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

Is it last orders for our environment?

 A personal reflection

When I was a child in the 1960s, I asked my parents what happened to the rubbish after the binmen had collected it. They explained landfill to me, so I then asked what happened when they ran out space. They told me it would never happen, but I do remember that I wasn't entirely convinced by their answer. In my teens, I became concerned about how we were using plastic, especially when I learnt how long it would take to break down. Even then I envisaged landfill sites being filled for centuries to come with a material that had perhaps been used just once.

As a student in the mid-1970s, I remember reading in a science magazine about the how the greenhouse gases we were mass-producing would, if unchecked, lead to a general warming of the atmosphere with severe consequences for all life on Earth, humans, animals and plants alike. My first awareness of the Greenhouse Effect was thus around 45 years ago.

I am not claiming any special gift of prescience. On the contrary, I am simply stating that knowledge of the situation into which we are being inexorably sucked is not new. If a child could surmise that profligate disposal of unrecyclable rubbish was not permanently sustainable, although those were not the terms I used at the time, I can see no sensible reason for the apparent ignorance or indifference of national leaders all over the world. If scientists' warnings about global warming were available to everyone nearly half a century ago, there really is no good reason why the world didn't begin to act decades before now.

I do understand that many politicians are either incapable or unwilling to take the long-term view, perhaps for electoral reasons, or because it doesn't fit in with their own agendas, which can be self-aggrandisement as with Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro or Lukashenko, or cost-cutting, even though the costs of tackling pollution and climate change become hugely more expensive the longer you leave it. Unless we get our act together, at some point the question will be whether action on climate change is unaffordable or - perhaps worse - pointless because we're too late and it has become irreversible. It's my opinion that the human race may face that dilemma within the lifetime of our current younger generations.

Another obstacle is the problem that too many people have only a basic understanding of what constitutes a fact. Early in the Trump presidency, when faced with information the administration didn't accept, a government spokesperson responded, “We have alternative facts.” This is a ridiculous statement because, logically, something is either a fact or it isn't, but it seems to me that people increasingly decide what they want to believe in and then seek out anything that seems to corroborate their chosen preconception, a mindset that has been greatly enabled by the internet. This has led to the erroneous conclusion that climate change is a matter of opinion even though the scientific conclusions are undeniable: there is always some populist chancer on the internet who will propound a wholly unsubstantiated alternative view, often plausibly presented but wholly lacking in any real evidential rigour.

Trump's approach to climate change is a dangerous example of such thinking, which is partly determined by a reluctance to commit time, energy and money to actions that would not bear fruit until long after his presidency would have ended, even if he had won a second term, and partly by the fact that he is an unintelligent, vain man who sees himself as a genius and values his own gut reactions and guesses accordingly, such as disinfectant as a treatment for COVID-19.

Anyone who is aged in their 50s upwards will have noticed the effects of global warning. To give just one example: as a child and young adult, I can remember standing by bonfires on 5th November with my front warm as toast and my back freezing. Nowadays, the month of November is never that cold and I rarely have to wrap up in the way I used to.

In the 1980s, I decided to subscribe to Greenpeace, my longest continuous subscription after my trade union and CND, but sometimes it feels no more than a gesture, probably because like a lot of people I find the challenges that we face daunting. It is dispiriting to realise that there has never been anything to stop the human race collectively taking action much sooner: the information has been out there for a long time and arguments of cost fail because they will multiply massively the longer we leave it.

To make a comparison to a house: a few tiles slipping on your roof can be fixed without too much expense, but the longer you leave it, the hole gets bigger, the damage spreads to the beams underneath and then the ceilings until finally the whole roof caves in. The Earth is way past the few tiles stage but we are not at the total collapse stage – not just yet anyway.

Neville Grundy
ARMS Mersey

Veganism

My name is Lynn and I identify myself as an activist and a vegan, who is politically aware and a strong supporter of the trade union movement. What is an activist? Well I believe an activist is someone who actively wants to stimulate a change in the world. We all know that pointing fingers and trying to change others is an endless job. We create the world we live in. If we want to change what we don’t like in the world, we must start by changing what we don’t like about ourselves. 

We are in the midst of a global crisis, most people still don’t realise this, and that we are causing the crisis. Many of us who are aware that we are causing the crisis don’t know what to do about it. I believe we have to strive to live harmoniously with the earth and, with this shift in consciousness we have the potential to save our planet.

