Britain, Solidarity Federation,PICKETS AND CHIPS ON THE SEAFRONT

Since our last update, the Brighton Hospitality Workers have been making a name for 
themselves. With a successful campaign against a grocery and two more campaigns on the go, 
we're here to bring you an insider report into how things are going with SolFed's union 
initiative. Although they have several victories under their belts, one particularly nasty 
business owner is proving a harder nut to crack. ---- This business happens to be Maris, a 
caf? situated on West Street in Brighton, with a boss who has a reputation for being a 
racist bully boy who exploits young migrant women for illegally-low-paid work. According 
to the interviewee, the person they are working with is owed ?870 after being paid ?1 per 
hour less than minimum wage (as well as the cheque being late). The boss has told 
activists 'no-one pays more than ?6 per hour in Brighton, even the bus company and Tesco'. 
While wages are low, most companies at least manage the legal
minimum.

As any other campaign would go, they started out by agreeing on a written demand
letter for whatever sum is owed, then when demands weren't met they escalated to
a picket on the storefront. After this escalation the owner decided to pay the
protestors a visit and became aggressive. So, in retaliation the protestors went
back the same day and two were physically attacked by the owner. Then after all
protestors left, the owner called police claiming harassment.

Although this campaign has been a hard one, some good moments have come up,
including an increase of their member count to roughly 70 members. They have
also gained enough of a reputation for business owners to walk out of their
shops and watch over the Hospitality Workers, to see if their business is a
target.

According to the anonymous interviewee, future plans are to turn this into an
official union for all hospitality workers.

Wish to get involved? Maybe you could do similar defence of workers rights where
you live?

Email: brighton@solfed.org.uk


http://www.schnews.org.uk/stories/PICKETS-AND-CHIPS-ON-THE-SEAFRONT

(en) Britain, Solidarity Federation, Education #10 - Halesowen Four: victimisation in FE +

Halesowen Four: victimisation in FE ---- Earlier this term, members of the EWN in London 
had an early start to join a coach-load of supporters from SolFed, UCU, and NUT heading to 
the midlands to support the sacked teachers at Halesowen College. Dubbed the 'Halesowen 
4', these four maths teachers, including UCU Branch Secretary, David Muritu were dismissed 
by the college in Dec 2012 and Jan 2013.The move stunk of victimisation - teachers judged 
as 'good' in internal observations were scapegoated for management shortcomings. ---- Once 
in Halesowen, we joined hundreds of other supporters and found a vibrant, demo outside the 
college, despite the cold weather and early start.We marched alongside local members of 
UCU, NUT, Unison, NASUWT and PCS along with Dudley, Wolverhampton, Shropshire and Telford 
Trades Councils are.The support for the sacked teachers was overwhelming and inspiring.

UCU members took strike
action on Valentine's Day in
support of their colleagues,
as the campaign escalates.

The campaign demands that
management reinstate the
teachers immediately, and
that people send solidarity
and support to fight the sack-
ings and defend trade union
rights in Halesowen College.
Just this month it emerged
that their A-Level maths res-
ults showed 100% pass rate
in the latest A2 exams, fur-
ther undermining claims of
'underperformance' by man-
agement. Management had
even acknowledged that they
did not follow their own dis-
ciplinary procedures in these
cases.

Updates and contacts for the cam-
paign available at
https://www.face-book.com/groups/justiceforhalesowenfour/

----------------------------------------

Shut up and sod off!

Tory health minister
Jeremy Hunt an-
nounced in late March
that gagging clauses in so-
called "compromise agree-
ments" within the NHS (and
only the NHS) are no longer
to be permitted.

A compromise agreement is a
restrictive legal document
used to stop Employment
Tribunal claims and buy the
silence of aggrieved workers.
It means the end of the
worker's contract of employ-
ment, in exchange for a fin-
ancial payoff and agreeing not
to take the employer to ET.
A bit like a superinjunction,
even referring to the exist-
ence of a compromise agree-
ment is forbidden by its
terms. Further gagging
clauses may also prohibit dis-
cussion by the worker of the
reasons for leaving, or saying
anything critical of manage-
ment.

