, UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said:

It beggars belief that this Tory-led government persists with a cuts and austerity agenda that is patently not working and is doing far more harm than good. This increase in borrowing and declining tax receipts is more evidence that the cuts agenda is the wrong way to go about solving the UK’s economic woes, the stagnating economy is moving the Coalition even further away from its deficit reduction plans.

The government needs to wake up fast to the fact that we need a plan B for real economic growth; that means creating jobs and investing in the public sector to get the economy going once more.

The West Midlands is being particularly badly hit: the recent announcement of the fall unemployment nationally was not mirrored in the West Midlands where unemployment actually went up 7,000 to 235,000.

More bad news for the UK economy

After the recent gloomy news that GDP had shrunk by 0.7 per cent in the second quarter of 2012, today the Financial Times reports the long term outlook for the economy is not good. The FT reports:

The UK economy will shrink by half a per cent this year and grow only anaemically next year as it grapples with the weakness of its biggest trading partners, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has forecast.

The institute predicted the economy would contract by 0.5 per cent this year and grow 1.3 per cent next year, a significant reduction from its forecast three months ago of zero growth this year and 2 per cent next year. 

The NIESR are a credible, respected and independent economic think tank. What they say carries weight, and their recent predictions have proved to be right. To see the full NIESR press release go here.

But you don't need to be an economics experts like those at the NIESR to realise George Osborne is wrecking the economy with his ideologically driven austerity measures. Time for Plan B.

Local Government Pension Scheme - Vote YES in the ballot

UNISON members will soon be receiving ballot papers about the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) asking them if they want to accept the offer.

It is important as many people as possible vote in the ballot and the closing date is Friday 24 August.

Full details of the LGPS 2014 proposals are available here, but a summary of the key items are below.

1. For current scheme members, all pension benefits before 1 April 2014 are protected, and will still be calculated on final pensionable salary on leaving service or retirement.
2. From 1 April 2014 move to a ‘career average’ scheme – using all pensionable pay to calculate your pension, increased in line with the Consumer Price Index.
3. An improved 1/49 Accrual rate will mean the pension builds up faster each year. This is a significant improvement on the 1/60 rate in the LGPS 2008 scheme.
4. Pensionable pay will mean all pensionable earnings and includes non-contractual overtime and additional hours – this is a clear improvement and means more earnings will count towards your pension.
5. Employee Contribution rate – 90% of members will pay the same or lower contributions than they do now.
6. Only those earning more than £43,001 a year will pay more.
7. Most part time workers will pay less in the LGPS 2014, especially low-paid part-time women (who make up a high percentage of UNISON members) because contribution bands will be based on actual pensionable earnings – not the full-time equivalent as now.
8. Each member’s normal pension age for pensions built up in LGPS 2014 will be 65 or their state pension age – whichever is higher.
9. Contribution Flexibility – If you cannot afford to pay the full contributions, you can opt at any time, after 1 April 2014, to take the 50-50 option – paying half the rate for your contribution band in exchange for half the pension in those years, but with full benefits, such as death in service lump sum and ill health pension protection.
10. You can opt back to paying full contributions and earning the full pension rate again at any time.
11. The existing Rule of 85 protections will still apply.
12. Members aged 55 or over on 1 April 2012 will have your pension compared with what you would have got in the existing scheme and increased if necessary when you retire.
13. If you face a compulsory transfer (TUPE) from your public sector employment to a private or voluntary sector employer, you will still be able to remain a member of the Local Government Pension scheme.

UNISON is recommending acceptance of the proposed new scheme - vote YES in the ballot

Police privatisation put on hold

The decision today at the West Midlands Police Authority to defer the controversial ‘Business Partnering for Police Project’ until after the new Police and Crime Commissioner has been elected is great news.

Well done to West Midlands Police UNISON branch on their relentless campaigning.

Charlie Sarell UNISON Regional Organiser said:

“Today the West Midlands Policing Authority has made the right decision. One that will be welcomed by police staff across the West Midlands Police Force who are extremely anxious about their future and by the wider community who value the integrated service provided by both police staff and police officers.

