Using the s-word

On Tuesday night I wrote a blogpost in which I urged workers in public sector workplaces where the unions had voted to strike not to scab.

Some people don't like the fact that I used this word. I hesitated before I typed the word, to be honest. I thought about it, should I use the s-word or another word beginning with 's' which means the same thing but which - I believe - is in much less common use: 'strike-breaking'? I chose to use the word scab because not to would have been ridiculously coy, in my view.

Words have different registers; two different names for the same thing can convey different meanings. That's true for 'scab' and 'strike-break'. Personally I don't see a lot of difference in the register between these two words, but others do. If I gave unnecessary offence by my choice of words, I regret it, but I also think that, regretfully, I would use the word again and risk giving offence again.*

But all this is really beside the point and slightly pretentious. The people who have moaned at me for using the word 'scab' don't actually support trade unionism, effective trade unionism. They think people should cross picket lines and face no criticism for doing it.*

Trade unions are collective organisations. The current state of trade union democracy is far from perfect, but, in essence, unions are democratic bodies. You join one and you take part in the decision-making process of the organisation: electing leaders, deciding whether to go on strike or not. The members should respect the democracy of the union or the whole thing falls apart.

A trade union is not just there to offer cheap car insurance, or to help out an individual worker when they have difficulties with their boss. Well, it is there for those things, but the point is that a union can do those things and more besides only if it builds - and sometimes uses - its collective strength.

That is why when the members have decided to strike to defend pensions, the members of the union should respect that decision and respect the picket lines. If they don't, the whole thing starts to become pointless. Unions are called unions for a reason!

I am far from being the only person who has upset others by using the word 'scab' in the past week. In the recent period we have also seen, because there was no alternative, the return of such supposedly outmoded things as pickets - including here in Barnet - and now, on Wednesday, mass strikes!

With the (in my view, long overdue) return of class struggle, it is not surprising that we find ourselves debating such things as the meaning and use of the word 'scab'.

Well then, what should I say instead? "I say, would you mind not crossing the picket line? Thanks, awfully."

The trade union movement faces a battle for its life. It has been hammered in the private sector as its bases, heavy industry and manufacturing, have declined (and that helps to explain the decline of the private sector pension in comparison with the public sector pension).

Because of that hammering, trade unionism is now strongest in the public sector. But if it cannot fight and win on the many battles facing public sector workers - and public service users - it is doomed here as well.

The trade union movement is not a set of institutions; it consists of its members, participating and working with fellow members to give the union relevance. It really is a case now of united we stand, divided we fall.

Not crossing picket lines is a key part of that.

* In Tuesday's blogpost I didn't make clear whether my remarks were addressed to union members or non-union members. My remarks were primarily addressed to union members; I'm not sure you can be a non-member and a scab. I would try to persuade a non-member not to cross a picket line and to join the union.

Just to muddy the waters further, 'strike-breakers', I understand, primarily refers to workers brought in from outside expressly to 'break a strike' by a regular workforce.

Barnet workers strike to defend their pensions

I don't have a full picture of the pensions strikes across Barnet today, but I would say that they were well supported. I went to Edgware Hospital on my way to work, on the offchance that there might be a picket line. There was. (See picture.) The unions had agreed, I would say, a substantial amount of emergency cover with management. Nevertheless, those on the picket line were upbeat about the strike, exuberant, I would say!

They enjoyed support from passers by, and residents visited them with hot drinks.

The unions represented were Unison Barnet PCT and Mental Health branch, Unison Occupational Therapists, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists and the Society of Podiatrists.

Those I spoke to expect that there will be more industrial action in the New Year. Frankly, there will need to be unless the government makes some movement. The new, higher pensions contributions are due to start in April.

The second picture here is of Barnet unions and their supporters at the wonderful TUC demonstration in central London this afternoon. The spirit was great!

More pictures available here.

Support the pensions strikes! Visit a picket line!

There is a long list of picket lines in Barnet tomorrow. If you are not directly involved in the strike, please make the effort to visit a picket line and show your support. It makes a difference to the people who are on strike.

The press has not been all bad for the strikers. It is, after all, difficult to vilify a huge segment of the working population who will be on strike and still hope to sell newspapers to them. But many of the strikers won't have done it before, and are probably feeling slightly nervous. So a member of the public taking the time to say "we support you" will make a difference.

If you are a member of the public that doesn't support the strikes, do feel free to leave a comment. I am happy to engage in debate and try to change your mind (even David Duff).

