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UNION related chat, reflections and experiences. Reps & members alike!

I am annoyed. A new joiner who signed up because her job was at risk availed herself fully of union support, got a new job then promptly resigned. 😡😡😡

This is why I am adamant we won’t go to the wire for the deathbed conversions, as I like to call them.
 
hitmouse said:
Did anyone go to this? Would be keen to hear people's thoughts.
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Planned to but rail strike and laziness fucked my plans. A few people I do stuff with went, will stick any write-up they do here hitmouse. Notes from Below are having a bit of a re-think/strategy thing about their activity as well, will post details up sometime if possible.
 
LDC said:
Planned to but rail strike and laziness fucked my plans. A few people I do stuff with went, will stick any write-up they do here hitmouse. Notes from Below are having a bit of a re-think/strategy thing about their activity as well, will post details up sometime if possible.
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Cheers, will be interested to see that. I was going to not go because it looked like I was going to be called on to spend my weekend doing urgent-but-dull admin stuff to keep my own branch running, but then that didn't need to happen in the end. Sounds worthwhile though, will be keen to read any write-ups.
Lord Camomile said:
I'm curious, particularly as it overlaps with the TUC Congress, also in Liverpool, but honestly not sure I'll get my head in gear in time to actually make a decision and make arrangements.
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Yeah, don't think I'll bother going either, just seemed worth posting in case anyone was interested.
 
Ms T said:
I am annoyed. A new joiner who signed up because her job was at risk availed herself fully of union support, got a new job then promptly resigned. 😡😡😡

This is why I am adamant we won’t go to the wire for the deathbed conversions, as I like to call them.
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did she sign up before or after the names were announced / the process started ? as if after then AFAIK the union can only offer limited representation
 
Yeah, it's one we come up against a fair bit, know of a couple of specific situations recently. And I do mean "against", because I think for a lot of us it's definitely one of those where our different principles are put in opposition to each other.
 
Lord Camomile said:
Yeah, it's one we come up against a fair bit, know of a couple of specific situations recently. And I do mean "against", because I think for a lot of us it's definitely one of those where our different principles are put in opposition to each other.
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repping in meetings/ hearing even if you confine yourself to ' as a colleague' level of interventions usually isn't a problem it's when the 'deathbed convertee' wants you to mobilise the full regional / national / actual Legal resources that it's a big fat ''neggers cheggers' moment ...
 
Yeah, we have a “no compulsory redundancies” policy but I don’t think we can expect long-term members to take industrial action in support of the Johnny come latelies.
 
As mentioned by LDC elsewhere, here's a report from the Troublemakers conference:

Notes from the Troublemakers’ conference in the UK – The problem with the rank-and-file - Angry Workers

After the first phase of the so-called strike wave the primary question is whether the strikes gave birth to new initiatives of self-organisaton amongst participating workers. This is difficult to assess. What we can see are various initiatives within the broad left to organise ‘rank-and-file’...
www.angryworkers.org www.angryworkers.org
 
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Thanks for the report. In my own workplace the ‘rank and file’ tend to be massively individualist only supporting the collectivist union approach when it suits. Heaven forbid there be an overtime ban or filling vacancies which reduces that prospect.
 
Magnus McGinty said:
Thanks for the report. In my own workplace the ‘rank and file’ tend to be massively individualist only supporting the collectivist union approach when it suits. Heaven forbid there be an overtime ban or filling vacancies which reduces that prospect.
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Aye, somewhat similar at our place. We've done well on recruiting in recent years, less so on organising or developing activist members.

Keen to address that, of course, and plenty of ideas, but unfortunately by the very nature of what's needed it's going to need sustained effort and won't see results overnight.
 
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I’m politically libcom so I espouse the politics of grass roots bottom up initiatives. Sadly the ‘rank and file’ are mostly to the right of me by varying degrees so can’t see them self organising and doing away with the union and the reps doing the work.
 
hitmouse said:
As mentioned by LDC elsewhere, here's a report from the Troublemakers conference:

Notes from the Troublemakers’ conference in the UK – The problem with the rank-and-file - Angry Workers

After the first phase of the so-called strike wave the primary question is whether the strikes gave birth to new initiatives of self-organisaton amongst participating workers. This is difficult to assess. What we can see are various initiatives within the broad left to organise ‘rank-and-file’...
www.angryworkers.org www.angryworkers.org
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ACG take on it here <strong>There may be trouble ahead…</strong> - Anarchist Communist Group
 
Unite finally did something useful for me! Their free will service is back up and running and I've just made my will. It's an online form and quite an impressive one that allows you to cover lots of "what ifs".

So far this hasn't been accompanied by a blizzard of sales calls...
 
