The Landlord Parliament
115 MPs – 90 of them Tories – are landlords making thousands per year from privately-rented properties. The housing crisis won’t be solved until that changes.
Universal credit cut will hit millions of working families and key workers | TUC
The Government has now confirmed that £20 a week will be cut from Universal Credit in October.
Source: Universal credit cut will hit millions of working families and key workers | TUC
How Socialists Invented the Summer Holiday
In 1930s France, the labour movement made summer holidays a priority — and forced bosses to pay workers for time at the beach.
USDAW – A New Deal for Workers
Too many key workers are trying to exist on low pay, facing abuseevery day while trying to carry out their essential role.
Source: USDAW – A New Deal for Workers
Maxine Support for Bolton’s Winter Hill Anniversary
Bolton Actress, Maxine Peake is supporting plans to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Britain’s biggest rights of way dispute in September this year. Plans are underway to celebrate what is sometimes referred to as the Battle of Winter Hill in 1896. In September that year, thousands of people from Halliwell and surrounding areas of Bolton, took part in huge protests in defiance of wealthy landowner, Colonel Richard Ainsworth, after he blocked off public access to the moors to host private grouse shooting parties with his friends. For many working class people in the late 19th century, a Sunday morning walk on the moors, was their only respite from the noise and pollution of the mills and factories. There was widespread anger when public access to the moors was blocked. On Sunday 6th September 1896, thousands walked from the bottom of Halliwell Road, up Smithills Dean Roan and then via Coal Pit Road onto the moors, defying Colonel Ainsworth, demanding their right to access the moors of Winter Hill. Although the dispute was unsuccessful, years later Bolton Council took ownership of much of the land on Winter Hill, helping to ensure public rights of way. The events of 1896 had largely been forgotten until the early 1980s, when Bolton writer and historian, Paul Salveson, published his book, Will Yo’ Come O’ Sunday Mornin’ enabling people to learn the the story of 1896 and some of the leading characters involved.
A commemorative Winter Hill walk is planned from Halliwell in Bolton to Winter Hill on Sunday 5th September 2021, and people are being encouraged to take part. Organisers hope that after the difficulties of the pandemic during the past 18 months, the walk will be an opportunity for people to enjoy local moorland and celebrate local history. Other activities are being organised in conjunction with The Woodland Trust, Bolton Ramblers, Smithills Hall Museum and others.
Maxine Peake said, “I think it is really important that we remember Bolton’s battle for Winter Hill in 1896. This was an important fight by ordinary people to access local moorland. I was only eight when I went on my first commemorative walk in 1982 with my late mum Glenys and step-grandfather Jim. There was a real sense of camaraderie. People wanted to come together and celebrate an important chapter of working class history that could so easily be forgotten. The fight for the right to roam is as important today as it was in 1896. We must keep on fighting for better access to open spaces”.
People can find out more c/o the Winter Hill 125 Facebook group.
Guardian Article.
See below:
Bolton News Article.
The article below follows a successful public meeting with Guy Shrubsole, Nick Hayes, Katrina Navickas, Maxine Peake and Paul Salveson.
Salford Star Article.
See below:
https://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=6189
UNISON North West article.
See In Touch below:
John Trickett: Privatisation puts Health Before Wealth
“Profiteering from someone else’s ill health – ‘parasitic capitalism’ – is repulsive to most British people yet it is intrinsic to this Bill”
Acas statement on fire and rehire practices
8 June 2021
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) asked Acas to conduct an evidence gathering exercise to learn more about the use of fire and rehire practices. This has been published today and contains views from a range of participants about their experiences on the use of fire and rehire.
Acas Chief Executive, Susan Clews, said:
“Our findings provide valuable insight into the use of fire and rehire practices. We gathered a range of views from professional bodies with workplace expertise, including trade unions and employer organisations.
“Some of the participants told us about the business challenges of COVID-19 and how the use of fire and rehire can help reduce redundancies. Others believe that the practice is unacceptable, and that the pandemic has been used as a ‘smokescreen’ to diminish workers’ terms and conditions.
“There was also evidence that fire and rehire practices have been used for many years and predate the pandemic. We will take up the government’s request to produce further guidance that encourages good workplace practices when negotiating changes to staff contracts.”
Read the findings in ‘Dismissal and re-engagement (fire-and-rehire): a fact-finding exercise‘.
The future of flexible work
Genuine flexible working can be a win-win arrangement for both workers and employers. It can allow people to balance their work and home lives, is important in promoting equality at work and can lead to improved recruitment and retention of workers for employers.
There is a real appetite among workers for a range of flexible working options. Our research shows more than four out of five (82 per cent) workers in Britain want to work flexibly in the future, rising to 87 per cent amongst women workers. The most popular forms of flexible working desired in the future are remote working, flexi-time, and part-time work but workers would also like job sharing, annualised hours, term time only working, compressed hours and mutually-agreed predictable hours to be made available to them.
