Nippon Express Dispute: Gate Gourmet All Over Again?

Two years on from the summer when the Gate Gourmet dispute broke out in my constituency a similar industrial dispute has been provoked at Nippon Express.

Just like Gate Gourmet Nippon Express is seeking to impose effectively a new contract of employment on a group of its workers.

The company is demanding that the workers work 44 days a year extra a year, overtime rates on Sunday are cut by 25%, shift pay is cut by £326 on day shifts and £512 night shifts, and the introduction of new working rosters resulting in wage cuts with some losing £1265 in shift pay.

On top of this the company is proposing an annual less than inflation wage settlement of 1.7%.

Another similarity with Gate Gourmet is that the union involved is the TGWU.

More interestingly and I suppose less of a coincidence is that the management involved in the chain of events leading to this dispute have come from Gate Gourmet!

The TGWU are urging the company to join it in an approach to ACAS to seek arbitration. I have written to the Managing Director of Nippon Express calling upon the company to agree to arbitration.

Neither the Labour and Trade Union movement nor the Government will want to see another Gate Gourmet but unless pressure is brought to bear on the company now to seek a negotiated settlement, that is exactly what is in prospect.

Left Must Challenge for the Leadership of Scottish Labour Party

On Sunday the Campaign for Socialism, the organised Labour and Trade Union Left in Scotland, meets to discuss whether there should be a Left candidate in the leadership election in Scotland now that Jack McConnell has announced he is off to a foreign posting in sunnier climes. The media have already taken it for granted that the election of Gordon Brown's candidate, Wendy Alexander, will be a virtual Brown-like coronation. In fact Alexander is using the same "clunking fist" strategy as Brown did himself by trying to sweep up as many nominations as soon as possible to prevent any opportunity for another candidate to secure sufficient nominations to stand.

It is clearly for the Scottish Left to decide whether to field a candidate and having failed to secure sufficient nominations to even get onto the Labour Party ballot paper against Brown I render advice with some trepidation. Nevertheless I urge the Left in Scotland to do all it can to secure an election and to promote a Left candidate.

The reasons are pretty straightforward. A Left leadership challenge would not only be in the interests of democracy within the Labour Party by giving rank and file members a say over the party's future it would also enable the Left to articulate an alternative political analysis and policy agenda to the programme developed by Alexander and New Labour in Scotland, which has so recently lost Labour control of the Scottish Executive.

The potential for success for the Left in Scotland is considerably greater than within the Labour Party in England. The argument that Gordon Brown controls Scotland and the Scottish Labour Party like some fiefdom no longer carries the same weight given the poor results of Scottish UK Parliamentary byelections whose campaigns he controlled and the party's performance in the Scottish Parliamentary elections which his people also ran.

There is also a real danger for the Labour party in Scotland if it is seen by the electorate that Brown is installing in effect a puppet regime in place, led by a puppet leader readily controlled from Number 10. You can see now the way Alex Salmond would ruthlessly exploit the installation of Brown's candidate, Wendy Alexnader, in position, especially without a deocratic election within the party.

In a Scottish leadership election the Left would have the added advantages that the trade unions are significantly more independent than in England, exemplified by the formal support from UNISON in Scotland for my own candidature; something that was rendered impossible in England by the UNISON leadership's close relationship to Brown.

The Labour Left centred around the Campaign for Socialism is well organised and has been successful in stimulating a broad based discussion around what socialism means in the modern Scottish setting. Members of CfS played a key role in the publication of "The Red Paper on Scotland" which is a quality piece of work setting out an interesting and hard nosed assessment of progress since the original Red Paper 30 years on, edited then by of all people a self proclaimed radical socialist called Gordon Brown.

The general political climate in Scotland is also sinficantly more radical and progressive than in England. The wider political and cultural debate in even the mainsteam media has a sharper radical edge than anything identifiable in the English media. Access to the broader media for the Left is also much easier which would enable a Left candidate much more effectively to articulate a Left analysis and policy agenda.

For all these reasons and many more I urge the Labour Left in Scotland to field a candidate in the forthcoming leadership election.

Naturally it will be for the Scottish comrades to decide who that candidate should be but this election will have a much wider significance for all the left in the UK and in the Labour Party overall. So very humbly I offer my own thoughts.

I can think of no better socialist, no better articulator of the socialist cause and nobody more principled and selflessly committed to our movement than Elaine Smith MSP. Elaine is one of those people who never thrust themselves forward for position and she will not thank me for suggesting her name but in some ways that is a real strength. We need candidates who can argue and campaign effectively and professionally for our cause and who do so out of sheer dedication with no thought for personal advantage. Elaine is that sort of refreshing, principled socialist.

