London’s firefighters have called off the strike they had planned for tomorrow (Friday) after bosses agreed to go to arbitration.
The FBU union had planned to strike for 47 hours from 10am tomorrow, Bonfire Night, over bosses’ plans to sack all 5,500 London firefighters to force through worse shifts would lead to cuts to night-time fire cover.
But the union called the strike off tonight after the fire authority made a new offer and agreed to take it to arbitration at the Resolution Advisory Panel (RAP).
While they are in the arbitration, which is non-binding, the fire authority bosses have agreed to delay the mass sackings – although they have not been withdrawn.
This means that the London firefighters’ two eight-hour strikes so far have succeeded in getting a better offer – 13-hour night shifts and 11-hour days, with no "strings”. And this offer may be slightly improved during the arbitration process.
Bosses had originally wanted to change the firefighters’ existing 15-hour night and 9-hour day to an equal 12-hour day and night.
The fact that the bosses made a new offer at all shows that the Bonfire Night strike plan had them on the back foot. They knew how effective it would be, and how inadequate their scabbing operation is – which is why they have spent the last week waging war on the union in the media.
That’s why it was a mistake to call off the strikes. The union has clearly won some concessions – but it has lost the momentum it had on its side, and missed a key opportunity to stretch the private AssetCo scabbing operation beyond breaking point.
I have copied that exert from the socialist workers website. sums things up brilliantly to me. I am tentively pleased about this move. I think there was growing opposition to the firefighters striking on bonfire night, although i on a personal level was in favour of this, due to the pressure it heaped on the London fire brigade to sort this. I think this has ultimatly lead to this decision to take the dispute to the court of arbitration.
I can only commend the firefighters and their excellent professional attitude throughout this dispute. They have come out with their pride held high. They havent revertedt o smear tactics via the media like Brian coleman and his LFB boss's have clearly done.
I just hope now that the sacking notices can be fully retracted and they can all get around the table and thrash out a good deal for everyone concerned.
I'm pleased there will be no strike on bonfire night as this assures a win for the firefighters and teh firefighters union to keep public support on their side. I have been reminded constantly by fellow comrades on twitter that public support is key in any union vs management dispute so i'm glad that this will further strengthen the firefighters case and hopefully the unions too.
subscribe to this blog:
Posts
All Comments
Showing posts with label political. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political. Show all posts
Friday, 5 November 2010
Monday, 13 September 2010
exposing the DWP and their techniques
following reading this article http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/03/11/liberal-conspiracy-briefing-exposing-the-dwps-lie-detector-testing/
i feel that this is a profoundly unfair and unreliable method of testing people for fradulant claiments.
In the article it mentions that the lie detectors taht have b een broguht in from America to test benifit claiments is over 60 % inaccurate. meaning that alot of people will be found to be commiting fraud wrongly. I know cuts have to be made and benifit cheats need to be dealt with but to use unreliable methods and tests is just unfair. Surely there must be better and more reliable ways of means testing if someone is entitled to claim for benifits?
i feel that this is a profoundly unfair and unreliable method of testing people for fradulant claiments.
In the article it mentions that the lie detectors taht have b een broguht in from America to test benifit claiments is over 60 % inaccurate. meaning that alot of people will be found to be commiting fraud wrongly. I know cuts have to be made and benifit cheats need to be dealt with but to use unreliable methods and tests is just unfair. Surely there must be better and more reliable ways of means testing if someone is entitled to claim for benifits?
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Imigration in the UK and my views
Hello and welcome to another addition of my blog. Feel free if you have read this and agree or even disagree with my blog please tag me and link me to other blogs you feel i'd like and would be interested in waht i have to say.
As a young active voter imigration matters to me and to others in this country
On this issue and probably this issue alone i vear towards the right a little in this political view, please dont stop rading as it is not extreme at all. In fact it is standing up for the true british white, working class.
