Brown's Attack on Pay and Trade Union Rights
As you may have read on the front page of the Daily Mirror today, I issued a statement yesterday about Brown's pay cut for millions of our public sector workers:
"This pay cut from the Chancellor for public service workers will further alienate millions of Labour's natural supporters.
"If we want good public services, those who work in them must have decent levels of pay which properly reflects their contribution.
"People will fail to understand how we can spend billions of pounds on Trident whilst cutting public sector pay."
Yesterday I was at a packed rally in Parliament marking the publication of the Trade Union Rights and Freedoms Bill which I have been taking through the House of Commons as a Private Members Bill. Those speaking at the rally included Tony Benn, Tony Woodley, Katy Clark MP, Bob Crow, Matt Wrack, Roger Klein and John Hendy QC. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and determination to support a bill which is, after all, supported by Labour Party Conference and the TUC.
The Bill was due to be introduced today, along with Paul Farrelly's superb Bill extending the rights of agency and temporary workers. Like the Trade Union Freedom Bill, this piece of legislation has already received massive support from Labour backbenchers.
You can imagine how angry I was today at the tactics used by the Government to prevent both Bills progressing. Deliberate filibustering has been used in order to ensure that no vote was taken on either Bill. The passage of both Bills would be a major step forwards for millions of workers in this country - and would provide a major boost for the Labour party at a time when there is such massive disillusionment among our supporters.
We'll be taking both Bills back to Parliament in October. Between now and then, we'll continue to mobilise for these campaigns and press the Government to accept these legislative proposals.
UPDATE: We've uploaded a video clip of me setting out my commitment to restoring trade union rights - keep checking back for new clips.
"This pay cut from the Chancellor for public service workers will further alienate millions of Labour's natural supporters.
"If we want good public services, those who work in them must have decent levels of pay which properly reflects their contribution.
"People will fail to understand how we can spend billions of pounds on Trident whilst cutting public sector pay."
Yesterday I was at a packed rally in Parliament marking the publication of the Trade Union Rights and Freedoms Bill which I have been taking through the House of Commons as a Private Members Bill. Those speaking at the rally included Tony Benn, Tony Woodley, Katy Clark MP, Bob Crow, Matt Wrack, Roger Klein and John Hendy QC. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and determination to support a bill which is, after all, supported by Labour Party Conference and the TUC.
The Bill was due to be introduced today, along with Paul Farrelly's superb Bill extending the rights of agency and temporary workers. Like the Trade Union Freedom Bill, this piece of legislation has already received massive support from Labour backbenchers.
You can imagine how angry I was today at the tactics used by the Government to prevent both Bills progressing. Deliberate filibustering has been used in order to ensure that no vote was taken on either Bill. The passage of both Bills would be a major step forwards for millions of workers in this country - and would provide a major boost for the Labour party at a time when there is such massive disillusionment among our supporters.
We'll be taking both Bills back to Parliament in October. Between now and then, we'll continue to mobilise for these campaigns and press the Government to accept these legislative proposals.
UPDATE: We've uploaded a video clip of me setting out my commitment to restoring trade union rights - keep checking back for new clips.
posted by John at 1:29 PM
5 Comments:
It's now up to the major unions to get on board with this campaign .
How can they tacitly support Gordon Brown when he seems to be moving further to the right by the day.Clearly, Brown thinks he can get away with anything but, astoday's Daily Mirror front page showe, there will be a temendous backlash agianst Brown's latest public sector cuts.It can only boost this campaign.
I remain hopeful that the work being done by John on the Trade Union Freedom Bill will ensure some serious pressure is put upon the general Secretaries to stand firm and support a leadership candidates who is on their side.
I've always believed that once John gets on the ballot paper that the left wing MPs of all persuasions will rally round to support him; look at what happened when Ken Livingstone stood as Mayor.
I've been unable to attend the meetings this week but if good turnouts continue I'd expect more media attention; look at the time Neswnight has just given to the issue of Ming Campbell's leadership at their Spring conference I was waiting for the news headlines but it went on for so long I started to doze off, no offence to Ming Campbell!!
The more advoiding tactics the Blairites use whether blocking discussion of John's legislation, not letting him speak at conference or telling the media that the only credible leadership candidate is Brown or whatever they are doing the more I wonder what they are frightened of; it shows more about them than about any possible opposition to our policies dosen't it? It shows them to be timid and on the defensive; they are shooting themselves in the foot as it were. By the way I rang for a conference visitor's form a good two weeks ago and haven't had it; I'm pretty sure I had to ring more than once last year as well. You can print them from the website but my printer is off. Last year they seemed to think I was a corporate visitor so I explained that no I was just an ordinary member but this year they asked for my membership number which I gave. Now I've found my password I'll try the website before I put forward any conspiracy theories though. Maybe they just think everybody has access to fully working IT all the time!
Hope the NHS Day of Action is very successful tomorrow!
Stop Press!
I was just switching off BBC News 24 when I heard the breaking news that the BBC has been banned from reporting the latest hearing on the No 10 honours enquiry!!
Is free speech dead in this country!!
Stop Press!
I was just switching off BBC News 24 when I heard the breaking news that the BBC has been banned from reporting the latest hearing on the No 10 honours enquiry!!
Is free speech dead in this country!!
Is free speech dead in this country!!
Oh, the irony ... ;)
To answer your question, a little something about not prejudicing any future trial, perhaps?
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