The election of the Police & Crime Commissioner in November can now focus on the how policing is provided in the future in the West Midlands”

Is the economy in good shape

For a persuasive analysis of the current position read this excellent blog post on the TUC's Touchstone blog.

Get the T shirt

If you want to get your message across while you are out and about you could do worse than get yourself one of these T-shirts. They come in a range of sizes and can be ordered from UNISON here.

West Midlands Regional Secertary calls on MP to retract regional pay comments

West Midlands UNISON Regional Secretary, Ravi Subramanian has called on Tory MP Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) to retract comments he made in the House of Commons, which wholly misrepresented the union’s position on government plans to introduce regional pay into the public sector.

Questioning Labour MP Rachel Reeves, Burley used a sentence from a UNISON report to suggest that the union is in favour of introducing regional pay. But Mr Burley failed to mention the crucial sentences which follow, which qualify the statement. His cynical, selective editing presented UNISON as being in favour of government plans to introduce regional pay, when the opposite is true – as is fully explained in the report.

Ravi Subramanian, said:

“Parliamentary privilege is not an excuse to peddle half-truths and lies, and Aidan Burley MP’s disingenuous comments in the House of Commons must be retracted. UNISON is firmly against plans to introduce regional pay in the public sector. The entire thrust of the report he quotes sets out why the Government's policy is flawed and does not reflect practice in the private sector. The sentence he lifted is taken totally out of context and is very misleading.

“Public sector workers – including those in Aidan Burley’s constituency – know that the plans for regional pay are not about increasing fairness, but about cutting pay plain and simple. The plans would not only lead to staff shortages, but would spark an upsurge in expensive bureaucracy, and take money out of hard-pressed local economies, just when they need it most. They must be dropped.”

This is what Burley said in Parliament:

"I am glad that the hon. Lady read my quotation in The Daily Telegraph this morning. As she has read out a couple of quotations, perhaps I may read one back to her:

“location-based pay systems offer increased flexibility and a systematic approach to addressing recruitment and retention issues at a local level.”

That is from UNISON’s policy paper “Location-based pay differentiation”, which was published in September 2011. Does she agree with UNISON"

Later on he says:

"I noted that she did not reply to the quote in my intervention, so I will repeat it to her now. UNISON has said in its location-based pay differentiation paper of September 2011 that said “location-based pay systems offer increased flexibility and a systematic approach to addressing recruitment and retention issues at a local level.”

Government Members agree with UNISON in that analysis, and I shall be interested to hear whether any Labour Members, many of whom will doubtless be taking donations from UNISON to their constituency Labour parties, also do.

The Government are right to look at more local, market-facing pay and to end the anomaly of national pay bargaining —"

The full extract from page 4 of the report is below, with the part he quoted highlighted. The sentence which immediately follows makes it very clear “location based” does not mean “local pay” and that there are different models of “location based pay” which includes models exactly like those currently used in the public sector. The report says:

“In organisations with a national reach, it can be difficult to set a single pay rate for each job that is sufficient to recruit and retain staff for all of the company’s locations and location based pay systems offer increased flexibility and a systematic approach to addressing recruitment and retention issues at a local level. A common misconception is that such companies use a wide variety of different pay rates for every location, when in reality there are three broad approaches to varying pay by location:

- national pay scales with additions in London and the South East (and in some cases high-pressure areas known as ‘hot spots’)

- zonal pay systems with locations categories into a zones, each with its own pay rates

- complex local systems, which allow for more local variation and include devolution of pay setting to local level in parts of the public sector.”

In the very next paragraph, on the same page it says:

“Most large, multi-site, organisations have national pay structures with additions for London and the South East, even those with zonal pay systems tend to broadly mirror the traditional hierarchy of London, the South East and the rest of the country. These approaches are easier to manage and avoid the potential problems associated with having a large variety of rates.”

The full report can be downloaded here.