In my childhood like so many others I lived at home with my family and ate what was put in front of me. When I became active in my first trade union branch I realised that I couldn’t strive to improve the lot of just humans because other living sentient beings were also being abused.

I loved animals and I was against animal cruelty yet on the other hand I paid to have animals mutilated, tortured and killed. I was told and thought that I needed meat for protein and cow’s milk for calcium. I had even been taken in by the marketing material that animals were treated “humanely” before they became a neatly wrapped package on the supermarket shelf. I wondered what was cruel about eating dairy or eggs.

After reading a lot about the subject and talking to other animal rights activists I went vegetarian, I was 18 and I couldn’t justify killing and eating animals for health reasons. I wondered why we allowed this to happen as a society and when I couldn’t find a better reason than taste, I knew I could never go back to contributing to such unnecessary violence against innocent beings. Then I learned that there was at least as much cruelty in dairy, eggs and other animal products. I knew being vegetarian wasn’t enough and I needed to be vegan. 

You probably think vegans are extreme. Yet when you discover, as I did, that we can be far healthier and are likely to live longer lives without eating animal products you realise it’s not the truth that we need to eat animals and animal products to survive.

Billions of animals are killed every year for human consumption after living confined in horrible conditions on farms and factory farms and enduring untold extremes of suffering. This fact alone is good reason for any compassionate person to become a vegan. Meanwhile , from the individual health perspective, a vegan diet has been proven to prevent serious illnesses. Also the terrible toll that eating meat, fish and dairy takes on our planet’s air, water, soil and whole ecosystem is another very good reason to be vegan.

I now look at an animal and see a person, a non-human person, who has their own life, desires, thoughts and feelings, just like I do. It has enriched my view of life on this world.

I also feel much healthier, and have more energy than I did before. I have perfect blood test results, and haven't even had as much as a sore throat in four years. I feel better every day knowing I am walking a far more peaceful path than the one I was on before. But I wanted to do more than just change my own life – I wanted to raise awareness of animal rights and lead others towards their own vegan journey. I have learned a lot during my vegan life, firstly that animals aren’t voiceless. They scream and cry, but most people don’t listen. We live in a world that has conditioned us to only care about a few species, while ignoring, or even worse, justifying and contributing to the suffering of others.

Animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, laboratory experimentation, entertainment, or any other exploitative purpose. Some may say a vegan diet is difficult to follow. What does difficult mean?

How difficult is it to suffer and die from heart disease caused by a diet of high unsaturated fats and cholesterol? Still, many people would choose to go through invasive bypass surgery or have a breast, colon, or rectum removed and take powerful pharmaceutical drugs for the rest of their lives rather than change their diets because they think veganism is drastic and extreme.

How difficult is it for the beings who suffer degrading confinement and cruel slaughter, dying for our dining convenience? How difficult is it for all of us to be confronted with the effects of global warming, deforestation, species extinction, water, soil, and air pollution that are a direct result of raising confined animals for food.

How difficult is it for us to endure being hurt and abused, being lied to, worrying about money and security, experiencing mental and physical illnesses and not knowing what is in store for us next?

We are disconnected from war, destruction of the environment, extinction of species, global warming, and even domestic violence. You can only abuse and exploit others if you feel disconnected from them and have no idea about the potency inherent in your own actions. If you feel connected, you know that it’s you, as well as other living things, who will suffer from the suffering you inflict.

The choices we make about what to eat are political and economic decisions that affect our mental and physical health. It is an indisputable fact that a vegan diet causes less harm to ourselves, to animals, to plants, and to the earth. To say that what you choose to eat is nobody else’s business is to belittle yourself and deny the impact that your actions have upon the lives of others.

The biggest consumer of fresh water is the meat and dairy industry. It is also responsible for most of the water pollution. The livestock industry is the single biggest contributor to global warming, as it creates far more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined. There are more cows, most hidden from our view, in the United States than there are human beings. By enslaving these animals and abusing them through lifelong torture and degradation, we deprive them of their freedom and happiness.

How can we ourselves hope to be free or happy when our own lives are rooted in depriving others of the very thing we value most in life - the freedom to pursue happiness? If you want to bring more peace and happiness into your own life, the way to do so is to stop causing violence and unhappiness in the lives of others. All life is scared, all life is connected, how we behave towards others and our environment reveals more than anything else our inner state of mind.