To meet this demand from workers, we need to negotiate new rules that provide fair flexibility for everyone.
Before the pandemic, there was deep inequality in access to genuine flexible working. Too many people in working-class occupations were closed out of genuine flexibility and instead had worse terms and conditions masquerading as ‘flexibility’ forced onto them in the form of zero-hours contracts and other forms of insecurity. This so-called ‘flexibility’ strips workers of rights and makes them face irregular hours and therefore irregular income. Work is offered at the whim of their employer and last-minute shift changes are the norm. Future flexibility must provide predictability, including regular shift patterns and notice of hours to address the damaging impacts of insecure work.
When workers try and access genuine, two-way flexibility, for example flexi-time, remote working and part-time work, three in ten of their requests for flexible working are turned down, with employers having an almost unfettered ability to do so, given the breadth of the statutory “business reasons” that can currently be used to justify a refusal[1]. The most popular form of flexibility, flexi-time is unavailable to over half (58 per cent) of the UK workforce. This number rises to nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) for people in working-class occupations[2].
The experience of the pandemic has significantly changed the landscape of flexible working. Since March 2020 all those who could work from home were expected to do so. This has brought about a popular narrative of home working being the common experience of the pandemic. All attention around flexible working is focused on the needs and experience of the third of the workforce who worked from home during the pandemic. Those who have worked from home are more likely to be in higher paid occupations and from London and the Southeast[3]. However, over half of the workforce continued to work outside the home. These workers have not been able to access the flexibility available to home workers. With the exception of home working, all forms of flexible working have fallen over the past year, meaning that has been even harder than before for these workers to access flexible working arrangements[4].
As we exit the pandemic there is a real risk of a class and geographical divide being created between the flexible working haves and have nots. A recent survey of employers suggests that employers are more likely to not offer flexible work to staff who could not work from home during the pandemic. One in six (16 per cent) of employers surveyed said that after the pandemic, they will not offer flexible working opportunities to staff who could not work from home during the pandemic. This compares to one in sixteen (6 per cent) saying they will not offer flexible working opportunities to those who did work from home in the pandemic.
We cannot allow flexible working to become a perk for the favoured few – offered to a minority of the workforce who are able to work from home – and serving to reinforce existing inequalities.
As well as ensuring that there is fair access to flexible working, we need to make sure that flexible working benefits workers, helping them balance their work and home lives.
Demand for remote working has been transformed by the experiences of enforced home working during the pandemic. More than nine out of ten (91 per cent) of those who worked from home during the pandemic want to spend at least some of the time working remotely, with only one in 25 (4 per cent) preferring to work from an external workplace full time.
We need to ensure that as businesses respond to this demand, new flexibilities are implemented fairly, and address the challenges as well as opportunities of this form of work. Steps need to be taken to ensure that, after the pandemic, the experience of those working from home does not mirror the damaging one sided ‘flexibility’ experienced by so many on zero-hours contracts, with arrangements imposed that only benefit employers. Increased access to remote working must not come at the price of reductions to workers pay, increased intrusive remote surveillance, unsafe working environments, lack of access to union representatives, an increase in unpaid hours worked and draining, always-on cultures. No worker should denied the ability to return to working from an external workplace and be forced to work from home as the result of money saving office closures.
We believe trade unions are best placed to work with employers to ensure competing demands are reconciled and workers needs met. These include responding to the organisational challenges that new forms of flexibility can impose, including responding to production cycles and public demand for services. Trade unions have long experience of negotiating collective solutions to these problems that balance workers’ and business needs.
The government must set out a strategy on the future of flexible work and its integral role in shaping a better and more equal recovery for workers following the pandemic. This should include how they aim to respond to the impacts that increased remote working may have on transport, retail, hospitality and other sectors potentially affected by decreased office working in city centres. Increased levels of remote working could have substantial adverse effects for other workers in these sectors. The government’s strategy must include steps to ensure that the jobs of those who may be impacted by lower levels of office-based working are not threatened.
There is widespread recognition of the fact that the current legislative framework in relation to flexible working wasn’t working effectively before the pandemic. The government itself has highlighted the need for change in its 2019 manifesto commitment to make flexible working the default. We need the government to act without delay to introduce their long-promised Employment Bill and strengthen workers’ rights in a range of areas to make sure we have a system of genuine flexible working that works for all workers.
[1] https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/2019-10/BEISFlexibleworking.pdf
[2] https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/2019-10/BEISFlexibleworking.pdf
[3]https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/labourproductivity/articles/homeworkinghoursrewardsandopportunitiesintheuk2011to2020/2021-04-19#characteristics-and-location-of-homeworkers
[4] https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/flexible-working/flexible-working-impact-covid
Bolton TUC 