Who Are The Unorganisable?

Here are some hard cold facts. Membership of TUC-affiliated trade unions has been declining since Margaret Thatcher’s Tories were elected in 1979.

Trade Union Membership

Out of around 28 million workers in Britain, less than a third belong to a trade union.

Since that time, the gap between rich and poor has widened, neo-liberalism has tore into public services and privatised and casualised much work in Britain where we now work the longest hours in Europe and our union rights are continually being squeezed.

The Filthy Rich: Money To Burn

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/specials/rich_list/article7107299.ece

And many within our movement tell us that its not possible to organise casual, temporary, part-time, agency and migrant workers.

Problem is that these same casual, temporary, part-time, agency and migrant workers keep proving them wrong.

Some recent examples:

1. The London Living Wage (LLW) – the hourly rate of £7.60 recommended by the London Mayor’s office as the minimum wage required for London’s workers to get by and be on par with workers on the National Minimum Wage (currently £5.80 per hour for workers 22 or over) outside the capital – and union recognition has been won by a number of migrant cleaning workers in 2007.
2. The LLW and the first pay rise in 6 years was won by union members, the vast majoirty on casual “zero-hour” contracts,  in a call-centre in London in 2008.
3. Engineers at an interhouse company providing internet connectivity won shift allowances of £2,000 and union recognition in 2003.
4. IT workers at Fujitsu won union recognition in the past five years and embarked on their first-ever national strikes in late part of 2009 and early part of 2010 against redundancies.
5. Workers at the homelessness charity, Shelter, took strike action for the first time in the organisation’s 41-year history against pay cuts and redundancies in 2008.

Potential for union growth and the desperate need for it was identified by the TUC in 1996.

That year, the TUC set up a taskforce, the New Unionism Task Group (NUTG) with a remit to find ways to arrest the decline of trade unionism.

The NUTG’s objectives were as follows:

• Support the development of an ‘organising culture’ inside trade unions
• Provide ways of developing unions’ existing membership bases and also explore potential in new and emerging sectors of the economy
• Sharpen the appeal of unions to traditionally under-represented groups of workers: women, young workers, workers from black and ethnic-minority backgrounds and those at the fringes of the labour market for whom trade unionism appeared to have little or no relevance.

I want to look at the latter part of the second objective to “explore potential in new and emerging sectors of the economy” now,  and the third objective in my next post.

“Explore potential in new and emerging sectors of the economy”

and to go where no union has gone before as James T. Kirk may have had it.

Examples above have shown some successes. These are mainly the work of union activists, socialists inside the workplaces and in too few cases, persistent and forward-looking local officials. Born of the NUTG, was the TUC’s Organising Academy, and many that have made it through the assessment centres and been placed by a variety of trade unions have also made a difference in this area.

The major difference they have made has been to be a buffer between poorly-resourced, but enthusiastic rank-and-file activists in these “emerging sectors” and staid, and in many cases, irrelevant local union bureaucracies.

But its not enough.

The major blocks to union organisation are the following:

• Union organising models are usually fine – mapping the workplace and issued-based campaigning are at the heart of most plans. But when it comes to taking the action needed to win union recognition, union leaders shy away. There are countless examples, one very close to my heart that I am bound to keep to myself for the time being, of national unions that have marched the troops to the top of the hill only to disarm them on the way up and have them mowed down at the top. I will recount the story of one workplace that I have most detail about this when I can – so watch this space.
• The law and the the trade union bureaucracy’s acquiesence to it. John Hendy QC, who represented Unite at the case of the scandal of the judgement that ruled that a 92% strike vote on an 80% turnout was not sufficient as 800 of the 14,000 workers had been balloted but laid off (this would have made the vote 91% in favour) angrily told a Right To Work Seminar in April 2010 that the TUC had failed to mount any challenge to the anti-union laws that have been standing on the statute books for the past 30 years. Its not just the anti-union laws that have been used as weapons against workers, immigration legislation has been used to victimise, detain and deport union activists that are migrants, for example at SOAS and Eurostar.         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9WoqaqLXuk&feature=related     
• The Labour Party. The election of “our” Government as our union leaders tell us, is paramount. This goal, despite a Labour Government helping to increase the gap between the rich and the poor and dumping on the union members that fund their election campaigns to the tune of millions, with their policies of war , privatisation and cuts, comes above the immediate interests and struggles of workers. In the next eight days, it will be difficult to get hold of an official whose union is affiliated to Labour, particularly Unison, no matter how urgent the problem. Union energy and resources will be eked out trying to rescue Brown from an election defeat.