Would you say you harbour destructive emotions like hate, anger or the desire to do violence - no - so do you cultivate the opposite state of mind? In that case you will want to stop the abuse and as you now realise the truth and the reality of the choices you make. I hope you feel compassion and the willingness to change for all our sakes.

I end with a quote which I love:

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. Humans have it within their means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter. Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of conscience, thus helping to bring the collective consciousness to life.

Norman Cousins, journalist and peace activist.

Lynn Killoran
ARMS Mersey

Liverpool City Region COVID-19 rules 14.10.20

For convenience, I have reproduced the new rules that apply to all of Merseyside and Halton from tomorrow, 14th October 2020. From the BBC news website.

Our brand new banner!

 The new ARMS Mersey banner has arrived at last. Now all we need is a demo, rally or picket line for its public debut. (Click on picture to see a larger version)

Solidarity with HMRC cleaners

HMRC must take urgent action to resolve the dispute between PCS members employed as cleaners at HM Revenue and Custom’s Birmingham and Merseyside sites and their employer, ISS. Send a message to HMRC’s CEO so they know how many of us are behind these workers.

Please sign this petition.

TV licences: ask your MP to support the Early Day Motion

3.7 million UK pensioners over 75 will have to pay for their TV licence from 1st August as the BBC’s decision to means-test this benefit is enacted, meaning that only over 75s who are on Pension Credit will get the free TV licence.

This decision will push more than 50,000 people into direct poverty and mean that hundreds of thousands more will have to choose between their only source of information and contact with the outside world or food, heating and other essentials.

The National Pensioners Convention would encourage you to write to your MP encouraging them to support the Early Day Motion #747.

You can find your local MP's details on this link.

EDM #747 in full
That this House supports the urgent reversal of the decision to make over-75s pay for TV licences during the covid-19 outbreak; notes with concern that licenses will have to be paid for from August 2020; believes that responsibility for funding free TV licences should not have been handed over by the Government to the BBC; highlights that loneliness amongst the over 75s has worsened as a result of the covid-19 outbreak; further highlights that stripping the over-75s of their free TV licenses will exacerbate loneliness; and calls on the Government to reconsider the issue as a matter of urgency.

PCS Pay 2020

ARMS Mersey members, like ARMS members all over the country, have helped previous PCS campaigns to encourage our working fellow members to take part in union ballots. Here's a brief update about this year's pay claim:

► Last month the government announced a disgraceful pay remit for 2020. PCS members have kept the country running during the pandemic and they deserve a fair pay rise. On 30 June the union will step up the pay campaign by launching a petition on the government website. To find out more, join the Facebook Live event on 2 July.
(From the PCS website)

► There is a short video on PCS pay here by General Secretary Mark Serwotka. The PCS pay page on the national website is here.

An example of how civil service pay has fallen behind

I've done some calculations to show how badly working PCS members have fallen behind the cost of living. I've based it on my own grade (EO), my salary when I left (£24,000 in 2008) and my department (DWP), but it will be very similar in other grades and departments.

How DWP EO pay has fallen behind inflation 2008-2019

DWP EO max 2008	£24,000.00
DWP EO max 2019	£26,892.00
DWP EO max adjusted for inflation 2008-2019 (according to the Bank of England inflation calculator).	£32,263.36
Difference	- £5,371.36

• In this example, EO spending power has shrunk by £5,371.36 (16.64%) in relation to inflation.
• As a comparison, I decided to check how MPs have fared over the same period.

MP's pay 2008-2019

MP pay 2008	£61,820.00
MP pay 2019	£79,468.00
MP hypothetical pay 2019 with same % rise as EOs since 2008	£69,276.37

• This shows that if MPs had been awarded the same percentage increases as a DWP EO, they would be £10,191.63 per year worse off (£195.99 per week).
• To put it the other way round, if EOs in this example had received the same percentage pay rise as MPs, they would be £3,959.37 better off (£76.14 per week).

MPs usually argue that they have no say over their pay as it is determined by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). While this is true, it is disingenuous because the existence and remit of IPSA was created by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, voted for by ... MPs.

 All in this together? 

ARMS Mersey first social

Earlier this year on the 16th January, ARMS Mersey held its first social event in the Lion Tavern, Moorfields, Liverpool. It was an opportunity for members to socialise and to listen to a varied selection of songs, some political and social, performed by Helen Armstrong, Jane Kearley and Neville Grundy.
We had a good time and hope to do something similar again when lockdown rules permit.

