No to racist neo-liberal politics!

North West ARMS congratulates the thousands in Liverpool and the millions internationally who demonstrated against arch-capitalist Trump and all his reactionary works. In opposing Trump they expressed their desire for a better society rid of prejudice and hate. This noble objective inspired the women who blazed this trail of opposition to the most appalling figure ever to occupy the White House.

The leaders of the Trade Union and Labour Movement should take a leaf out of their book and start organising seriously now against a Tory government which uses similar racist sentiments to blame immigration for pressure on public services in order to divert blame from the real cause which is their programme of savage cuts.

Tony Mulhearn
ARMS

Defend Our NHS demo, Liverpool

There is a national event in London on 28 January, but locally Defend Our NHS have organised a HOWL and protest in Liverpool city centre on the same day:

• Saturday 28 January 2017.
• 12.00 midday.
• Outside Primark, 48-56 Church Street, Liverpool L1 3AY.

If you can't attend, why not do a THUNDERCLAP and share your outrage at these attacks on our NHS? Details here.

Please tell PCS ARMS NW if there are any other Save the NHS demos on the North West so that they can be publicised on this blog.

"She only makes the teas ..."

The government has published a list of the strangest excuses given by employers for failing to pay the National Minimum Wage (NMW).

The list was published last week to coincide with a new awareness campaign to encourage workers to check their pay to ensure they are receiving at least the statutory minimum ahead of the national minimum and national living wages rising on 1 April 2017.

The list of excuses included the following:

• The employee wasn’t a good worker so I didn’t think they deserved to be paid the NMW.
• I thought it was OK to pay foreign workers below the NMW as they aren’t British.
• The employee didn’t deserve the NMW because she only makes the teas and sweeps the floors.
• I’ve got an agreement with my workers that I won’t pay them the NMW; they understand and they even signed a contract to this effect.
• My workers like to think of themselves as being self-employed and the NMW doesn’t apply to people who work for themselves.
• My workers are often just on standby when there are no customers in the shop; I only pay them for when they’re actually serving someone.
• My employee is still learning so they aren’t entitled to the NMW.
• The NMW doesn’t apply to my business.

By law, all workers must be paid at least £7.20 an hour if they are aged 25 years and over, or the National Minimum Wage rate relevant to their age if they are younger. From 1 April 2017, the NMW rate will increase to:

• £3.50 per hour for apprentices (an increase of 10p)
• £4.05 per hour for 16 to 17 year olds (an increase of 5p)
• £5.60 per hour for 18 to 20 year olds (an increase of 5p)
• £7.05 per hour for 21 to 24 year olds (an increase of 10p)

The National Living Wage rate will increase to £7.50 per hour for those aged 25 and over.

Jo Seery of Thompsons Solicitors said: "Workers have been entitled to the National Minimum Wage for more than 17 years so there is no excuse for employers to pay below the legal entitlement. Yet according to the National Audit office, some 58,000 workers in 2015-2016 were underpaid the National Minimum Wage. This compares with just 3 out of 700 employers who were prosecuted for failing to pay the National Minimum Wage. In response the Government has launched a £1.7 million advertisement campaign to raise awareness but it needs to take immediate action to ensure the law is properly enforced."

'Borrowed' from Thompsons Solicitors newsletter 18 January 2017.

EHRC picket 18 January - call for support

PCS is in dispute alongside colleagues in Unite after Equality and Human Rights Commission were told to expect budget cuts of 25%, on top of the 70% cut since 2010. Nineteen of the first 26 posts due to be axed are held by staff in the three lowest paid grades, meaning the government body responsible for protecting vulnerable workers is itself disproportionately targeting older, ethnic minority and disabled staff.

The commission's new structure would mean fewer caseworkers supporting victims of discrimination and the closure of offices in Birmingham, Leeds, Edinburgh and Newcastle. There will also be the loss of the conciliation service and grants programme. This is undermining the EHRC's statuary responsibilities to encourage equality and diversity, eliminate discrimination and protect the human rights of everyone in Britain.

PCS members have been supporting staff on the picket lines during their strike action. We ask for your support for the next day of action on Wednesday 18.1.17. If you can, please come along to the picket line on Corporation Street/Cross Street opposite Next, Arndale House, Manchester M4 3AQ between 7.00am and 10.15am.

Kind regards

Donna Henners
PCS
Band 2 Organising Officer
0151 298 3900

Defend The Women's Hospital

A call for support from TUSC:

The Women's Hospital remains under serious threat. The assurances given by Mayor Anderson at a previous meeting that the Women’s would be protected need to be reaffirmed. The privateers and Tory agents in the NHS continue to sharpen their knives and spread confusion.

TUSC supports the call for a mass presence at the lobby of the extraordinary City Council Health and Wellbeing Committee meeting tomorrow Tuesday 10 January in Cunard Building. Now the proposals have been announced the fight really begins. Please assemble from 4.30pm onwards. A strong lobby, supported by your placards and banners will underline the magnificent support which exists for the present Women’s Hospital.