A worker may choose to ac-
cept the offer of a comprom-
ise agreement and payoff
rather than endure the slow
motion lottery of an ET, es-
pecially if offered a sum
comparable to what can be
expected if successful at ET.
Managers in the education
sector can continue to use
compromise agreements to
silence victimised workers,
and effectively bypass stat-
utory employment
rights.

-----------------------------------

NUT executive blocks strike call

In January, the national exec-
utive of the National Union of
Teachers (NUT) blocked calls
by members for strike action
this term over pay, conditions,
workload and pensions. Des-
pite having a live ballot for
strike action after YES votes
in summer 2011 (pensions)
and 201 2 (workload, condi-
tions, pay) the executive
voted 22-20 against strike ac-
tion. This all came after 300
reps in London alone got to-
gether and expressed their
overwhelming support for
strike action to members of
the executive at an emer-
gency reps meeting.

At a time when education is
facing unprecedented attacks
and teacher conditions are
being eroded at an accelerat-
ing rate, the NUT executive
has shown its true colours in
blocking the calls of its rank
and file members. Perform-
ance-related pay is being in-
troduced, smashing the
national-pay scales. Unquali-
fied teachers are deployed in
academies to depress wages
of classroom teachers and ex-
ploit these unqualified teach-
ers alike. Schools are sold-off
wholesale to used-car sales-
men and carpet moguls with
profit in mind.

The executive's actions make
clear that if we are to beat
these attacks, it will have to
come from below, a rank and
file education workers initiat-
ive taking direct action ?C our
'leaders' apparently have no
interest in winning this battle.

-------------------------------------------------------

Education Workers Network

EWN is made up of Solidarity Federation members who work in the
education sector. Joining EWN also means joining your nearest SF group
(solfed@solfed.org.uk or PO Box 29, S.W. DO, Manchester, M1 5 5HW
for details). Even if you don?t wish to join us, we welcome requests to join
our discussion list (ewn@lists.riseup.net) and / or for bundles of
Education Worker. Also available: EWN intro pamphlet; basic EWN intro
leaflet; back issues of Education Worker.

EWN, c/o News From Nowhere, 96 Bold Street, Liverpool, L1 4HY.
ewn@ewn.org.uk; www.ewn.org.uk

(en) Britain, Solidarity Federation, Education #10 - Special Issue: Victimisation in education - Interview

EWN spoke to Patrick, a teacher and EWN rep who was victimised by the management and lost 
his job after years as a popular and committed teacher. ---- EW:Tell us how the situation
started? ---- Patrick:The first few months when I started there were relatively peaceful. 
I?d had experience before of organising in the workplace including organising strikes. At 
the new workplace they didn?t have experience of going out on strike together and I had 
the sense that there had been industrial peace. In my first year there were redundancies 
announced. As I?d been involved in fighting redundancies at other colleges I was arguing 
specific courses of action. ---- EW: Like strike action? ---- Patrick: It did include 
strike action but before we even got to strike action, for example at a union meeting I 
suggested going outside the college at lunchtime and leafleting the students and passers by.

Now certain people were re-
porting back to management
from the union meetings.

That?s when it all started to
turn sour. Managers would act
like I wasn?t there, ignore me,
not look me in the face... it
was the start of me thinking
?They are singling me out.?
Then I got into a difficult situ-
ation with a colleague who was
a scab and very right wing, she
took out a grievance against
me. I had to write reams and
reams in my defence, it was a
really stressful time, but I did
clear my name.Then I thought
things would settle down but
in fact things got worse.

I?d had a death in the family
and I had to travel for the fu-
neral, and when I got back I
was told that my leave hadn?t
been authorized. My manager
had authorized the leave, but
they thought ?right, we?ll have
another go? and I was handed a
letter saying that I was under
investigation. Fortuitously
there was a meeting of the
local NUT that evening and I
went and showed them the
letter and they said this is def-
initely victimisation.They
passed a resolution saying
we have to defend our reps.
I had to think, what do I do?
I knew they were going to
sack me and I had to fight, it
was very stressful, I?d just
bought a flat, I had debts
that I needed to pay off. if I
got sacked would I get a
reference? If I didn?t have a
reference would I work as a
teacher again? And I went
off on the sick, I wasn?t
sleeping, I was anxious all
the time, and my GP said
you need some time off.

