Author Archives: Kieran Crowe

Statement from BTUC and BAPS on Capita at Brent Council

Barnet Trades Council and Barnet Alliance for Public Services are concerned and dismayed that Brent Council wants to renew its contract with Capita. Our experience of Capita is that it has delivered appalling service and therefore we, together with our local Labour Party, are campaigning for all services run by Capita for Barnet to be brought in-house forthwith. #kickoutcapita is our grass-roots campaign.

Examples of Capita’s misdemeanours in Barnet include:

  • A two million pound fraud carried out by a Capita employee, Capita’s lax and opaque processes completely failed to detect
  • A call centre which has consistently failed to answer residents’ calls in the required time
  • Incorrectly withdrawing travel passes from disabled and vulnerable people
  • Actually cost taxpayers more money than in-house services would, through extra charges and “gainshare” payments designed to maximise their profits at public expense
  • Performed extremely poorly in audits of the council and brought down the overall standards of council services

We urge Brent Council not to renew its contract with Capita. Capita, along with other failed and failing outsourcing giants like Carillion and Interserve have proved to be entirely failed models. We want to Kick Out Capita from Barnet and bring all services back in-house and under local democratic control. Brent Council should do likewise. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell has spoken brilliantly about how properly funded, democratically accountable in-sourced public services are the future for the country and we agree. Together we are stronger.

Unite’s campaign to end bandit capitalism

Unite has launched a campaign to tackle bandit capitalism and stop Carillion-style collapses.

Unite is fighting to ensure that the untold human misery of being dumped out of work without warning caused by such collapses is tackled once and for all.

As part of the campaign Unite has produced the Ending bandit capitalism: learning the lessons following Carillion’s collapse blueprint to end vulture capitalists ruining public services and destroying livelihoods and to stop “too big to fail” outsourcing firms like Carillion imploding.

The blueprint contains a package of measures designed to introduce better regulations and stricter rules to prevent companies being able to embellish their accounts and provide an entirely false trading position – actions that had disastrous consequences for Carillion and its workforce.

Since Carillion’s collapse Unite has led the way in calling for action to be taken to bring those responsible for the company’s collapse to justice. Unite has called for a public inquiry into Carillion’s collapse and an immediate criminal investigation into those responsible.

Write to your MP calling on them to introduce legislation that adopts Unite’s recommendations, which include:

• Requiring directors to focus on the long-term welfare of the company rather than short-term profits

• New rules which bar companies from prioritising dividends, bonuses and director’s pay over reducing pension deficits

• A stop to the government awarding contracts to companies in financial difficulties

• Long-term support from the government for sub-contractors and supply chains if a major company collapses

• Radical reform of the entire financial regulatory system, with the number of regulators being reduced and those that remain being given real power and teeth

• An end to the current outsourcing culture, with contracts being brought back in house at the earliest opportunity

• A transformation of employment laws to ensure unions have access to workforces to organise workers and prevent exploitation

• A reduction of the number of legal hurdles that must be cleared before cases taken for workers employed by a company in compulsory liquidation can go forward

Petition: after the Tories suffer the biggest parliamentary defeat in history

The Tories’ chaotic handling of Brexit has left us with no choice: Jeremy Corbyn has called a vote of no confidence in Theresa May’s government.

We need a General Election now to break the Brexit deadlock. And a new government that can get a Brexit deal that actually delivers for working people.

We need a government that can pull our NHS out of crisis, keep our communities safe and invest in the towns and cities the Tories have left behind.

We need a Labour government.

If you agree, stand with us today. Sign here.

Rail: You haven’t been asked your opinion since 1994. Here’s your chance!

We’ve got three days to get public ownership on the table for our railways.

2018 was a disaster year for our railways, and the government are asking for suggestions.

This is the biggest review since privatisation. Let’s make sure they’re looking at public ownership to fix our broken railway.

Tell them what you want to see – but hurry! The deadline is this Friday 18th of January.

RMT Parliamentary demonstration & rally Tuesday 29th January 2019

Solidarity with our Tube Cleaners

RMT Parliamentary demonstration & rally

Tuesday 29th January 2019

5.00pm: (sharp) Demonstration opposite Parliament (Old Palace Yard, SW1P 3JY)

6.30pm: Rally in the Houses of Parliament

 

London Underground’s 3000 cleaners have been outsourced to global contractor ABM.

Despite working unsocial hours, in dirty and hazardous conditions, our cleaners are being treated less favourably compared to other workers directly employed by Underground.

That means inferior sick pay, holidays, pensions and travel facilities.

On top of this the cleaning workforce is set to be cut by a third from 3000 to 2000, piling the pressure on these hard-pressed workers.

RMT is holding a demo and rally at Parliament to demand:

  • No Cleaning Job Cuts
  • Equal Conditions with London Underground workers
  • Bring all cleaning work in-house.