Extremely important notice for Unison reps/members: turns out that in August there was some kind of a big database update that led to a huge number of people (roughly 20% of my branch) having their emails wrongly flagged as being unable to receive messages. There doesn't really seem to have been any communication with branches about this, so please ask the people who run your email lists to look into it before you end up sending out a very important update about an ongoing dispute and then start getting loads of replies from people asking why they're being left out of emails.
 
Fuck, now did I or did I not hear about this at the time?

Definitely feel like there was some situation we were getting a significant number of members telling us they weren't receiving messages, but that actually might have been before August, so maybe a different thing.

I don't have access to WARMs meself, but will def ask someone who does to take a look, cheers :thumbs:
 
Lord Camomile said:
Fuck, now did I or did I not hear about this at the time?

Definitely feel like there was some situation we were getting a significant number of members telling us they weren't receiving messages, but that actually might have been before August, so maybe a different thing.

I don't have access to WARMs meself, but will def ask someone who does to take a look, cheers :thumbs:
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When I went and looked into it, I was actually one of the people affected, and I'd sent the support desk an email saying something like "oh, you seem to have changed my email address from my work to my personal email, can you change it back", I didn't think to add "also is this a massive issue affecting hundreds/thousands of people that you're aware of but haven't bothered telling branches about?" Anyway, if the relevant person does a report for all movements between August 11th-13th, that should give a list of the relevant emails.
 
The implications of the TUPE legislation which I think date back to 1979 would seem to be massive if I understand them at all.One might think that they are one of the most important pieces of employment protection on the statute book and yet I for one rarely hear them referred to in the media at all.Thought about this because there is a re- tendering process going on where I work.I work for the client of a transport company that has suddenly gone under and no-one has a scooby whether all the drivers will be transferred with the contract -and thus be in on Monday albeit with a different employer(new holders of the contract) or whether they are gone for good?
 
Is it the case that this is just one of the downsides of outsourcing an essential part of your business namely that you are going to vicariously acquire significant potential liabilities to the service providers employees?And did those who framed the legislation intend this as a brake on the drive towards outsourcing by putting in place a disincentive?
 
Duncan2 said:
The implications of the TUPE legislation which I think date back to 1979 would seem to be massive if I understand them at all.One might think that they are one of the most important pieces of employment protection on the statute book and yet I for one rarely hear them referred to in the media at all.Thought about this because there is a re- tendering process going on where I work.I work for the client of a transport company that has suddenly gone under and no-one has a scooby whether all the drivers will be transferred with the contract -and thus be in on Monday albeit with a different employer(new holders of the contract) or whether they are gone for good?
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TUPE law started in 1981, and has been updated a few times since - it came from an EU (or maybe it was still the EEC then) directive. it's one of the bits of 'EU red tape' that the tories want to get rid of but haven't quite got round to yet.

It's all a bit fuzzy round the edges, and much of what's now considered law is a result of case law (decisions at tribunals etc) rather than what's actually written in the acts.

Generally speaking, if someone works the majority of their time (it doesn't have to be 100%) on a particular contract, then they have the right to TUPE transfer if that contract changes hands, and if something's being re-tendered, then whoever is writing the specification ought to say whether they think TUPE will apply or not, and all organisations bidding should take that in to account, and new contractor will have to talk to old contractor to try and get details of the terms + conditions that staff are on.

In practice, new contractor may not know until day one just how many people transfer across, as old contractor (if they have other suitable work) may offer continued employment (on other contracts) to existing staff, and some staff will decide now's a good time to look for a new job or retire.

If (as I think you're saying) old contractor has gone bust, then there might be a legal argument that the old contract and therefore staff employment ended at the point when they went bust, and TUPE might not apply. (if that's the case, then staff would then be entitled to claim redundancy payment via the government scheme for dealing with companies that go bust, and could of course apply for jobs with new contractor, but would be on the basis of applying for jobs on new contractor's terms.)

all of this subject to the disclaimer that i'm not lawyer, never had to handle this when i was a union rep, but i've been on the receiving end of it (outsourced 'white collar' local authority work) and had to deal with the consequences (bus operator) of having drivers on multiple terms + conditions.
 
Okay thanks very much both of you.It very much looks like the last paragraph of cesare's link covers the situation at my place.the current contract holder was losing money then lost its licence to operate and so my own employer the client is desperately looking for another third party to provide the exact same service the need for which is undiminished.I had thought since this substantial team have worked alongside us for eons that their jobs would transfer to any new bidder for the contract by operation of TUPE.But the last paragraph of cesare's link seems to mean that they follow their insolvent employer out of the door their only remedy being to claim redundancy wherever they can.Small consolation indeed .thanks both
 
Just wonder if they would still be redundant if my employer the client had chosen to bring the previously contracted work in-house.
 
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