?the only way you can fight
it, is you have to collectivise
it...

because this isn?t about you
or anything you have or
haven?t done, it?s about
them?

The management called a
hearing without actually
having an investigation, and
at this point the union offi-
cials got involved which had
its plusses and minuses, I
had to fight my union offi-
cial because I didn?t think
there was anything to invest-
igate, this was a pure case of
victimisation and I did that
with the backing of the local
NUT branch, who took the
position that what was
needed was strike action.

The reason why we could ar-
gue for a ballot was that
working conditions were
really bad in the college,
hours of work were really
bad, the management were
always coming out with stu-
pid paperwork, and there was
a management culture of bul-
lying, and as I had a reputa-
tion for standing up to them,
I had the support of my col-
leagues, they backed me to
the hilt.

We had an indicative ballot
with 80% turnout and a 90%
vote for strike action. The
officials weren?t particularly
pleased with that as they had
always wanted to make a
deal.What they did, it was
pretty disgusting but they or-
ganised a postal ballot which
was held in the Easter holi-
days.This means there is
nobody to go round and talk
to people.The turnout was
75% and the official said that
was too low to sanction strike
action.

EW: I?m sure we?ve gone on
strike when we?ve had
turnouts of about 25%!

Patrick: And we?ve had na-
tional strike action with much
lower turnout. I think that it
was a conscious strategy, be-
cause what the bureaucracy
do, is they do deals. And they
are not comfortable with
workers taking direct action
to defend their reps.

EW: And so in the end, basic-
ally, you left?

Patrick: In the end I was left
with no alternative but to
take a compromise agree-
ment, because at least I?d have
a reference.

EW: In our profession...
Patrick:You can?t get a job
without a reference. It was a
difficult decision because I?d
always been politically against
compromise agreements. I
was only in this position be-
cause the regional officials
had maneuvered to prevent a
strike.

As for advice I would say the
only way you can fight it, is
you have to collectivise it. As
soon as you think this is hap-
pening talk to your colleagues
about it, and if they come out
with a charge, collectivise it,
because this isn?t about you
or anything you have or
haven?t done, it?s about them.
Make sure you?ve got the
support of your colleagues,
pass a resolution at your
branch meeting calling for
strike action. Obviously if
you can take wildcat strike
action, so much the better.
And if you do end up having
to take a deal, remember it?s
not you, it?s the balance of
class forces at that mo-
ment.

(en) Britain, Solidarity Federation, Education #9 - Working to contract is not effective with academics

University and College Union (UCU) members in higher education (HE) institutions have 
recently voted to take action short of a strike over pay (70% in favour), but not strike 
action (44% in favour). The former (i.e. working to contract) has something very appealing 
for academics: it sings the air of the armchair industrial action. In my branch at least, 
members don?t like striking: they don?t like the idea of coercing managers and bosses; 
they don?t like picketing; they don?t like being seen as trouble makers. Action short of a 
strike is more in line with the reasons why they are in the union: doing something that is 
not too controversial, in their own time, from the quiet life of the office. It sounds 
like a softer form of industrial action, one that is not as radical and that does not 
requireas much personal commitmentsand efforts as strike action.

During the pension dispute last
year, UCU/HE members took action
short of a strike over several
months. In my branch (in a very
conservative, home-county uni-
versity) it was a complete flop.
During the pension dispute, in
order to try and make the work
to rule action as effective as pos-
sible, some of us organised reg-
ular meetings to bring members
together to discuss the problems
they faced on a daily basis to put it
into practice, ways to overcome
them, ideas to take it forward,
between 2 and 5.

The main problem that was dis-
cussed in our meetings was
the absence of specific contracts:
for most academics, these don?t
state how many hours they
should work per week, only ?as
many as necessary? to carry out
their duties, nor do they have
clear statements of what these
duties are. So it was always diffi-
cult to disentangle what was
contractual from what was down
to ?good will?. Also, there were
recurrent complaints that it was
difficult to know who was in-
volved in the action, even say in
a single department, and there-
fore to know whether or not indi-
vidual efforts has any impact. In
the absence of specific con-
tracts, carrying out a working to
contract action demanded much
personal and collective efforts,
which, alas! as far as my branch
is concerned, very few people
were willing to make.