Tomorrow, I will deal with the question of the involvement of under-represented groups of workers: women, young workers, workers from black and ethnic-minority backgrounds.

A Week In The Life Of…

Here’s my call-centre worker union mate again…phew what a week:

“It’s Saturday night, too tired to dance and its not alright for fighting.

No wonder with the week I have had…

Monday 19th April

Informed that a fellow rep and union member has been suspended. Word gets round. Emergency meeting organised for Wednesday night. Wheels set in motion for another defence campaign – we’ve been here before. Meanwhile, volcanic ash has caused havoc with the Love Music Hate Racism gig, the jazz band’s sax player is stuck God know where, I do know where the Irish indie group’s bassist is, but it doesn’t help that he’s in Moscow. My young and beardy co-organiser is on the case though…

Tuesday 20 April

Brother’s birthday. Seems to be well pleased with the BBC’s 1980s political thriller “Edge of Darkness” starring the late Bob Peck and Joanne Whalley. I’m suffering, my cough has got worse. And the more I cough, the more I work away on the case, the more stressed I get, the more I smoke, the more I cough and so on. He keeps interrupting me – “God, whassisname?” as another semi-well known British actor flashes on the screen, inviting me to look them up on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090424/

Decide that I can manage one shift. Manage it, just. Tough campaign, tougher when you have to say to a supporter, “Excuse me” and then hit the mute button, whilst I hack the call-centre down. “Sorry about that”, I say again and again, continue before I can feel another spluttering fit emerging…

Walk to Elephant with a colleague, who takes me to task for my confrontational manner, and how I dominate the union. I give as good as I get, but some of her remarks leave wounds. Particularly as I know she has a point. We’ve been better in involving more people, but more needs to be done to take more of the limelight (and work!) away from me. And she is a really good potential new activist.

Wednesday 21 April

Its no good. The coughing is worse. Last night, brother makes up a bowl of boiling water, sprinkles some bloody potion in it and my towelled head is stuck a few inches away. My head was truly boiled. Face like a lobster’s, a good night’s sleep, but throat is sore from constant hacking and my voice barely registers as I cancel some more shifts.

Just when I think things can’t get any worse, the drip seems to turn into a flood. An email from the new branch treasurer and youth officer of a number of years asks:

“What is the date for the gig?”

My voice is wobbling like Jimmy Saviles as profanity crashes through the air.

We told this guy months ago about the gig, I had sent him a budget and told him how much we needed. He was at the meeting the previous week, when we had our motion on UAF and LMHR amended by the branch. The amendment was to absolve the branch (that had just earlier taken a few minutes to hand hundreds of pounds to Labour candidates for their General Election campaign) from paying for Love Music Hate Racism gigs (including Friday’s) and transport to demos against the Nazis and instead pass the buck to the London Region. We opposed the amendment but it went through 14-8 anyway.

I am getting sicker, but I have committed to two meetings and I am working on the defence case.

I make it to Brixton and I am about to do 20 minutes on “Fighting Immigration Controls”. I am sure that ten of them are spent emitting germs from my mouth in the loudest possible fashion. I enjoy the discussion, fantastic level of politics from comrades younger and supposedly greener than myself. In fact, the first contribution would have been fine as the meeting itself and the highlight was a great contribution from a young Colombian guy, not just about his experiences as a migrant worker, but some very salient political points.