♦ For interest: the Lion Tavern is CAMRA Liverpool & Districts Pub of the Year 2020.

Tell the Attorney General to act on arms trade corruption

After two years of inaction from the previous Attorney General, the Government's new chief legal advisor has the chance to act on corruption charges linked to an arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Here's your chance to demand a prosecution goes ahead.

In 2010 a British company called "GPT Special Project Management", a subsidiary of Airbus, agreed a £2 billion deal to supply communications equipment to the Saudi Arabian military. A whistle-blower at GPT uncovered evidence that the company used tens of millions of pounds of illicit payments and gifts to secure the deal.

In 2018 the UK's Serious Fraud Office requested a prosecution, yet nearly two years on, it is still waiting for approval from the Attorney General to move forward with the case.

A new Attorney General was appointed this month. Will you call on her to give consent for a prosecution?

In 2006, Tony Blair blocked a corruption investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into BAE’s corrupt multi-billion pound arms deals with Saudi Arabia out of the interests of 'national security' (read: trading interests). Your action will make it harder for them to sweep this one under the carpet.

Ask the Attorney General to prioritise the rule of law and the UK's international obligations over arms company interests.

From CAAT (Campaign Against Arms Trade)

PCS FCO dispute - show your support

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell on the FCO Interserve picket line

Steve Ion has sent a message of support for the PCS FCO Interserve 4-week strike action on behalf the ARMS Mersey group via Helen Flanagan, PCS industrial officer. More details of the dispute are here.

In response, Helen has asked ARMS (and other) members to sign the e-action here, to ask their MPs sign this EDM here and write to the Foreign Secretary about the issues.

International solidarity: support sacked Indonesian workers

In May 2016, the agrofood conglomerate Gunung Sewu Group announced the immediate closure of its tapioca-based starch factory in Lampung, Indonesia, with no prior notice and without any negotiations with the union, SBMUJA. Four years on, Gunung Sewu still refuses to negotiate with the union to remedy these violations of fundamental rights: the withdrawal of union recognition and the workers' right to freedom of association which accompanied the overnight closure.

In response to the union’s ongoing campaign for negotiation and recognition of their rights, the company is now vindictively demanding that workers repay outstanding loans to the company, despite the fact that when the factory closed Umas Jaya Agrotama did not pay their final month’s salary! Many workers occasionally relied for survival on soft loans from the company due to the low wages.

Umas Jaya Agrotama is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Gunung Sewu Group's Great Giant Pineapple. Great Giant Pineapple is one of the world's largest pineapple producers, whose canned products are exported worldwide. Despite its international reputation and its claim to be working for "individual and collective empowerment" ("That's why we still have employees who have been with us for 20 and 30 years"), Gunung Sewu Group ruined the lives of hundreds of families in a rural community in Lampung when it ordered the immediate closure of the factory. The casual workers on precarious contracts exploited for years were abruptly terminated and tossed on the scrapheap.

With the support of the IUF, SBMUJA continues to fight for their rights. Click here to send a message to top management of the parent company insisting that it remedy these violations of fundamental rights by entering into good faith negotiations with the union.

Civil Service Compensation scheme age discrimination

A message from the AGS:

PCS is looking for ordinary and associate and retired members willing to bring cases following an employment tribunal ruling that the 6 months cap on compensation for redundancy for those over their civil service pension age within the Civil Service Compensation Scheme is not proportionate and is therefore direct age discrimination.

If you think you may have been affected please click on the following link for more information here.

Please continue to check the ‘News’ page of the PCS website for updates.

John Moloney

Assistant General Secretary

Campaign: January edition

Campaign is CND's national journal.

The UK government has announced today it is formally reporting Iran for not abiding by its commitments to the nuclear deal it signed in 2015, while the Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would support a 'Trump deal' instead. The crisis is certainly deepening; read more in this month's magazine. But we don't just have bad news for you! Read as well about progress on the international treaty banning nuclear weapons.

Read Campaign: January edition
Download Campaign: January edition

In peace,
Sara Medi Jones
Campaign editor

Extinction Rebellion to ARMS Mersey

The guest speaker at the next ARMS Mersey meeting will be from Extinction Rebellion - we don't yet know the individual's name, but when we do, we will publish it on our Facebook page.