I'll attempt to put here a list of picket lines that I know about, but there will probably be many more. (I am especially under-informed about NHS and Jobcentre picket lines. And, of course, most of the schools will be closed!)

The picket lines start in the morning; some last all day. Many strikers and supporters will head to central London around midday for a march organised by the South East Region of the TUC. Barnet folk are meeting at the Cochrane Theatre, Southampton Row, WC1 at noon. The march assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields, from 12 and sets off at 1pm. It goes to Victoria Embankment for a rally at 2pm.

Picket lines in Barnet on 30 November

Barnet council sites:
North London Business Park N11 1NP (from 7am)
Barnet House N20 0EJ (from 7am)
Mill Hill Depot NW7 1BL (from 6am)
Hendon Library NW4 4BQ (from 9am)
Chipping Barnet Library EN5 4QT (from 9am)

Barnet College:
Wood Street EN5 4AZ & Grahame Park NW9 5RA (from 7.30am)

Middlesex University:
Hendon campus, The Burroughs

Civil service:
Barnet County Court, Regent's Park Road, N3 1BQ
Berkeley House, 302-304 Regents Park Road N3 2JY

If you can add any to the roll-call this evening, please do. I expect to make an album of pictures from the day, so if you have any photos to share please email them to barnetalliance@gmail.com.

Barnet for Fair Pensions for All

We had a productive joint meeting of Barnet TUC and the anti-cuts group, the Barnet Alliance, this evening to coordinate our activities on Wednesday 30 November. I hope by now readers know that many unions representing public sector workers will take part in a national 24-hour strike on that day, to defend their pensions.

Below is the contribution to this evening's meeting by a member of the civil service union PCS, Ian Albert, of their national executive committee. I'll post some information in the coming days about what we are doing in Barnet to mark this day of industrial action, probably the biggest since the 1926 General Strike! But first Ian Albert:

I used to live in Edgware; I worked in the Department of Health and Social Security at Raydean House. I’m also a long-suffering Barnet FC season ticket holder. Barnet council treats Barnet FC very badly. Unions and community should forge links with the club.

PCS, NUT, UCU and ATL colleagues took strike action over pensions on 30 June. We are all public service workers performing a valuable service for the community; we organise people in a huge range of services. PCS even includes coastguards – a service currently under attack - and Beefeaters at the Tower of London!

Our struggle with the government is not just about pensions, but also about pay cuts and job losses. PCS has been putting forward an alternative to the cuts. Many of you marched for the alternative on the TUC demonstration on 26 March.

There are things that this government should be doing instead: tackling youth unemployment, for example, saving a million people whose lives will be destroyed for years to come. We saw such things under Thatcher; I hoped we would not see them again.

We see workers in Greece, Italy, suffering similarly. We need an alliance across Europe for the alternative

On pensions, the unions are uniting and coordinating to win. We must never let this government drive a wedge between those who work in the public sector and the private sector. Cameron says we have gold-plated pensions in the public sector (not true). But we have been doing better recently in the public than the private sector because we have stronger unions in the public sector. Many private companies have destroyed their pension schemes; private companies have been getting tax relief – making a profit - on pensions.

This is what explains the divide between public and private: a drive to the bottom. We are taking action on 30 November to stop this drive to the bottom.

Our members, who have been privatised, at Fujitsu, Capita, etc, are facing attacks on their pension schemes.

I would urge you to visit our website for the PCS briefing on “Fair Pensions for All” (download the pdf here). The UK is at the bottom of the table as regards pensioner poverty. Our campaign sets out the case for decent occupational pensions in the private and public sector, but also for decent state pensions. The rising age for eligibility for state pensions should be challenged.

I’m looking forward to hearing the contributions this evening about how we go forward from here. We can win if we stay united, if we are not bought off or distracted by statements such as the absurd remarks about union members avoiding loss of pay by taking 15 minutes’ strike action by Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude recently.

My union, PCS, represents grades up to middle managers; for the first time in years we will be going out on strike with senior managers. To see unions such as NAHT, FDA, even non-TUC affiliates, all expressing support for the campaign is encouraging and something we must build on.

Unions in every town and borough should work together in the coming days, just as PCS nationally has forged good relationships with unions including Unite and NUT over the past few months.

It is disappointing that the Labour Party so far have not been more vocal in their support; I hope we can still persuade Ed Miliband to give support for our democratic ballots of three million workers.

