Man of the internet.... see previous post!

It's a man thing...

Thought about submitting my own photo to this gallery of internet hunks...I have the glasses, am sufficiently overweight - just need to work on my beard now! (link taken from B3ta)

82yrs old and bounced!

Friend of mine was the bloke sitting next to the 82 year old who was evicted from Labour Party conference for allegedly heckling Jack Straw.

What he actually said was 'nonsense' when the Foreign Secretary made a point about Kosovo...At this point he was then escorted from the visitors area by 5 security guards, who also rather physically 'asked' my friend to leave because he complained about the way that they had treated him. The security guards alledge that they had asked both my friend and the 82 yr old to be quiet 3 times - but a number of witnesses have come forward to confirm they actually only approached the first man once. Once, three times, whatever the number, and whether or not you agree with his assessment of the government's foreign policy, I don't think it does any favours to anyone in the Labour Party to see an 82 yr old man (who has been a Party member for 60 years), being bodily removed from the visitors gallery!

Its my Party and I'll cry if I want to...

Not at Labour Party Conference this year - in fact I haven't been for a couple of years now, and can't say I've miss it particularly. Spending a week a standing in security queues, arguing a lot - sorry enjoying mature political discourse - and struggling up and down the front of a wet and windy seaside town no longer hold the same appeal as they used too strangely.

Like all major political conferences (especially those held by the Party in Government), Labour Party Conference is many different things to many different people: for union and constituency delegates its a chance to try and hold the Government to account and to form and influence policy; for some its a week by the seaside trying to break previous year's drinking records; and for lots and lots of corporate types its another stop on their whirlwind tour of draughty conference-halls and exhibition centres - 'promoting' everything and anything you could possibly imagine.

Somewhere in the region of 20,000+ people will make their way down to Brighton this week - all with different agendas or objectives, some laudable, some not so laudable.

Other blogs will give a better, up-to-date, and informed view of the conference than this one (check out Bloggers4Labour for a full range of views), so I'm not going bother with any sort of analysis.

Instead I thought it'd be best to just let you, the people who read this blog, (there are some) express their own thoughts in the comments section. To make it interesting I'd like you to articulate your thoughts in no more than ONE word. Examples could include: 'great', 'depressing', 'historic', 'cheesy' - whatever your thoughts, good or bad, just one word please. Oh, and please try and keep it clean!

Union dog!

Union dog
Originally uploaded by unionblue.

See previous post...

Bet on a union

Original soundtrack, a dog in a tutu and a long faced horse who looks remarkably like John McCririck - what more do you want?!!

Click here to view the latest (and excellent) TUC and Will Flash for Cash animation - this one has been put together in support of Community's campaign to sign up workers in betting shops.

Comments below if you have any - cheers.

Just like home...

Just left the anti-war demo in Washington DC - hundred of thousands there, along with 'gorgeous' George Galloway. Not his biggest fan, but he made a great speech, and went down well with the crowd.

Not one mention of 'drink-soaked trotskyite popinjays' either!

Whitehouse

Whitehouse
Originally uploaded by unionblue.

Coming for George! Outside the Whitehouse earlier today.

Needing Sleep

Just arrived in Washington DC for the first of 3 days. I'm here with a group of 15 senior union officers from the UK, who are visiting their counterparts in the US to try and get a flavour of the innovative organising and campaigning work that American unions are undertaking to try and stem membership decline. (just read that sentence back, bit of a mouthful....must do better!)

Its only 5pm or so here (which is 10pm back in the UK), but I'm ready for my bed!

More (more 'more', and more interesting!), later.

Me and my mate Roy...

Never considered myself on the same political wavelength (or even bandwidth) as Roy Hattersely, but found myself in complete agreement with his Guardian article today, which makes the case for so-called 'secondary action'.

One of his key points is that the trend toward sub-contracting and outsourcing what were once previously 'core' functions essentially means that workers (and their unions) need to be free to tackle the 'semi-detached' corporations which determine their pay and conditions, but who do not formally employ them.