Details:

► Thursday 30 January.

► 11.30 a.m.to 2.30 p.m.
► PCS office, 3rd floor, Jack Jones House, Liverpool.

All members are encouraged to attend the first meeting of 2020.

Leafleting at Southport Hospital

The campaign group Save Ormskirk & Southport Hospitals is organising a leafleting session at Southport Hospital on Friday, 17 January from 10:30 to 12:30.

► Event Facebook page here.
► Map.

Grenfell - a message from the FBU

The Grenfell Tower fire must be a turning point in fire safety across the UK.

We welcome the recommendations from the Grenfell Inquiry, but they must be implemented quickly and efficiently. This can’t wait until after the second phase of the inquiry is completed. As we saw with the fire at student accommodation in Bolton on 15 November, we need a complete overhaul of UK fire safety – and we need it now.

That’s why we’ve called for a forum to drive through these sweeping changes to UK fire safety. We’ve written to all relevant parties – including tenants, government, and fire safety and housing specialists – asking them to work together to ensure that the recommendations aren’t swept under the carpet.

Lessons must be learnt, and we won’t stop fighting until our communities are safe.

In solidarity,

Fire Brigades Union

Public meeting - Voices of Latin America and Palestine

Open meeting - all welcome.

Helping the PCS General Election Campaign

A general election has now been called for the 12 December. In line with policy agreed at our 2018 annual delegate conference, PCS will be campaigning for a Labour vote including targeted campaigning in 40 seats across England and Wales.

As a union we recognise that the election of a UK Labour government under the leadership and policies of McDonnell and Corbyn is in the interests of PCS members. Key Labour pledges include a return to national pay bargaining in the civil service and related bodies, and end to job cuts and office closures, the recruitment of 5,000 extra DWP staff, and large scale investment in HMRC.

The North West region are asking for PCS members to support campaigning and join PCS canvassing teams in the following seats: Southport, Blackpool North and Cleveleys, Bolton West and Crewe and Nantwich. Campaign dates for each of these target seats will be publicised shortly.

If you are able to volunteer, please email nwrc@pcs.org.uk with your name, branch and preferred email and telephone number.

How members vote is entirely a matter for them, and whichever party is in government PCS will always be there to fight your corner.

To see BB-73-19 (General election campaign update & guidance for civil service members), click here.

Register to vote and for a postal vote by the 26 November

Make sure you and your colleagues use your voice on the 12 December by registering to vote by 26 November. It takes less than 5 minutes to register online - here. All you need is your national insurance number.

Please also consider registering for a postal vote and encouraging your branch reps and members to do the same for this election, the deadline to request a postal vote is also the 26 November. Register here.

Support Coca-Cola workers fighting for their rights

Coca-Cola continues to violate the fundamental rights of workers in Haiti, Indonesia, Ireland and the USA. In Haiti Coke's bottler La Brasserie de la Couronne continues to systematically deny workers their right to form and be represented by a union, SYTBRACOUR.

Haiti is a dangerous place to live and to work. Companies should, at a minimum, be alert to this situation and exercise maximum due diligence. In July 2019, a Coca-Cola truck driver was shot in his vehicle while at work. The Coca-Cola Company has made no meaningful independent investigation of this killing, choosing instead to rely on a version of events provided by their local bottler, which sought to shift blame onto the driver. Subsequent IUF investigations into this case have exonerated the driver and exposed a callous disregard for the truth on the part of the Coca-Cola bottler and The Coca-Cola Company.

In Indonesia Coca-Cola bottler Amatil pursues its long running attack on the rights of independent, democratic trade unions.

In Ireland, The Coca-Cola Company closed two of its directly owned concentrate plants, both of which were strongly unionized, and shifted production to the remaining plant in Ballina, where it refuses to engage in collective bargaining with the IUF-affiliated SIPTU.

In the USA the Company's bottler spent more than 330,000.00 US dollars hiring a union-busting consultant firm to persuade workers at its Greenfield bottling plant to not join the RWDSU/UFCW.

Please show your support for these workers and the fight for rights in the Coca-Cola system.

Click here to send a message to Coca-Cola's CEO and Chairman James Quincey, expressing your outrage over these ongoing human rights violations and demanding the Company act to remedy them. Your name will also be added to a petition that will be delivered to The Coca-Cola Company.