Graph of the Week - What percentage of voters voted for their MP?

We've blogged about this before but with today's TUC demonstration at the Tory Party Conference and the proposed Trade Union Bill we thought it would be worth reprising this graph.

The government's Trade Union Bill aims to introduce a 50% voting threshold for union strike ballot turnouts, and a requirement that 40% of those entitled to vote must back action in "essential public services" - health, education, fire and transport. 

The recent General Election resulted in only 84 out of 650 MPs (less than 13 per cent) meeting the threshold of 40 per cent of the electorate voting for them. 

This week's graph of the week (to make it larger click on it) shows the proportion of the electorate voting for their MP. All parliamentary seats are shown by a bar but due to space limitations not everyone is labelled on the vertical axis. The graph shows the 566 red bars showing those that do not meet the 40 per cent threshold and the 84 green bars where the threshold was met.

West Midlands Regional Secretary said:

"Compared to the increasingly out of touch Tory MPs, working people now have a second class form of democracy when they fight for workplace justice,  It's one law for MPs and another law for workers."

UNISON Joins Campaign to save 190 Lollipop Wardens

UNISON campaigners have teamed up with joined Jack Dromey MP, the GMB and Unite to save Birmingham’s valuable school crossing wardens.

190 jobs are at risk due to Government cuts to Birmingham City Council, which is having to find hundreds of millions of pounds in savings next year alone. Jack Dromey MP, along with UNISON, GMB and Unite, are calling on Birmingham City Council to protect the roles along with the city’s children.

UNISON NEC member and local Labour candidate Mary Locke braved the freezing conditions to speak to parents in one Birmingham school about the proposed cuts.

Mary said:

“We are fighting to protect our wardens because they protect our children. They play a crucial role in not only keeping our children safe in and out of school, but in educating the many students they see every day in the importance of road safety. They do a fantastic job and I am proud to represent UNISON in challenging the Council to rethink this decision.

Mark New, Regional Organiser, added:

“I would like to thank Jack Dromey MP, the GMB and Unite for the terrific partnership working that this campaign has benefited from. We must not forget that we are facing this problem in the first place because this Tory Government is punishing Birmingham with excessively heavy cuts, but we must challenge Birmingham City Council to make the right decision in not putting a price on our children’s’ safety.”

Patient Lives put at Risk as UNISON Condemn Attack on Whistle Blower

UNISON has today condemned the actions of the Stewart Messer, the Chief Operating Officer at Worcester Acute Hospitals NHS trust. Mr Messer has singled out Stuart Gardener, a UNISON rep and registered paramedic , who criticised the standards of care caused by the excess workload being placed upon Accident and Emergency departments across the region. Mr Gardner used Worcester Hospital as an example in recent media interviews.


Prior to making his comments Mr Gardner advised Mr Messer of his concerns about A&E and his intention to raise this issue through whistle blowing. He was told ‘to go ahead and do it’. He was then subjected to threats before and after making his comments. He has now been barred from attending Worcester Hospitals even if he is carrying out his duties as an operational paramedic.

UNISON have grave concerns that lessons from the Stafford Hospital inquiry regarding whistle blowers have not been learned and rather than dealing with the problems facing the A&E departments the Trust has chosen to personally attack a member.

Ravi Subramanian, UNISON West Midlands Regional Secretary said:

“Our rep Mr Gardner is clearly acting in the public interest in whistle blowing about serious concerns about A & E. The response from the Trust’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr Messer is nothing short of an utter disgrace.

By banning Mr Gardener from the Trust premises Mr Messer is putting patients’ lives at risk. What happens if Mr Gardner is on a 999 call in the area and the best place to take patient is to Worcester Royal Hospital. Is the Chief Operating Officer saying that Mr Gardner will be turned away, and will have to take the patient to a hospital further away, thus endangering patient safety.

The public know that frontline NHS workers are working flat out to deal excess workload in A & E. But how can the people of Worcester have any faith in the management of the hospital when in Mr Messer, we have a Chief Operating Officer who has prioritised victimising a UNISON whistleblower over spending his time addressing the real and serious issues in A & E.

UNISON will not allow patient lives to be put at risk for such a foolhardy and vindictive response when legitimate whistle blowing concerns are raised."

Tom Watson MP says "Don't let the Tories kill off the NHS"

In yesterday's Sunday Mirror newspaper West Bromwich West MP Tom Watson penned an article titled "Don't let the Tories kill off the NHS" and quoted some UNISON research about the lack of pay rises for NHS workers

His article started:

The NHS is sick. Sick of being stripped, bullied and undervalued. Our most beloved national institution can’t survive another five years of Cameron. Another five years of cutbacks and crisis under his “care”.

This is the man who vowed he’d cut the deficit, not the NHS. Well, he lied.

