Zero hours contracts - a personal view

My grandfather was gassed aged 15 or 16 in the trenches during the First World War. The lifelong ill-health that resulted made finding work hard but he never gave up trying. He'd go from his Kirkdale home to the Liverpool docks every day to try to get a single day's work. He never managed to because he refused to pay the foreman a bribe from the meagre wages that were on offer, partly on the principle that a man shouldn’t have to pay to get a day’s work, and partly because he had a family to keep. He died in his 40s during the Second World War from an illness related to his First World War injuries.

What a way to treat an old soldier who had ruined his health for his country - and what a way to treat a worker. That's the world the Tories want to take us back to with their attacks on employment rights, with "no fault dismissals"; we have them already in the form of redundancy, but they actually want a US-style "hire and fire" regime because that’s a lot cheaper. Zero hours contracts take us precisely to what my grandfather had to face in his struggle to get just a single day’s work. This is even further than Mrs Thatcher dared go.

We can't allow this.

(I first posted this on Facebook eight years ago today)

Hancock: the normalisation of hypocrisy

I was listening to the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 yesterday and, while there were callers demanding that Hancock should resign, others were saying that it is a private matter so leave him alone. They were completely missing the point. If Hancock had been having an affair with someone who had no connection whatsoever with his department, then the worst he would have done is ignore his own distancing guidelines.

But even that is not a simple matter: apart from breaking the rules he helped draw up and which he exhorted us to obey, which is hypocritical enough, last year he said he was “left speechless” after the government adviser Professor Neil Ferguson allowed his lover to visit his home, in breach of social distancing rules at the time, declaring that Ferguson consequently had no option but to resign. The fact that he thought an apology for doing the same thing would be enough to save his ministerial career compounds the hypocrisy of both him and this government with their blatant “one rule for you and none for us” attitudes. It's another Barnard Castle, and Johnson – an utter weakling with no leadership skills – was yet again letting a mate get away with actions for which ordinary people have been punished.

But it goes further than that. Ms Coladangelo was on the DHSC (Department for Health & Social Care) Board, whose job is to oversee the running of the department right to the very top. How intensely would she scrutinise his actions while she was his lover? How far has her input into the board compromised their work? How far has she influenced their deliberations because of her relationship with the boss? The other question remaining is how she, an old friend of Hancock from university, got her DHSC job in the first place? Claims that her recruitment was all above board are looking increasingly threadbare.

As a former trade unionist in the civil service, I know that if people had conducted an affair actually in the workplace, they would probably be spoken to very firmly and if they persisted, would almost certainly face disciplinary action, possibly leading to dismissal. That's not to say you couldn't have relationships with colleagues, but you had to keep your activities off the premises and in your own time – which is perfectly reasonable.

If DHSC employees had behaved in the same way as their boss, they wouldn't have got off so lightly. Yes, he has resigned as a minister, but he is still an MP on £81,932 a year, with an “all you can claim” expenses regime and a pension scheme generous beyond the wildest dreams of most of us. Despite his resignation, he won't be queueing at the Jobcentre.

I'm hoping that this resignation, which Johnson thought he had prevented by firmly announcing that the matter was closed, is the first sign that the British people are getting sick the corruption, cronyism and double standards that are the hallmarks of this thoroughly incompetent and self-serving government.

► Here is a post on the Rhymes & Routes blog which approaches the issue from another angle.

Neville Grundy
ARMS Mersey

ARMS Merseyside Group - AGM 2021

To all ARMS members in Merseyside and Halton:
You are invited to participate in our 2021 Annual General Meeting as follows:

• Date: Thursday 11th March 2021.

• Time: 10.00 a.m. to midday.

• Place: by zoom. The link will be e-mailed to you closer to the time.

Nominations and motions
Nominations are called for:

Chair

Vice Chair

Secretary

Organiser

Treasurer

Committee (4)

Auditors (2)

Please send nominations and motions to the secretary, Dave Owens, (davegowens@hotmail.com) by Monday 22nd February.

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting.

Grenfell - a victim of official policies

We'd only previously seen sights like this in disaster movies, not in our capital city 

When I got up on 14th June 2017, I was as usual listening to Radio 4 and heard a mention of a tower block fire in West London. As ordinary fires don't usually make the national news, I thought this must of a different order; switching on the BBC TV News channel, I was shocked to see the unfolding of the Grenfell disaster which claimed the lives of 72 people who could reasonably have expected to be safe in their own homes. It's not an exaggeration to say that I spent most of that day watching the news in horror and disbelief.

In the aftermath, politicians and civic leaders said all the right things and various pledges were made by the Tory government of Theresa May. Sympathy was expressed, promises of a full investigation were made and the standard, but almost meaningless, pledge that lessons would be learnt was trotted out.

Regrettably, once the immediate shock had died down and the attention of the news media had moved onto other issues, the official response slipped into a lower gear and now, more than three and a half years later, hundreds of thousands of people are still living in unsafe homes. Patrols were introduced in buildings with unsafe cladding to give advance warning of fires breaking out, and the government asserts that this has cost leaseholders on average £137 per month, although one woman in Bromley told the BBC they'd cost her more than £300 a month - £11,700 so far over the last three years - which she can't afford to pay much longer.

Another effect on leaseholders has been that their flats have become unsellable, which is a major problem for those who want to move out - unsurprisingly, under the circumstances - and those who need to move, perhaps for employment or family reasons. This must be a major blight on their lives.

However, a vital concern is the continuing danger. The government has announced a new £30 million fund "to fund fire alarms for private and social sector buildings over 18 metres with unsafe cladding and with a Waking Watch", but what they haven't said, but which is nonetheless essential, is that this can only be a stop-gap measure prior to the total removal of all dangerous cladding.

A Labour proposal will, if passed, force the government to establish the extent of the cladding scandal and ensure that those responsible pay for rectifying it, not the leaseholders, and a number of frustrated Tories have declared that they intend to support it.

How did an advanced country with a stable, long-established system of government end up in the situation that contractors could with impunity use materials that some of them have admitted they knew were unsafe?

I blame "the bonfire of the regulations", a particularly telling phrase in this context. I can recall that Tory governments ever since the time of Thatcher were reluctant to introduce any new regulations on the grounds that they - allegedly - stifled business, initiative and innovation. There was a requirement on any minister who introduced a new regulation to find two to abolish.

I believe this created a culture of disdain for regulations in general that empowered some companies and contractors to cut costs by circumventing them. After all, if the government views them as obstacles, why should anyone else take them seriously? Consequently, lip service was paid to them and false claims were made about the safety of construction materials based on rigged tests. This much has become apparent during the course of the Grenfell enquiry.

I'd like to hope that the folly of indiscriminately scrapping regulations and rubbishing those that remain would, after such a horrendous disaster, be consigned to the past as a criminal lapse of judgement. The routine response about learning lessons is nothing less than an insult to those who died, were injured or were rendered homeless having lost all their possessions - unless it is followed by decisive action. So far, what we have seen is far too little, far too late.

If there were a scintilla of real humanity and empathy among those charged with dealing with the aftermath of this tragedy, I'd expect them to be hanging their heads in shame at the complete inadequacy to date of the official response at every level. Contrast the £30 million fund with the billions that have been squandered during the pandemic giving contracts to government cronies for work they have proved wholly incapable of carrying out and you will understand how utterly shameless and pathologically uncaring this shower that we call a government really is.

Neville Grundy
ARMS Mersey