I personally think one of the problems with the debate around secondary action is that, as usual (and as Hattersely suggests), we have let the right frame the language of the debate. While the Murdoch press is happy to justify the 'right' of companies to sack workers without a moments notice (business needs and all that), it is a little more reticent about the 'rights' of working people to support each other when faced with poor treatment at the hands of these same employers. As Hattersley argues, 'the odds have always been stacked against low-paid workers. Gate Gourmet employees, and people like them, have no chance of a fair deal unless they receive help from their friends. Secondary action is more than necessary. It is right'.

Any comments below, ta.

Back from Brighton

Just got back from 3 days down at the TUC Congress in Brighton.

Congress is always pretty tiring - but I had a stomach bug for a couple of days which meant I actually went to bed at 10.30pm on Sunday night. Regular union conference goers will know that this is pretty unheard of behaviour!

Won't give you the full blow by blow of what happened at Congress this year (the anoraks amongst you can track the decisions made at Congress here), but here are 4 or 5 random things I thought I'd mention:

1) On Monday morning more than a 100 Gate Gourmet workers attended Congress and were given a standing ovation by the delegates. Congress also passed an emergency resolution in response to the ongoing dispute and made a financial appeal for unions to support the, predominately Asian women, dismissed workers.

2) No less than 5 senior Government Ministers, including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, made the trip down to Brighton. A theme running through a lot of their speeches was the need for the UK to meet the competitive challenge posed by the emergence of China and India, and the work the UK government is doing to help developing countries out of poverty. All fair enough stuff, but I would have liked to see some mention being made of the unique role unions can play in all of this, and what more both unions and government here can do to support the development and growth of independent, representative and effective unions around the world.

3) I had the pleasure of spending a few minutes talking to Jack Jones on Tuesday night. I've never been one for hero worship, but he manages to combine being a genuine great with being just an all round decent bloke as well. We could do with a few more like Jack today.

4) The days of staying up all night in the hotel-bar and then getting up bright eyed first thing the next (same) morning are well and truly behind me. A further sign of my decline is that I actually chose to have a continental breakfast (fruit salad, brown toast) each morning rather than the traditional Congress all English fry-up. By next year's Congress I'll probably be drinking herbal tea - and enjoying it.

5) There was a lot of debate around the fringe of the Congress on the prospects of a new 'super-union' created by the merger of the TGWU, AMICUS and the GMB. The two basic strands of discussion seem to be - 'Big unions are better than small unions (or vice versa)' and 'What will this mean for the TUC? Will we still be needed etc etc'. Interesting debate but all a bit limited at the movement I think. The reality is of course that there plenty of examples (in the UK and around the world) of big unions that are great, just as there are plenty of examples of big unions that are poor and ineffective. Likewise there are some great, well focused, well run smaller union, and some pretty awful small unions that aren't doing the job their members deserve. In one sense size really doesn't matter - well-run unions, with a clear focus on the needs of their members, are what matters - not size.

On the TUC issue, there is a general consensus that there will still be a need for a central federation (after all some 4m TUC affiliated trade union members will not be members of the new union) - but less of a consensus on what this means for the TUC's role. Again, there is a danger that this argument ends up in a bit of a cul-de-sac. Merger or no merger the TUC will hopefully continue to help unions speak with a united voice on the issues that matter most to our members - and to represent and support unions as effectively as it can.

Interested in any thoughts people may have about how Congress is perceived/reported on from outside the Brighton 'bubble'? Please post in comments - ta.

Its that time of year again....

TUC Congress starts on Monday, and as usual most of the pre-Congress press coverage is focused on two types of stories.

The first is the potential for government/union splits; so for example, this week, TUC General secretary Brendan Barber's pretty straightforward observation that there should be, '... an orderly transition....And it should take place soon enough to allow a new leader to put his own stamp on the style of government', was turned into headlines suggesting that Tony Blair should pretty much vacate No 10 by the end of Congress next Thursday.