8.30pm and I’ve summed up and I’m coughing and running. Emergency meeting in 45 minutes.Tube from Brixton. Stops at Stockwell. Can get on Northern Line from ther. Fuck it – take it to Kings Cross. A couple of stops later, in between stations, the train halts. And its waiting…and waiting…and waiting. Passengers look at each other in the vain hope that someone may have a clue why this might be. I take my earphones phones out.The Good, The Bad and The Queen’s “Kingdom of Doom” is distant now. The message over the tannoy tells us about signal problems in the Victoria area.

“All in now
There’s a noise in the sky
Following all the rules
And not asking why”

 

As the train negotiates its way through the problems, I look at the time on my mobile. 9pm and I’m at the doors waiting for the train to pull into Kings Cross.

I sprint, Christ knows how many metres, to the Northern Line. I’m no Usain Bolt, and my chest is telling me that this is no good. “I’m ready to explode”, it cries. I reduce to a saunter as I  jump on a train to Old St.

At Old St, the escalators need to be conquered at some pace, the walkway gets the same treatment, ignoring the shouts of the poor and no-so-old beggar. 9.15, the meeting due to start, I’m on City Road and the pub seems further away from the tube than it normally does.

There seems to be more people in my way as I try to sprint.

I’m Richard Ashcroft of the Verve, arrogantly pushing pedestrians to the floor, nothing will stop me reaching my goal:

 

 

“I’ll take you down the only road I’ve ever been down
You know the one that takes you to the places
where all the veins meet yeah”

 

And I’m there.

 

And there’ll all there and the meeting was fine. And I hang around for a frame of pool and a chat and then off home to collapse.

 

Thursday 22 April

 

Meeting with the most Senior Manager. Again no pay rise. All very good reasons supposedly. There’s a recession on don’t you know? Only this company is doing okay despite the recession. And in this particular part of the call-centre industry, they still have the lions’ share of the market and are expanding globally.

 

Another meeting in the evening. Still coughing and spluttering. Seminar on ant-union laws. John Hendy QC is obviously annoyed at the lack of action taken by the trade union movement to challenge these disgraceful limits on our right to wirhdraw our labour. The BA dispute was halted over Christmas 
by a number of ballot papers that went out to redundant workers that would have changed the result from a 92% strike vote to 91%.

Bit of a chat, a quick beer and a quick game of pool with these lovely lads with learning difficulties. Bags more charm than your average Senior Manager.

 

Friday 23rd April

 

The day of the gig. Still working on “The Case” as shall be known from now.

Get to a picket of UBS for a few minutes, help a comrade put up a banner.

 

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=20280

 

Down to Shoreditch, the Old Blue Last. Posters to be stuck up, calls being made. My Scottish friend has done the necessary, we have bands, we have equipment, we have a sound engineer, but do we have punters.

 

Before it starts filling up, a group of not so-likely lads with short hair, short attention spans, short on sobriety and short on decent politics and wearing England t-shirts, make a half-hearted attempt to enter. A young cockney red with sharp patter sends them packing. She’s my hero.

 

The place is filling up.

 

The talented host of ceremonies for the evening, is as always, fashionably late. Not as late as the first acoustic act. The Aussie soundman and provider of equipment mutters to me:

“If only he’s take his fucking guitar out of his case”

He eventually does and he plays well, but the voice that accompanies his chords, a young black woman, is sublime

 

http://www.myspace.com/laundrymews

 

Was busy rushing around, so didn’t hear much of the next acoustic act, just remember him prancing around so much that the soundman had to run after him to plug his guitar back in.

 

Upstairs is kicked off by Because We Can sporting St George’s neckchiefs, again busy organising collections, helping to bring people from downstairs.

 

By the time They’re All Projects came on, the place was heaving, I was relaxed and very merry.

They made me feel better, not only do I like the melodies and their way with words, they’re a lovely bunch.