Back Blogging and Supporting The Climate Change Camp at Heathrow

It is good to be back blogging again. I haven't blogged for the last few weeks because I have had to devote my time to my family. Both my mother and my stepfather have been seriously ill. We are coming through it but we wouldn't have without the superb care, dedication and professionalism of the health workers at James Paget Hospital in Great Yarmouth, the social workers and support staff from Norfolk Social Services and the residential care workers in the Salisbury Care Home which provided my parents with such wonderful respite care. I can't thank them enough for the support they all gave us.

I am back in action now and down at the Climate Change Camp in my constituency supporting this protest against the threatened third runway at Heathrow. Let me explain why I support the camp.

With a group of friends I organised the first public meeting and set up the first anti third runway group way back in 1985. Our aim was to expose the incremental growth of Heathrow airport beyond the scale and all the boundaries originally set for this airport. The British Airports Authority and successive Governments had promised my constituents time and again that the airport had reached its limits and would grow no further. This happened after permission was given for a fourth terminal at Heathrow and at the fifth terminal Inquiry BAA wrote to me and all my constituents promising that if a fifth terminal was allowed there would be no third runway.

Within six months of this promise BAA and the Government came forward with plans not only for a third runway but also a sixth terminal. In addition, this week it was leaked that the threatened third runway is not a short take off runway as promised but a full length runway requiring even more homes to be demolished.

BAA and the Government have quite frankly lied about the implications of a third runway for local communities around Heathrow. In an independent study commissioned by the Department of Transport in the early 1990s the true extent of the impact of a third runway was exposed. Up to 4000 homes would have to be demolished or rendered unliveable by air and noise pollution. Three schools, community centres, churches and a series of villages would be demolished and destroyed. Up to 10,000 local people would have to be forcibly removed from their homes and communities, the biggest forced migration in this country's history since the Scottish clearances.

This is a working class, multi cultural community with a high density of population. It appears that the Government has made the calculation therefore that we are expendable in order to continue to maintain BAA's high profit margins. The Government's policy is that the third runway and sixth terminal can go ahead if the environmental problems, particularly air pollution can be overcome. Gordon Brown has already indicated that he is in favour of expanding Heathrow. We are now fearful that in September the Government will bring forward a "dodgy dossier" of doctored estimates of measures suggesting falsely that the environmental issues can be addressed and thus a third runway can be permitted.

The argument that BAA and Brown always put forward is that expanding Heathrow is essential for our economy and for jobs. Even on their own rationale this ignores the fact that developing more sustainable alternatives such as rail network expansion would provide the same economic benefits and just as many, if not more, jobs. Because the Government's aviation policy making is dominated by the interests of the private sector corporates of the aviation industry the search for short term profits is placed continuously before long term planning in the interests of our community and the environment. Even for my local economy the growth of the airport has had mixed benefits in terms of jobs. Whilst the airport has brought jobs to the area, its growth has forced up land prices and industry has moved out to be replaced by wharehousing. Large numbers of skilled jobs have been replaced by much fewer unskilled work. Our local economy is now so unbalanced that it is largely dependent on the airport which makes the whole area dependent on the fluctuations in the fortunes of the aviation industry.

Over the years of campaigning for a sustainable aviation policy I, like many others, have gained a much greater understanding of the environmental impact of the growth of airports and flying. Already in my community there are people living in an environment whose air by European standards is poisoned by air pollution from Heathrow airport and its surrounding road network. Globally we now have a fuller understanding of the impact that aviation growth is having on climate change. Even the Government's Stern report was forced to recognise that aviation is the fastest growing contributor to pollution and climate change in this country.

Action is needed and if Governments aren't listening and are even colluding in placing the interests of the aviation industry before our long term futures then direct action is needed. That is why I am supporting the Climate Change Camp and why I am there each day participating in this protest.

This type of protest is in the long standing democratic traditions of this country and our movement, going back to Winstanley and the Diggers. The Camp protesters are committeed to a peaceful, non violent strategy. There may be some who want to go further and the media and BAA would love to divert attention from the real issue of the environment and onto any violence of any demonstrations but it is critical that we do not allow our central message to be drowned out from any side.

Our message is that our planet is being plundered for profit. The third runway decision is the most important environmental policy decision in Western Europe today because it will set the standard for future aviation policy making. Stopping the third runway could be the first step in a new, sustainable environmental transport policy for Britain and Europe. It is so significant, that is why I am supporting the Camp and urge others to join us.