The other type of story is the doom and gloom 'union's are dead or dying' - and nothing anyone can do can ever save them. The FT had an article in this vein last week, as did a few other papers, mainly based around (some pretty good and informed) research and book by David Metcalf and others which was published this week.

By happy coincidence exactly the same story, based on exactly the same research, by exactly the same academic, was published at exactly the same time last year... looks like a rather bit of cute timetabling by the publisher's press people if you ask me, but then I'm a cynic. No doubt next year's release on the same issue is being worked up as we speak.

David Metcalf foresees a pretty bleak future for unions, particularly in the private sector. His recent report for the Work Foundation, was even bleaker, concluding that 'Perdition is more likely than Resurgence'. Perdition is, according to the dictionary, 'A state of punishment which goes on forever, suffered by evil people after death'. I know we face some challenges - but that's about a bleak assessment as you can get!

As you will have gathered if you have read this blog before I personally think the future for unions is a bit brighter. Of course that doesn't mean we have any room at all for complacency but I think two factors should give unions a bit of cause for optimism.

The first is that slowly but surely unions are already beginning to turn the corner. Our overall membership has stablised - with some unions in both the public and private sectors making significant membership gains over the last few years. USDAW has seen its membership grow by some 60,000 (mainly party-time women workers) since 1997. In the public sector PCS has grown by over 50,000 in the same period.

Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, there are clear signs that a number of unions are beginning to make the hard choices necessary to grow and thrive. A clear example of this is the TGWU's massive investment in organising both in in-fill and greenfield sites, which has included a comprehensive '100%' membership campaign and the union taking on 50 new organisers in the first 6 months of this year.

I'm not a mindless optimist, but at the same time I think it can be very damaging for unions to constantly talk ourselves down - 'oh no we're in crisis, people hate us, we'll never grow again etc etc'. The reality is that there are millions of people out there who would join a union if we gave them a chance to - the trick is reaching out to these people and showing them the real difference a union can make. Easier said than done I know, but it can AND IS being done!

If you're not on the list...

BBC's 'hit-parade' of 10 of the UK's leading trade unionists is here.

"RMT chief Bob Crow asked: 'How can safety rules be broken and no one is responsible?'"

How indeed?

Join a union or the puppy gets it...

(Please note no animals were hurt during the making of this flash cartoon!)

Hangin' at the park

Hangin' at the park
Originally uploaded by unionblue.

Johnny, Frances & Milly R

Crowd

Crowd
Originally uploaded by unionblue.

Merseyside Unity Festival, September 4 2005

Spent Saturday mowing the lawn, washing the car, cleaning the house and doing every other sort of boring domestic chore you could basically imagine, so today we are off to Princes Park for the Merseyside Unity festival being held in Princes Park, Liverpool.

I blogged a few weeks ago about the racist murder of Anthony Walker in the city - and the festival is part of the local community's response to this horrific event. Proof that this sort of event is needed is evidenced by the fact that they BNP were out leafleting in Liverpool city centre on Friday morning - normal drill, couple of social misfits handing out racist crap claiming that no-one cares when white people get murdered etc etc

Pictures from the festival later.

Left behind

Good New York Times article today about the race and class divide which the disaster in New Orleans has exposed - with the overwhelming majority of those who are still stranded being both poor and black.

Spoke briefly today to my friend Bob Baker, vice-president of the ATU - which has some 1,000 or so members living and working in the city. The breakdown in communications there means that he has no way of knowing how many of his members and their families have got caught up in the chaos there. For news about how unions in the US are mobilising to help their brothers and sisters in the New Orleans, or to make a donation to the relief fund, click here.

Back on the beat....

Just got back from two weeks holiday in France (around here) - compromise with my partner Vicky was that the laptop would stay at home, but I was allowed to keep my Blackberry (small things amuse small minds etc)....hence no blog.

While I've been away the Gate Gourmet dispute has rumbled on with no resolution as yet, disaster has hit New Orleans (thousands die but on the bright side oil stocks rise - amazing how someone always squeezes a bit of profit from death isn't it?), and Everton have signed 3 (count 'em, 3) new players.

More in a similar vein later.