It it's Wednesday, it must be pensions!

To paraphrase the title of a romantic comedy of 1969 ("If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium" - the film sounds bloomin' awful, by the way). I mean that the "issues" are coming so thick and fast at the moment that I think there is a protest or meeting about something different every day.

I am in danger of missing the wood for the trees, however. This Wednesday's issue is the big one - public sector pensions, bringing with it the prospect of the UK's biggest industrial action ever in two weeks' time on Wednesday 30 November.

Barnet's trade unions and the anti-cuts Barnet Alliance for Public Services have organised a joint public meeting on pensions this Wednesday, 16 November, at the Greek Cypriot Centre, 2 Britannia Road, N12 from 7-9pm.

If you have any questions about the pensions dispute, any at all, please come to the meeting on Wednesday. All are welcome.

I should say that if anyone thinks the tabloids are right and that the unions only care about the public sector, they are wrong! We want good pensions for workers in public and private sectors - and for people who can't work at all!

We don't want levelling down but levelling up! We also stand for the rebuilding of trade unionism in the private sector as the best guarantee of a decent life for all.

Crumbs, I'm on my soapbox this morning!

From Jarrow to Barnet (via Hatfield): march against unemployment

The Youth March for Jobs, recreating the Jarrow march of 1936, has been on the road since 1 October. The original Jarrow marchers, unemployed men from north-east England demonstrating against the lack of jobs, finally arrived in the capital via Barnet. And that is what the 2011 march will do tonight. They are due to reach the Spires shopping centre in Barnet at 5.30pm.

The Barnet Alliance for Public Services and Barnet trades council have arranged to meet them. We'll walk down to the Greek Cypriot Community Centre, Britannia Road, N12 with them for a reception from 7pm. If anyone is free this evening, I would encourage you to join us, either at the Spires or at our meeting.

The Youth March for Jobs is organised by the Socialist Party. I disagree with some of their politics and methods of organising. This march nevertheless offers a chance to highlight a serious problem: youth unemployment.

The Barnet Alliance is currently preparing a third issue of its Our Barnet newspaper. If all goes to plan, it will include a feature on some of the problems of young people in Barnet: it is not just young people from the north-east of England who are struggling to find work - good work - these days.

Finally, on the subject of the original Jarrow march, I would recommend a Radio 4 programme made in 2008 by Michael Portillo (!) where he explores the march in the wider context of the time. In fact, it was a late example of the Hunger Marches, which, in general, were far less polite affairs than the Jarrow march. Think less of footsore men coming cap-in-hand, and think more of occupations and riots! The programme doesn't seem to be available now to listen to on the BBC website, but I hope it will be repeated soon.

Barnet TUC website and a hot autumn

I am the publicity officer for Barnet trades council (TUC), but the Barnet TUC website hasn't been updated for ages because, basically, I can't get into it anymore!

Perhaps you have experienced this yourself, some IT programme you use is "improved"/"upgraded" or something and thereafter becomes unusable or, at best, not as good as it used to be.

When I have a day spare - ha, ha! - I'll get to the bottom of the problem. In the meantime, I am thinking of setting up a blog that I point the barnettuc.org.uk address at, and in the more immediate meantime, I'll put some of the items I would have put on the Barnet TUC website here on my blog.

So, as well as amusing tales of Barnet life, I'll be posting more purely labour movement-oriented items. Seeing that, this autumn, issues such as pension cuts are going to affect a lot more people than they have in recent years, the blog shouldn't become too unutterably dull and esoteric, I hope!

Happy new year, no, seriously!

What a busy time we've had of it in 2010 and there is a busier time ahead, in 2011. January 2011 for me will mainly be devoted to building the Barnet march on Sunday 30 January. Break open your new diaries and calendars and mark it there now! (I beg of you!)

Tell family, friends, neighbours, and workmates. If you need some leaflets to give out advertising it, drop me an email c/o info@barnettuc.org.uk.

Happy new year! Check out my people of the year 2010: John Burgess and Maggi Myland of Barnet council Unison branch.

Hiding behind kids

Some friends and I have been discussing our plans to go on the student demonstration tomorrow. We support the students' demand for no rise in tuition fees (and how about getting rid of fees altogether and reinstating free education?). And against the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), which helps children from low-income families continue in education. And against the devastating cuts planned in funding to universities, particularly for arts, humanities and social sciences.

We are also buoyed up, as many socialists, trade unionists and campaigners have been, by the young people's courage and imagination.