But the non-specific contracts
are not the only obstacle to ef-
fective work-to-contract action.
What they reflect is in fact a
strong work-driven culture. The
research part of academic work
is often seen, by academics, as
the most interesting and valu-
able. In the context of cuts to HE
budgets, senior managers?
policies only reinforce this
through pressures on staff to
generate external research in-
comes. This means that aca-
demics usually think that they
are working for themselves, i.e.
for their own career, rather than
for their boss, so that anything
they?ll stop doing might turn out
to be detrimental to their own
career progression. Practically
this translates into working far
more hours than the normal full-
time week, at weekends, during
holidays or even not taking holi-
day entitlement at all. During the
pension dispute, it became plain
that UCU members in my branch
didn?t want to ?sacrifice? their re-
search during action short of a
strike: they didn?t mind cutting on
admin duties but not on their re-
search, with rather ironic scen-
arios where some would end up
working more than normal during
the dispute because they could
devote more time to their re-
search.

Given this and the poor results
that action short of a strike dur-
ing the pension dispute led to, it
is hard to see how it could be ef-
fective with the current pay dis-
pute and why UCU/HE members
are being balloted for it. The
trouble with this form of action is
that it is very misleading: it plays
down the radical nature of in-
dustrial action, which is why I
think it is so appealing to aca-
demics; but at the same time it
can only be effective if it is actu-
ally built and carried out collect-
ively (i.e. according a key
principle of industrial action),
something that our meetings
during the pension dispute made
totally apparent. The inability or
unwillingness of most academics
to accept this means that, in HE,
this softer form of industrial ac-
tion is mostly toothless because
it remains individualist. This
probably answers the second
question too.

------------------------------------------
Education Workers Network

EWN is made up of Solidarity Federation members who work in the
education sector. Joining EWN also means joining your nearest SF group
(solfed@solfed.org.uk or PO Box 29, S.W. DO, Manchester, M1 5 5HW for
details). Even if you don?t wish to join us, we welcome requests to join our
discussion list (ewn@lists.riseup.net) and / or for bundles of Education
Worker. Also available: EWN intro pamphlet; basic EWN intro leaflet; back
issues of Education Worker.

EWN, c/o News From Nowhere, 96 Bold Street, Liverpool, L1 4HY.
ewn@ewn.org.uk; www.ewn.org.uk

(en) Britain, Solidarity Federation, Education #9 - SAUL pension: a small and local sellout

In all the excitement of the large scale pension sellout following the largest public 
sector strike in a generation, you may have failed to notice a small, local pension 
sellout in the University of London, with the changes to the SAUL pension scheme in the 
University of London. This is now more or less forgotten, as UNISON moves on to a campaign 
over pay. Pay, not pensions, is now apparently the battle of our lifetime, with the union 
fully behind it. ---- SAUL stands for Superannuation Arrangements of the University of 
London, it provides pensions for the non-academic employees of the University of London, 
and one or two other organisations linked to HE who have joined the scheme. Up until 
recently it was a final salary pension scheme, and was considered one of the best pension 
schemes around, and was less in deficit than other schemes.

Changes were announced last
year, including putting new
members into a career average
(CARE) scheme. As well as dis-
advantaging most new mem-
bers, once a CARE scheme has
been set up, the danger is that at
some point the existing mem-
bers will get moved into it, and
fighting that change will be
harder, as mobilizing those in the
CARE scheme into defending
those in the better scheme is a
difficult task.

Several University of London
UNISON branches immediately
discussed the matter at branch
meetings and voted to oppose
any changes to their pension
scheme.

The UNISON fulltimer who lead
negotiations contacted branch
officers in mid-November telling
them that they had negotiated
with SAUL and had been as-
sured that our fears about it be-
ing expanded were groundless,
seemingly seeing no problem
with taking this assurance at
face value. They also said that
they had won some other con-
cessions to do with early retire-
ment, that this was the best that
would be achieved through ne-
gotiations and that this informa-
tion should be shared with
members and any other con-
cerns or questions raised.