The Tories plan to slash spending on public services to levels not seen since the 1930s. This would put us on an equal footing with Mexico and Korea, countries where up to half the health service is privately funded.

Our A&Es have just endured the biggest meltdown in history. A record number of patients waited more than four hours for emergency care before Christmas. This is one of more than a dozen care standards broken under Tory management.

And let’s not forget the silent heroes battling to keep the NHS together. From nurses to cleaners, they worked round the clock while many of us relaxed over Christmas and New Year. 

Tom's article is spot on and to read the rest of it go here.

West Midlands Police branch win TUC award

There was well deserved success for the UNISON West Midlands Police branch at the Midlands TUC reps' awards night on Friday 23 November.

Jill Harrison and Mark Bittle from the branch were joint winners of the "Campaign of the Year" award for their hugely successful campaign against privatisation of the whole of the police staff functions at West Midlands Police. The award was jointly award to Jill and Mark from the UNISON branch and two activists from the Unite branch at West Midlands Police as the campaign was a joint and determined effort from both branches.

It was quite fitting that the award was presented on Friday 23 November, the day after Bob Jones, the newly elected Labour Police and Crime Commissioner announced, on his first day in office, that he was formally scrapping the privatisation plans.

Birmingham Diwali Celebrants say no to austerity

Over 270 people at the Birmingham Diwali celebrations on Sunday 18 November signed our anti-austerity postcards asking their local MP to lobby the government to end their damaging policy of austerity.

UNISON (West Midlands) are determined to take our camapign out in to all parts of our communities and it's clear from the event on Sunday when we do, we find lots of people support us.

Birmingham says "no to austerity"

Yesterday UNISON we were out and about in Birmingham city centre taking our anti-austerity campaign to Brummies.

Over 400 people signed our postcards lobbying their local MP for an end to austerity. And we also got 8 people who joined UNISON on the day.

Day by day more and more people are saying they've had enough of austerity.

Staffordshire County Council row over a £2bn conflict of interest

A row has erupted at Staffordshire County Council where a council officer involved in drawing up plans for the privatisation of school support services has quit his job to work for one of the companies bidding to win the contract.

The Staffordshire Sentinal today reported that Phil Cresswell, council's transformation delivery manager, was leading the plans to privatise school support services and staff – including cleaners, cooks and grounds staff – to a profit-making private firm. But in September Mr Cresswell quit the council to work as business development director at the local government wing of Carillion, who it has now been revealed are one of the bidders for the contract worth £2bn.

Staffordshire UNISON are running a high profile campaign called "The Knot Unties" against this privatisation and we will be making sure that this conflict of interest is brought to the attention of everyone in Staffordshire.

UNISON anti-austerity campaign hits Solihull

Today UNISON (West Midlands) took our anti austerity campaign to Solihull. Like the people of Cannock, the people of Solihull are keen to sign up our campaign to fight the government's failed austerity measures.

UPDATE: over 350 people signed our anti austerity postcards and we even had one person join UNISON.

Campaigning in Cannock Chase

Despite the rain, 10 regional office staff turned up in Cannock today to campaign for decent public service,s as a follow on from the 20 October Future That Works march in London.

The people of Cannock Chase are keen to sign our petition against Staffordshire County Council's proposed privatisation of education support services.

UPDATE: over 500 people signed up to our campaign!

The fight to save North Solihull Sports Centre crèche

For the last 10 years the North Solihull Sports Centre and the Tudor Grange Leisure Centre have had crèches for people using the facilities.  This was continued when the centres were given to private sector company, Parkwood Leisure to run.  The staff at the 2 crèches were employed by Parkwood but a grant was paid by Solihull MBC to support the service. 

In 2012 the £35,000 grant to Parkwood was offered up as part of the Council’s savings.  It was proposed to entirely close the crèche at Tudor Grange and to only have the crèche at North Solihull open 2 mornings a week.

Solihull UNISON branch has worked hard to stop the closure of the North Solihull facility.  So far the branch has:

• Presented a signature petition from crèche users to the leader of the Labour Group to present at full Council
• Written to the Cabinet Member putting the case for keeping the crèche open
• Met with the council officer responsible for the decision to close in order to understand his rationale and persuaded him see the affected staff to find out the truth and he discovered the information previously supplied to him about usage was inaccurate
• Met with Leanne Byrne, fire-fighter, mum and crèche user.  Leanne had got considerable publicity in the Solihull News and was going to address the full council meeting on 16th October.  UNISON supported Leanne by helping to draw up a questionnaire for completion by the crèche users.  They also agreed to support any demonstration outside the October Council Meeting. Leanne is herself an FBU officer in Handsworth and so is able to draw upon that union for support in her campaign

This is a great example of how a UNISON branch has organised around an issue and involved the community in its campaigning.

The fight still goes one and the branch will be holding a demonstration outside the Council Meeting on 16th October.

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”