 

http://www.nme.com/awards/video/id/O9IvO6cDG_I/search/sebastian%20mccoy

 

The real star of the evening is fellow union activist and beatboxer extraordinaire, the one and only mUnique! Crowds both upstairs and down have been lapping up her wit and her delivery.

Political speeches made, crowd rocking to Castle Radio

 

Castle Radio - Rocking Against The Nazis

 

and the harsh sound of Three Colours, I really wanted to stay, but sense told me to drag my pal and run for the 11.59 to Lower Sydenham.

 

Saturday 24th April

 

Due to be in work for the afternoon, cough a little less, throat still sore and croaky. Another cancelled shift, more rest in preparation for tonight’s committee meeting. One dampener on evening, another co-organiser had been attacked on her way home. That’s what the evening and our activity is all about – ensuring that such Nazi scumbags are no longer confident to confront black, Asian, gays, socialists and trade unionists in the way they have been increasingly doing as the BNP vote rises.

The meeting only has 3 committee members, but is extended to include 5 others. I’m pleased as a lot is planned. Hang around to have the crack. Thankfully only on blackcurrant and soda and leave as the tequila slammers start to be slammed down and talk turns to cosmetic surgery and sexual fetishes.

 

Too tired, I walk to London Bridge and home to fall asleep in front of Match of the Day.”

 

By the way, allow me to let you into a secret. “Call-Centre Worker Guy” is my current squeeze. He’s started to get on my nerves, though. He can’t write for toffee (I have to rewrite everything!) he’s always skint ( I am sick of hearing the words “I can’t recriprocate tonight, babe, but I’ll make it up to you”), never takes me anywhere nice, he’s always either on facebook or playing championship manager and he’s crap in bed. Oh, and he snores. All night. Every night.

But he’ll do for now.

 

A host of top cutting-edge music acts, including NME Shockwaves nominees, They’re all Projects, are joining forces to fight racism and fascism at a Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) gig organised by call–centre workers from the Communication Workers Union (CWU) at the Old Blue Last in Shoreditch on Friday 23th April.

 

Mark Kavanagh vocalist and guitarist for They’re all Projects said, “Fighting racism and fascism has never been more important. In the General Election the BNP could gain ground unless we do everything we can to mobilise people against them. Friday night will not just be a celebration but an opportunity to gather those forces together.”

 http://www.nme.com/awards/video/id/O9IvO6cDG_I/search/sebastian%20mccoy

The music at the gig will be as diverse as the city it is being performed in, from melodic indie through mellow swing to the hottest ragga. Other acts performing at the event include Mr Ghost’s Hot Steppers and Because We Can.

CWU Pell and Bales vice chair and gig organiser, Pat Carmody commented, “We’ve got a cracking line up of acts for the gig this Friday. As trade unionists we know only too well that our rights are under threat when Nazis are allowed to march and spread their racist filth.

“As well as leafleting in Barking and joining the protests against the racist EDL, we can start to involve a layer of new young workers against the BNP and the EDL. We can use our trade unions to sponsor and organize events that put young anti-racists at the heart of the fight against the BNP and also recruit these young workers to our unions.”

The CWU Capital branch Call Centre Workers’ LMHR gig takes place at the Old Blue Last, 39 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3ES. Doors open at 8pm.

The World Snooker Championship starts today. How I wish I could be in Sheffield. How I wish I was at the Crucible when:

The Hurricane saw the winning post but the Grinder ground him down. The 1980 final was one of my earliest memories – I remember the Hurricane on a frame winning break and the SAS bursting onto the screen as they they stormed the Iranian Embassy .

The Hurricane drags on another...