Understandably the branches
who had voted to oppose
changes were not happy with
this, and asked to be balloted for
industrial action, preferably to
coincide with the other pension
strikes on November 30th. They
were told by UNISON full-timers
that there was not enough time
to do this, that despite
threatened changes to their own
schemes they would not be on
strike on the 30th and that if they
wanted to take strike action they
would have to be balloted separ-
ately to take action on a different
date. When asked how much
time they had between Prentis
announcing that UNISON would
be on strike, and it being too late
to get a ballot organised. The
answer was one day. This was
despite the fact that UCU were
on strike in the University of Lon-
don on the 30th and the rest of
UNISON were also on strike
over pensions. This meant that
on November 30th a larger than
usual number of UNISON mem-
bers in the UoL refused to cross
UCU picket lines and took unoffi-
cial action.

There were also questions
raised about the negotiations.
Unlike in the USS negotiations,
the unions had an equal say on
the joint negotiating committee
as the SAUL negotiators, so how
was it possible for changes to be
pushed through that members
had voted against, unless the
negotiators agreed to them? The
fulltimer reassured branch reps
that he had at all times ?re-
mained neutral? in negotiations!
At briefings UNISON tried to
present the changes as not be-
ing so bad, but were met with
demands that the region back
the calls for a ballot. While reps
put their efforts into forcing the
UNISON negotiating team back
into negotiation, SAUL an-
nounced the changes to the
scheme as a fait accompli, and
even said on their website that
the unions had agreed to the
changes. Possibly because,
despite the express wish of their
members, they had?

Eventually members did get their
say in an indicative ballot. By
this time, not only had the
changes to SAUL already been
implemented, but the recom-
mendation from UNISON was to
accept them. Unsurprisingly, the
turnout was low, and most who
voted agreed to accept the
changes.

As someone who kept in touch
with what was happening
throughout this lack of a battle,
to me it provides a useful ex-
ample of the way reformist uni-
ons undermine potential
struggles. At the early stages, I
saw not very militant or active
groups of workers starting to talk
about taking action over an issue
that finally had them up in arms.
This was exactly what they saw
as the point of the union that
they had been a member of for
some time, perhaps for decades.
And the opponent in this case?

The University of London. The
same institution that the Senate
House cleaners have just won a
victory against in their living
wage campaign. This really did
seem to be a smallish, winnable,
local victory that a significant
number of members would ac-
tually fight for.

Meanwhile, workers who initially
wanted to take action realised
that the whole thing was not
worth losing a day?s pay over, as
with the attitude of their union
?leaders?, often in this case, un-
elected, an unsuccessful one
day strike is the most that?s go-
ing to happen.

The problem for workplace milit-
ants in this situation is that many
loyal union members who would
never cross a picket line once
they have been balloted and the
action sanctioned by their union,
are still not prepared to take un-
official action. So the lack of a
ballot over SAUL for November
30th did not lead to as much un-
official action as some of us
hoped. They instead just felt that
the union had let them down and
they may as well cross a UCU
picket line and go to work.

We need to be getting the idea
across to our co-workers that
rather than fight a battle on two
fronts against our employers
and also against our union bur-
eaucracy, we should be leading
our own struggles. If we vote to
oppose changes to our condi-
tions of employment we should
then start planning how we take
action rather than having it de-
ferred to an ideal moment,
chosen by officials, which may
never arrive.

Britain, Solidarity Federation, Anti-workfare campaign in Thames Valley - workfare Reading Poundland

The anti-workfare campaign is building up in Reading. Over the summer, SF members
organised ad hoc pickets with local IWW and AF members. We decided to build up the basis
of these joint efforts through coordinated planned actions. We held an initial meeting in
August at which we decided to follow SF?s national target and to build our campaign with
claimants. So we are aiming to alternate actions outside Poundland and JobCentrePlus.
Three weeks ago, two of us distributed propaganda on the rights of claimants in relation
to the workfare schemes outside JobCentre. It became obvious that many of them did not
know about it yet. Last Saturday, we held the first picket outside Poundland, which was
met with overwhelming sympathy for the campaign from workers and members of the public alike.

Bron : a-infos-en@ainfos.ca