A section of the british people who have been totally forgotton about i feel in recent years. Lets look at the social housing market, council housing. Although at the moment we can look at it and see thatl ots of white british young teenage mums are getting council housing this is not exactly the case. I dont want to appear racist as i am not at all. but there is this thought in a lot of britain that Labour and any potential government cannot ignore that the white working class traditional british are being over looked in favour of new imigrants be it from eastern europe or elsewhere.
I use eastern europe as a example mearly because of the recent mass influx of eastern europeans into the Uk in recent years.
I for not one moment am suggesting imigratin is a bad thing, of course we must take waht is good about these new people to our country and use them in the best way we can. THis includes getting them into worka s soon as they can and getting them paying tax as soon as we can. I wouldnt mind guessing due to large amounts of imigration, a lot of it unfiltered or monitored during the last 5 to 10 years can account for a lot of money going out of the econemy to keep these people alive and in a safe place. If we could somehow transform these people who have arrived here from far away into good british citizens and prepare them for work of any sort this could alliviate some of teh bad feeling towards this part of society.
I unlike a lot of labour voters will never be scared to stand up and recognise this problem we encountered during our time in office. We cannot ignore this issue and run from it. It happened under our government so we must feel partly responsible. Even if we were not totally to blame. The EU have a lot to answer to aswell i feel too.
Another problem i woudl love us to tackle which does unfortunatly i hate to say this agree with David Camerons broken Britain idea. The reason a lot of white british people are not finding work and the newly moved in imigrants are findign work is simply they want to work and the british do not want to, or not at least for the pooer wages. A question to you all, how can we promote and encourage british workers back into work, even if it is not the greatest work but it is a wage, jobs that otherwise the imigrants would fill i'm sure of it. maybe this could be anotehr way of getting our econemy back on its feet, avoiding huge cuts. Labour people, if we can get british workers back in to work, even if it is the lower end jobs, if it is in place of imigrant workers i think we should do this. Imigrant workers will soon see that the british want their country back and want to work for us again and work our way our of this financial mess. Could this be the key to it all, solving crime by getting the lower class's and working class's back into work by prioritising british workers over foreign workers fora few years at least just to get people in this country working again and off the dol. surely even if for a little while getting british workers a better deal in work than on benifits will save us huge amounts of money.
I am sure and so are many that the good british citizen wants to work and will work very hard, ok the wages they can get are not the best on lower end jobs and foreign workers will work for that money instead, maybe instead of raising wages at the lower end we could give companies who would like to employ british workers again a tax break of a few percent, as a incientive to encourage british workers back into work. even in the smaller end jobs. It woudl not be forever as they would be given chances to move up the companies to better themselves.
As a Labour supporter i bring in fairness now. I would bring back fairness to the system by reincluding british workers and the good british public in the system, for a number of years now they have been forgotten about, on housing, jobs andother public services, british people will once again gain a say under my vision for Labour in the future. If british people are given the chance and turn it down then the newly welcomed foreign imigrants are then given a chance. I feel labour will gain back a lot of votes if we branch out to key british voters who feel they have been left behind some what in the last few years, at least offering the chance to include them in the system properly again will maybe bring a lot more voters back to Labour, If we can get it across to them that we are really on their side once again. Listening, just as Ed balls said in a recent interview, we must reengage and listen to the public, every part of them, even our very own flesh and blood.
As a young active voter imigration matters to me and to others in this country
On this issue and probably this issue alone i vear towards the right a little in this political view, please dont stop rading as it is not extreme at all. In fact it is standing up for the true british white, working class.
A section of the british people who have been totally forgotton about i feel in recent years. Lets look at the social housing market, council housing. Although at the moment we can look at it and see thatl ots of white british young teenage mums are getting council housing this is not exactly the case. I dont want to appear racist as i am not at all. but there is this thought in a lot of britain that Labour and any potential government cannot ignore that the white working class traditional british are being over looked in favour of new imigrants be it from eastern europe or elsewhere.
I use eastern europe as a example mearly because of the recent mass influx of eastern europeans into the Uk in recent years.