 

I get to chat to my mate when we have a few games of pool. Should really get more out of him, but he’s busy showing off on the pool table. I can never get near him, even when he tries unsuccessfully to pot the black off about ten cushions and the lampshades, I’ve still got about 5 balls to pot. The cocky bastard. Anyway, here’s something he wrote about this time a few years ago:

Just over 20 years ago, millions of TV viewers stayed up into the early hours to see whether a young slim ginger Tory boy could knock more little balls into little holes than an older stockier ginger fella. Twenty-seven year-old Steve Davis was as confident as those that ran the game of snooker across the globe, one was Barry Hearn, a man whose earnings and background were not too dissimilar to that of the barrow boy made good Alan Sugar. His defeat to Dennis Taylor on the final ball seemed to be a landmark in the decline of the games riches.

Snooker’s beneficiaries seemed to be sitting on a fortune. The BBC had relaxed its advertising ban to allow the tobacco corporation Embassy to plug their cancer sticks on the prestigious channel. And every time I saw Hurricane Higgins nervously pull one from his packet live on TV as another frame went west, I too lit another. 

So how, despite such a major advantage, is it that there is a crisis in snooker? How is it possible that the professionals, particularly lower down the rankings, are complaining that there are not enough tournaments for them to make a decent living. Why is it that the top players are up in arms over the latest sponsorship of the World Championship that began recently and will end on the May Bank Holiday?

Some might point to the poor choices of leadership. Not long before he was detained at the pleasure of His Majesty, Jeffrey Archer wangled his way into the job of Chairman of the World Professional Snooker and Billiards Association. The current incumbent, the potato crisp magnate Sir Rodney Walker, has also been criticised by the players, particularly for costing them personal sponsorship deals by signing a contract with the internet casino firm 888. But there have always been crooks involved in snooker. Despite the best efforts of the Grandfather of Snooker, Joe Davis who held the World title for decades (mainly because the sport was run on the same lines as boxing where to win the crown you had to be considered good enough to challenge Davis) before and after the Second World War, and who also insisted that it maintained an aristocratic image with the players in tuxedos and bow-ties, the snooker halls of that period had a seedy image. The Kray brothers ran their dodgy business operations from their snooker hall in Eric Street in Mile End. So came the expression oft-used about talented players that they had a  “misspent youth” 

Jimmy White played truant from school and was managed by a cab-driver who went by the name of, I kid you not, “Dodgy Bob”, who made enough from gambling on the teenager to retire from the taxi business. White always said that the best player to pick up a cue was Patsy Houlihan from Deptford. Unfortunately for Patsy, he was a hustler with a conviction and was barred by Davis from joining the professional ranks when they were open in the 1960s. One man the snooker aristocracy couldn’t keep out, though they tried, was a youngster from Belfast, Alex Higgins. When eventually allowed to enter the World Championships in 1972, he won it, beating the favourite John Spencer. And with the advent of colour TV, snooker’s star soared.

Another reason touted for snooker’s decline is the ban on tobacco advertising. But with the game really taking off in the Far East (the major ranking tournament prior to the World Championship is the China Open) and Sky and Eurosport joining BBC in their coverage of snooker, surely advertisers would give their right arm for such space.

 I think that the answer lies in the class contradictions that bedevil this game like any other. Although the game, like every other sport, was codified by the ruling class (snooker was invented by officers of the British Raj in the heady days of gin, cards and other indoor games that dominated their lives in late 19^th century – “snooker” was an affectionate term or maybe an insulting one that these upper-class twits would hurl at each other, “I say, that man is an absolute snooker!”), it found it’s way into working class lives in the pubs and working men’s clubs (6 times World Champion Ray Reardon was a miner, 1979 champion Terry Griffiths was a postman).

 Those at the bottom always played like their lives depended on it. And we all love to watch the hustler and the gambler. As the WPSBA spends little on developing new talent, it is harder to sell snooker to TV when the snooker authorities are doing all they can to drive characters like Ronnie O’Sullivan out of the game, whilst those kids whose families can afford it pay the extortionate table fees (and on many occasions build snooker rooms and tables complete with TV lights!). No one wants to watch more clones of Davis and Hendry dominate this game.