 

Sentencing Solidarity with Stansted 15

In March 2017, 15 people peacefully stopped a secretive deportation flight from leaving. After a 10 week trial they were found guilty of a terror-related charge. Join us outside Chelmsford Crown Court to stand with the Stansted 15 as they face sentencing and to demand an end to brutal deportation flights, inhumane indefinite detention, and the hostile environment.

Date:  February 4
Time: 8:30 am – 11:30 am
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/735004523524622/?ti=icl
http://enddeportations.com/

Thurs 31 Jan Rally at NHS England Board to say 10 year plan unfit for purpose

The Government’s new 10 year plan for the NHS is unfit for purpose and it’s a key moment to signal to NHS England that we’ll opposing their plans to cut, ration, privatise, sell-off, outsource every step of the way. National Keep Our NHS Public has now launched a Facebook event to support the action called by Lambeth KONP
Please share widely:

Barnet Trades Council review of 2018

am writing on behalf of Barnet Trades Union Council to report on our activities and ask your union branch to affiliate for the new year.

For our trades council, 2018 has been dominated by one crucial issue: the crisis of outsourcing giant Capita amidst the collapse of similar companies, starting with Carillion. Carillion’s demise set the stage for a renewed offensive against Tory outsourcing in our borough, and thanks to strong solidarity from the shadow chancellor, we set about gaining support in our communities for kicking out Capita from Barnet.

Barnet TUC activists succeeded in passing motions calling for outsourcing to be reversed in two out of the three Constituency Labour Parties in Barnet and participated actively in Labour’s local election campaign. Unfortunately, Barnet, like a lot of the country, did not have an election with a strong local debate about austerity and simply did not see the turnout we needed. To our deep disappointment, the Tories won the local council yet again. Their victory, however, was soon to be marred by issues that resulted from their own failed policies. A particular irony is that they had significantly gained votes last minute by claiming that Labour would not protect bin collection, only for them to cut this themselves due to their own inadequate refuse policies – an issue we had been campaigning on in February!

We didn’t mourn after the election, we organised. We got John McDonnell to come to Barnet to relaunch the Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS) as a non-partisan campaign to #kickoutcapita. The launch meeting in May was a huge success and we mobilised both at council meetings and Capita’s AGM. The tide of opinion was clearly turning against both the Conservatives and Capita by June’s Policy and Resource committee of the council.

We continued the pressure as the year went on, having an excellent (and star-studded) public enquiry at Parliament on the 6th of November. Events moved quicker even than we expected, as it was exposed that Capita’s hopeless culture of corporate unaccountability had enabled an employee to commit a massive fraud. Barnet Council was forced to conduct an enquiry, then did not want to make the findings public. We demanded and succeeded in getting them to reverse this decision. We saw the year out by doing pro-public services carolling at Hendon Town Hall, ready to keep going next year and until we force Barnet council to reverse the disaster of outsourcing.

Other protests and events we have been helping to organise:

  • On the 11th January, we mobilised for a protest of local parking workers to get their service returned to the public sector at the council’s planning meeting
  • In February, we organised solidarity collections for striking higher education workers.
  • Also in February, we started a campaign to highlight the Tory council’s neglect of bin and rubbish collection services, months before this became a borough-wide scandal (as mentioned).
  • Again in February, we petitioned alongside our postal workers to save North Finchley post office.
  • In March, Jeremy Corbyn was able to highlight our struggle over Capita in a question in Parliament.
  • In May we mobilised solidarity with hospitality workers striking to organise their sector, as well as for the TUC demonstration.
  • We delivered large delegations for the NHS 70 demo in June as well as for the counter-demonstration to the far-right lead by “Tommy Robinson”.
  • In August, we supported fundraising for precarious cleaning staff in the Ministry of Justice and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
  • In September we worked with BAPS to have an excellent public meeting with the London Renters Union and Grenfell activists on housing.
  • Also in September, we stood in solidarity with the Cricklewood Islamic centre after a shocking racist attack.
  • In October, we supported the McStikers once again up the road from McDonald’s headquarters in Finchley.
  • On the 20th of November we mobilised for the for the March for Education.
  • Throughout the year we had a presence at the monthly Grenfell Silent Walks.

Information about more our activities is available on our website.

BAPS Kick Out Capita meeting Tues 15 Jan 6.30 pm

On Tuesday 15 January at 6.30 pm, Greek Cypriot Centre, BAPS is meeting to discuss how to produce a guide to complete the Barnet Council Capita consultation.

https://engage.barnet.gov.uk/strategic-contract-review

The online consultation survey is here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/barnet-strategic-contract

Attached – the questionnaire in PDF for ease of consideration, courtesy of Derek Dishman – Mr Mustard.

The purpose of the meeting is to agree a resident’s guide to completing the survey.

We will need to widely circulate the guide to as many residents as possible.

Time permitting we will also discuss #Bingate.

Please try to circulate the BAPS meeting and the content through all your contact lists etc.

See you all on Tuesday.

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