Roger Bannister, TUSC candidate for Liverpool mayor in May 2016, says "It is clear that, at this critical juncture, the Campaign to save the Women’s needs maximum support, and this I unequivocally pledge."

For further information, contact:

• Daren Ireland on 07787128498
• Dave Walsh on 07969511796
• Tony Mulhearn on 07939098455

E-mail: Merseysidetusc@gmail.com

Next NW ARMS Regional meeting

The NW committee holds meetings around the region to increase accessibility for all members. All meetings are open to any members who wish to attend.

The next meeting is in Preston:

• Wednesday 11 January 2017.
• 11:30 am to 2:30 pm.
• The Disability Equality North West office, 103-104 Church Street, Preston, PR1 3BS.

All members are welcome to attend, especially those from the Lancashire area, as we will be seeking to form a Lancashire ARMs Group in the near future.

A message from the General Secretary

It’s been quite a year for our union – and for me personally. You might already know that I had a heart transplant at the end of November and I am writing this from my ward at the wonderful Papworth Hospital – although I'll be back home very soon.

Words cannot express how much strength I have taken from the love and support of my wife, Ruth, and children Imogen and Rhys. I also want to repeat my admiration for the truly world-class team here at Papworth who deserve all the praise they get.

It’s been a tough year in many ways, with fresh attacks from the Tories on your terms and conditions at work. But we have won some notable successes – again fighting off the Land Registry privatisation and bringing an end to the most unpleasant aspects of performance management in the civil service.

I hope you find time to relax and enjoy yourself over the festive break. I wish you a very happy Christmas and here’s to a successful new year.

Mark Serwotka

The answer to the crisis in social care?

Tony Mulhearn of NW ARMS wrote this letter to The Observer:

Yet another investigation in addition to at least ten similar reports this year (Observer 11/12/16) confirms that which everybody with a smidgeon of awareness knows - that there is a crisis in social care. This crisis was inevitable since this fat cats’ government seized on the banker-induced economic crash of 2008 as an excuse to slash expenditure on social provision which is demanded by the wealthiest one per cent who bankroll the Tory Party, and whose income has increased exponentially as the working class’s has declined.

Local authorities like Liverpool have butchered social care by complying with Tory cuts, and a further cut of £90million is promised which in the words of Mayor Anderson could see Liverpool council unable to provide even statutory provision for deprived children and the elderly.

Teresa May attempts to disguise the brutal agenda of her government by feigning sympathy with, in her words, 'ordinary, working-class families, not the wealthy, that had made the biggest sacrifices' since the financial crash. The following week her Chancellor Hammond promised no let-up in the Tory programme of everlasting cuts.

The solution proposed in your comment page merely fiddles with the problem. Certainly political will is required, but to do what? Reversing the cuts in inheritance tax is a start, but what about collecting the taxes being dodged on an industrial scale and increasing the taxes of the top 1%. The immediate cancellation of all PFI payments would yield millions for the NHS and social care.

These measures could be given teeth by 6,500 Labour councillors refusing to carry out any further Tory cuts, supported by a massive programme of industrial action to be initiated by the TUC in defence of those in society who are least able to defend themselves. 

Tony Mulhearn

News updates - from the web

Our regular round up of relevant news items, selected by Steve Ion of NW ARMS.

Life expectancy rises but health failing - here.

No money for WASPI women as too expensive - here.

"Pensions time bomb" say financial advisers - here.

Millions paid to social care companies despite crisis in standards - here.

Care homes crisis: private providers returning contracts to councils - here.

And winner in the Lying Propaganda Category is the Telegraph, which asserts that UK 'pensions apartheid' is the worst in the developed world: "The UK is the only country where civil servants will enjoy pensions worth more than 100pc of their final salary".
One ARMS NW committee member calculates he is owed arrears of at least £112,000.

To see more, click here.

NHS: Victory for Opponents of STPs

TUSC recognises that organisations campaigning against attacks on the NHS can celebrate an important success in preventing almost £1billion of cuts to the NHS on Merseyside under the grotesque Tory misnomer of the Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs).

Several hundred NHS supporters lobbied the Health and Wellbeing Board on Thursday 1 December at which Chairman Joe Anderson declared the Liverpool City Council’s total opposition to this plan of the Tories to dismantle the NHS in the region and to hand out more contracts to their friends in the private sector.

Mayor Anderson was also asked to give a commitment to oppose the closure of the Women’s Hospital which he did. There was also a call for the Mayor to organise a national assembly of councils to collectively oppose the latest Tory plans to wreck the NHS. This decision represents a step forward by the campaigns to Keep Our NHS Public and to oppose the closure of the Women’s Hospital.

But everybody campaigning against the Tories are fully aware that this fat cats’ government will press on with their attacks on the NHS and on the poor and needy. That’s why TUSC supports the Liverpool TUC in calling on all organisations defending the NHS and opposing Austerity to come together to discuss the next stage of the struggle.

Tony Mulhearn

ARMS NW