I for not one moment am suggesting imigratin is a bad thing, of course we must take waht is good about these new people to our country and use them in the best way we can. THis includes getting them into worka s soon as they can and getting them paying tax as soon as we can. I wouldnt mind guessing due to large amounts of imigration, a lot of it unfiltered or monitored during the last 5 to 10 years can account for a lot of money going out of the econemy to keep these people alive and in a safe place. If we could somehow transform these people who have arrived here from far away into good british citizens and prepare them for work of any sort this could alliviate some of teh bad feeling towards this part of society.
I unlike a lot of labour voters will never be scared to stand up and recognise this problem we encountered during our time in office. We cannot ignore this issue and run from it. It happened under our government so we must feel partly responsible. Even if we were not totally to blame. The EU have a lot to answer to aswell i feel too.
Another problem i woudl love us to tackle which does unfortunatly i hate to say this agree with David Camerons broken Britain idea. The reason a lot of white british people are not finding work and the newly moved in imigrants are findign work is simply they want to work and the british do not want to, or not at least for the pooer wages. A question to you all, how can we promote and encourage british workers back into work, even if it is not the greatest work but it is a wage, jobs that otherwise the imigrants would fill i'm sure of it. maybe this could be anotehr way of getting our econemy back on its feet, avoiding huge cuts. Labour people, if we can get british workers back in to work, even if it is the lower end jobs, if it is in place of imigrant workers i think we should do this. Imigrant workers will soon see that the british want their country back and want to work for us again and work our way our of this financial mess. Could this be the key to it all, solving crime by getting the lower class's and working class's back into work by prioritising british workers over foreign workers fora few years at least just to get people in this country working again and off the dol. surely even if for a little while getting british workers a better deal in work than on benifits will save us huge amounts of money.
I am sure and so are many that the good british citizen wants to work and will work very hard, ok the wages they can get are not the best on lower end jobs and foreign workers will work for that money instead, maybe instead of raising wages at the lower end we could give companies who would like to employ british workers again a tax break of a few percent, as a incientive to encourage british workers back into work. even in the smaller end jobs. It woudl not be forever as they would be given chances to move up the companies to better themselves.
As a Labour supporter i bring in fairness now. I would bring back fairness to the system by reincluding british workers and the good british public in the system, for a number of years now they have been forgotten about, on housing, jobs andother public services, british people will once again gain a say under my vision for Labour in the future. If british people are given the chance and turn it down then the newly welcomed foreign imigrants are then given a chance. I feel labour will gain back a lot of votes if we branch out to key british voters who feel they have been left behind some what in the last few years, at least offering the chance to include them in the system properly again will maybe bring a lot more voters back to Labour, If we can get it across to them that we are really on their side once again. Listening, just as Ed balls said in a recent interview, we must reengage and listen to the public, every part of them, even our very own flesh and blood.
Last nights Hertford and Stortford CLP meeting, my view
Well last nights Local Hertford and Stortford CLP meeting was very interesting. This was my first time to Bishops Stortford and i enjoyed this visit to Pearces House on the outskirts of the town.
The meeting started slowly as so often these CLP meetings do i have found in my short time attending local ones.
The main topics of conversation were assessments from Steve Terry who was our local parliamentary candidate in the last election. Sadly i thought but i accept his reasons Steve is stepping down from this position citing the fact he has served longer than he wanted to he only initially wanted to stand for 6 weeks it turned out he stood as long as two years.
I would like to personally thank him for taking his time and working with us for the last two and a bit years. ALthought i am new to the party i can already recognise the hard work he put in. It is not a easy job to do fighting against such a strong tory majority in this area. It is very demoralising if your loosing everytime and goign into the election knowing yuo will not win.
I wish Steve all the very best in whatever he chooses to go on to do.I hope to meet him again one day.
As for the future of the party, Steve left the abiding message that we must appoint someone as our parliamentary candidate from within and someone who knows the area very well.