 

Don’t Look Back In Anger

Here’s an extract from a pal’s diary who works in a call-centre worker from a around 5 years ago when he had just started organising a union in London.

Anyway, wired on caffeine, nicotine and adrenalin by the time I start calling and I really don’t need a moody manager to set me off. I’m just trying to do my job, which without being arrogant, I am doing okay for the time being. I’m angry with news that a few colleagues have ended up with disciplinary charges that had they had got decent representation, may well have been lesser, if not avoided altogether. I’m talking to people on my team that make my life easier, make the job a fulfilling one, and are all passionate about doing something about the poverty that preventable childhood diseases thrive on. And we’re all making mincemeat out of the targets set for us. Yet some of us have reason to look over our shoulders. So, on top of this yesterday, I get this rude and disrespectful manager, that pushes passes past me as if I was dust, banging my chair into my leg whilst I am calling. Ok, let it go. He does it again and signs of a red mist start to colour my vision. I log off and advise another manager that I would be incredibly upset if this happens again. He talks to the culprit. The culprit comes over to apologise, or so I think. What he did was to rub salt in the wounds. No surprise that this is the first manager to raise a problem he has with the union. He denies banging the chair into me. He becomes angry when I try to get on with my job, telling me that he is the manager and I am the caller. To get rid of him, I immediately accept his apology. But what have I accepted is his non-apology. Something along the lines of I am sorry if you thought that I pushed the chair into you, but I didn’t. Not that it may not have been intentional. We’re very used to this kind of sophistry when it comes to apologies. Obviously, Blair is the master when it comes to this kind of thing, and of course where that man is concerned his lies relate to the violent deaths of countless men, women and children, whereas it has only been my dignity that has been dented.
And I was so indignant that I told two managers that I was not fit to call in the evening. After a chat with a few of the brothers and sisters that were very supportive, and particularly Mr “I’ll Take This Further” who seems to be far cooler than me in similar situations, I was laughing by the end of the break.
But the most important points were made by more experienced callers, who said I needed to keep the head. I should know better, I’ve kinda been here before but not for a long while and the conditions are slightly more stressful. Thanks brothers and sisters, wouldn’t be here or bothering my arse without your backing.

‘Call centres are the new dark satanic mills’

So says Mark Serwotka.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/apr/10/aida-edemariam-interview-mark-serwotka

And he’s not far wrong.

Only I prefer the description in Socialist Worker’s interview with a former call-centre worker in the South of England:

“I tell them that the call centres of today are like the factories of the Victorian era – they are the bright Satanic mills that have replaced the dark ones of the past.”

I spoke to Sarah (not her real name) recently. She was victimised and sacked shortly after  the article was published. A number of fantastic young activists at the call-centre bit the bullet fired by a vicious employer when workers were on the brink of winning union recognition.

Being an effective union activist brings with it the industrial hazard of the big boot up your arse from fearful managers:

note just a few:

Yunus Bakhsh

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=17206

Karen Reissman

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=17050

Pat Carmody

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=15584

I hope this blog helps to inform those wanting to take on the treacherously tricky but ultimately important and rewarding task of rebuilding our unions and union strength where it matters – in the workplace.

I am particularly interested in a 21st century new unionism: call-centres, migrant workers, young workers, places written off as unorganisable like the pub industry (where I see that the GMB are organising tied tenants to fight the wonderful invisible hand of the ‘free’ market which forces them to buy beer at double the wholesale prices – http://www.gmb.org.uk/newsroom/latest_news/tied_pub_tenants_lobby.aspx )

Kind of organising the “unorganisable” – although I won’t miss a chance to talk about other more established industries with higher union density.

And you might find some commentary on general politics, sport, a tiny dash of art, but probably loads of shite TV, old British movies and some half-decent music.

In other words, the ‘other’ content will be probably be dominated by what I score best at in Trivial Pursuit.

As for the trade union organising stuff, contributions that aid and debate this process are more than welcome.

Spying Pinkertons can fuck off.