Photo essay by deptfordvisions.com and me at false economy about the realities of privatisation. It’s the story of a group of North London careworkers whose service and working lives were ruined by a private sector employer.
Monthly Archives: October 2011
Barnet strikes again
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From Barnet Unison:
“300 UNISON members will take a one-day strike action on Tuesday 18 October as part of a trades dispute.
Unlike other strike action there is a twist.
On the picket line outside the headquarters of Barnet council (north London business park) UNISON members will stage a short piece of street theatre to demonstrate the dangers of the One Barnet Programme to residents, services and staff.
There will be two performances at 9am and 9.30 am.
At 10.30am, a number of strikers will take a coach trip across the borough and give help and assistance to a local charity. The strikers will spend the rest of the day carrying out tasks for the charity.
UNISON members are calling on the leader of Barnet council not to pocket the money he saves from the strikers and instead donates that money to the mayor’s charity
Later on the same day, other UNISON members will support ‘Operation RESDIENTS MUST KNOW!’ by handing out newspapers and leaflets to Barnet residents outside tube stations across Barnet.
The day’s activity will end with a candlelight vigil outside Hendon Town Hall from 6.30 pm before the planning committee begins.
Barnet Easy Council is promoting the ‘One Barnet Programme’ (a mass privatisation project) which is being rolled out across all council services. The council previously identified £3m to implement what was called Future Shape policy. The latest brand One Barnet programme has a £9.2 million budget to pay for expensive consultants to carry out this mass outsourcing programme. 70% of the council workforce could be transferred to the private sector in little more than 15 months time.
John Burgess Barnet UNISON Branch Secretary said
“The council is gambling that the private sector can deliver £100m savings over the next 10 years. We have seen no evidence to substantiate these claims. In other parts of the country, we have seen the consequences of such blind allegiance to public sector bad private sector good. Our members can see that redundancy and cuts to jobs and services are behind the transfer from the council to a private sector contractor.
‘Strike action is always a last resort. For the last three years we have been asking for a genuine dialogue with the council to explore ways to save money, improve services.
‘Barnet UNISON is asking for the One Barnet Programme to be put on hold while meaningful talks with staff, trade unions and residents take place to look at alternatives to the One Barnet Programme.’
Save the NHS Ukuncut action Westminster bridge
Videos from today’s ‘block the bill, block the bridge’ protest action on Westminster Bridge.
This was 1pm, when everyone lay down on the bridge.
And then this general assembly was held – a lot of discussion here about replicating the US occupations in the UK.
And then the US chant – “we are the 99%.” Not quite where the US occupations are yet, but a useful day all the same. What’s noticeable is that the crowds are changing – more family groups and a wider variety of ages. As more people lose their jobs, these protests can surely only grow.
Occupy Wall Street
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Ambiguity before revolution
In post-riot south-east London, people share their views on government and public sector cuts:
On Deptford High Street, I’ve been spending time with a man called Roy*. Roy, 58, is a sociable, articulate and intelligent man – a live wire, even, chatting and giggling as he leads me in and out of shops (“I want to buy a phone which bounces” – he’s dropped a few phones, but has a wad of cash for a new one), rolling and sharing cigarettes, and arguing the insurrectionist viewpoint when shopowners tell him to smoke outside.
He describes himself an anarchist. He’s brilliant at it – he genuinely couldn’t give a stuff what anyone else thinks, or even what sort of mood the high street’s many coppers are in. Every now and then, he shouts out “bring me cannabis! I want cannabis!” for laughs. Whenever he’s asked for his views on government, he yells “for king and country! FUCK-ING CUNT-RY! Get it?” Quite a few people on the street get it and a lot of them like it. The four or five people sharing our café table this morning all join in the chant. Roy’s view is that “there is no need for government. There is no need for police.” He wears a whistle on a ribbon round his neck and, from time to time, he stands up and blows it with a lot of enthusiasm. He is a tonic in many respects: a welcome reminder that obliging behaviour is overrated, particularly at the moment. If you’re going to be an anarchist, do it like Roy does. Spread the joy.
Roy is a regular user of public services – the NHS, mostly. He’s just a day or two out of an inpatient unit in one of the big southeast London hospitals and he says that he has to report back tomorrow. He was first sectioned about 20 years ago and has been in and out of inpatient units ever since. He explains that his most recent sectioning came about because he was caught in the middle of Westminster “bashing at the church doors and I was [shouting at them] Let me in! Let me in! Then I went to Houses of Parliament and starting bashing in the doors, bashing on the church doors saying let me in! Then I pretended to shoot at the police.” At other times, he lives in a small flat just a few streets from here. I think it is a council flat, but may be wrong. He doesn’t answer my question about that. He gives me his address and phone number, so I’ll go and see him next time he’s out of the unit.
As for the public sector – we never really get down to it. “There is no need for government. There is no need for police.” Roy thinks that people probably worry too much about government and its direction of travel. He says that Deptford will survive Tories, public sector cuts and whatever else anyone throws at it, because Deptford has always survived and is always there when he comes back to it. “This place is untouchable. It’s no different since the Tories got in.”
A refreshing outlook, as I say – although Roy is the only one at our table who has it. Another older guy we’re with looks to the skies and says “banks are rioters. Government are looters and rioters. They just do it in a much more subtle way. They create a world that we get to live in.”
A young woman who does not want to give her name says she understands that there have been “some strong cuts” to the public sector, but she thinks “they are necessary.” She is “worried for [people who are] teenagers now: “18 and 19-year-olds – those are the ones I worry for. There are no jobs for them. Sending people to university for no good reason – that was a mistake. What is the point of a media studies degree at Greenwich? Nobody [no employer] is going to touch that.”
She isn’t as worried for her own infant daughter, because: “it [jobs and training] will be better when she is older. It will be sorted out by then.”
The public sector she can live without, at least as she has experienced it. “I worked in the public sector for a while and I couldn’t believe it. There were so many people there who wouldn’t be able to get a job in the private sector. They turned the lights off at 5pm and went home. Nobody did any more than they should.” She doesn’t seem thrilled with the private sector, though – or its banking arm, at least: “The bankers? – they have us over a barrel and they know it.” She stops there, because she’s watching Roy. We all watch Roy as he kneels in front of her baby’s pram and tickles the baby under its chin.