This in my view should be a young middle aged person who has lived in the area all their life. It is a tough job i admit but i would love to one day go for it. It will be good experience if i could ever get into the position to stand.
The point was raised last night that we may not be facing a 5 year term with the coalition, we could be being lurred into a situation where the tories call a quick snap election next year to reafirm their position while they ahve the publics support on their side. I hope this does not happen but can see the tories trying to ram home advantage and bunking off the lib dems in the same go.
The lib dems could well be inialated if they are not careful. Currently the polls stand at 45 percent for the tories, 35 for labour and only 15 percent for the lib dems. If the tories can grab those lib dem votes while there is much love between the parties they may well be able to form a overall majority and really sink home their deep harsh cuts with no trouble at all.
This is worrying and a little depressing i found last night. I was left wondering where is the fight left in this party and where do we go from here, Our CLP came to the decision not to nominate a leadership candidate this i found disapointing a a sad reflection on the 5 candidates we have standing for labour leader. Where do we go from here, i hear messages from the 5 candidates ut are any of them seriously leadership material and good enough to take on David Cameron who lets be f air is a very good and clever polititian. He has all the tricks in the book and i just cant see many of our 5 candidates standing up to him. THis was the feeling last night and i still think it is the overall feeling amoungst the party as a whole.
So we all take a break now for a month or so, both at CLP level and at national level with the MP's i hope whoever gets voted in as labour leader in september has the fight and the passion in them to bring more members to the party and get a movement going again. If not i really fear for the future of this party, which joining recently i really hoped i wouldnt be saying.
The meeting started slowly as so often these CLP meetings do i have found in my short time attending local ones.
The main topics of conversation were assessments from Steve Terry who was our local parliamentary candidate in the last election. Sadly i thought but i accept his reasons Steve is stepping down from this position citing the fact he has served longer than he wanted to he only initially wanted to stand for 6 weeks it turned out he stood as long as two years.
I would like to personally thank him for taking his time and working with us for the last two and a bit years. ALthought i am new to the party i can already recognise the hard work he put in. It is not a easy job to do fighting against such a strong tory majority in this area. It is very demoralising if your loosing everytime and goign into the election knowing yuo will not win.
I wish Steve all the very best in whatever he chooses to go on to do.I hope to meet him again one day.
As for the future of the party, Steve left the abiding message that we must appoint someone as our parliamentary candidate from within and someone who knows the area very well.
This in my view should be a young middle aged person who has lived in the area all their life. It is a tough job i admit but i would love to one day go for it. It will be good experience if i could ever get into the position to stand.
The point was raised last night that we may not be facing a 5 year term with the coalition, we could be being lurred into a situation where the tories call a quick snap election next year to reafirm their position while they ahve the publics support on their side. I hope this does not happen but can see the tories trying to ram home advantage and bunking off the lib dems in the same go.
The lib dems could well be inialated if they are not careful. Currently the polls stand at 45 percent for the tories, 35 for labour and only 15 percent for the lib dems. If the tories can grab those lib dem votes while there is much love between the parties they may well be able to form a overall majority and really sink home their deep harsh cuts with no trouble at all.
This is worrying and a little depressing i found last night. I was left wondering where is the fight left in this party and where do we go from here, Our CLP came to the decision not to nominate a leadership candidate this i found disapointing a a sad reflection on the 5 candidates we have standing for labour leader. Where do we go from here, i hear messages from the 5 candidates ut are any of them seriously leadership material and good enough to take on David Cameron who lets be f air is a very good and clever polititian. He has all the tricks in the book and i just cant see many of our 5 candidates standing up to him. THis was the feeling last night and i still think it is the overall feeling amoungst the party as a whole.
So we all take a break now for a month or so, both at CLP level and at national level with the MP's i hope whoever gets voted in as labour leader in september has the fight and the passion in them to bring more members to the party and get a movement going again. If not i really fear for the future of this party, which joining recently i really hoped i wouldnt be saying.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)