But along with this goes a certain amount of shame. Feelings of shame that the labour movement has allowed things to get to this pass. We are cheering on children and young adults who simply have no choice but to revolt against a massive attack on their future. If we were them, we would do the same.

But we are not them, we are older, and we have had it easier. Yet we have allowed ourselves to be ground down, and infected by the political rot around us. Now we are facing devastating attacks on our jobs and on the services we rely on. Are we responding adequately? As individuals, some of us are. But as a movement?

A number of trade union big-wigs will speak tomorrow at a lobby organised by the National Union of Students as a "respectable" sideshow. Meanwhile, a few metres away, angry young people, braving the wrath of teachers and the educational establishment, parents, a sceptical media, and the fearsome sight of police lines, including riot police, will be throwing their bodies into a kind of battle. What will the trade union big-wigs say? I hope they will not condemn the young people but will find it in themselves to praise their courage. If nothing else, if it weren't for the students, these bureaucrats would not have a platform to appear on.

What about rank and file trade unionists? What are we doing? We should support the students, but we should do it responsibly, by which I mean that we should be prepared to join them in battle, to defend our jobs and services, and, ultimately, our young people. We can't hide behind kids; we have to start fighting too.

Hendon firefighters: we won't let the bad press get us down

I went up to the picket line at Hendon fire station today, for the start of the firefighters' eight-hour strike (10am to 6pm). There seemed to be more people attending than last time, probably a mark of how much the bad press they have been getting has increased their determination.

One woman firefighter told me: "You just can't let it get to you."

The turnout was particularly impressive given that this was mostly of people from Hendon, whereas for the strike on Saturday 23 October, firefighters had attended from all over Barnet in the expectation that an AssetCo crewed fire engine would be based at Hendon.

In the event, on 23 October, a fire engine had driven four times past the station, but evidently thought better of trying to operate from there, and drove off. Today the rumour was that an engine was headed for Barnet fire station. I wonder if it ever arrived.

The firefighters were getting a good reception from passers-by. There was very little hostility, and most people - many of them students heading into lectures at Middlesex University - were happy to take a leaflet to find out more about the dispute, if they weren't already declaring their support.

There should be a good presence of firefighters at the lobby outside Hendon Town Hall tomorrow night, Tuesday 2 November, from 6pm, for the council meeting which starts at 7pm. Please come and join us if you can.

Press coverage

As it happens, the Times series has given the Hendon firefighters some fairly good - at least, fair - press. Article here.

And here is an earlier item about the trades council's support for the FBU.

Bob Neill "not too fussed"; Coleman's incendiary rubbish; Barnet unions answer back

A government minister, Bob Neill MP, has found time in his busy schedule to visit Barnet council, point at a scale model of the Brent Cross scheme, and tell everyone he is

“not too fussed” about concerns raised by external auditors Grant Thornton no business plan has yet been drawn up for the Future Shape programme.

Good for him, but then he doesn't have to live here. We who do are quite "fussed". The Times series has the report.

They also report Brian Coleman defending weekly rubbish collections on the grounds that fortnightly collections are likely to lead to more fires. We'll hold him to that!

Last but not least in my shameless pillaging of Times series stories, Barnet trades council's secretary Austin Harney replies to Coleman's recent slurs against the borough's trade unions. Austin says:

We are not bosses but grassroots trade union representatives who sacrifice our spare time for all people living and working in the London Borough of Barnet.

Under "Easy" Barnet Council, support for the communities and the residents could easily disappear and exacerbate the poverty levels. It seems that our council is attempting to destroy any progress.

I, kindly, ask Brian Coleman to reconsider his criticisms and listen to our communities and residents who could be suffering from these cuts in council services.

Lobby Barnet council, Tuesday 14 September

Don’t cut our services – don’t privatise our services – no to Barnet easyCouncil!

Lobby of the council meeting on Tuesday 14 September

6-7pm, Hendon Town Hall, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BG

---
The Tory administration in Barnet has been rocked recently by the angry reaction to their allowances rise for senior Cabinet members. Although the Tories claim to have backed down, eight committee chairs will still see their allowances rise from £9,974 to £15,333, a rise of 54%.

Lynne Hillan has seen off a challenge to her leadership of the Conservative group – but only just! She will face a no confidence vote at the council meeting. It seems that she has done enough to satisfy dissident Tories for now, and they will probably keep her in office. But how long can this unity last?

Mark Shooter, who challenged Hillan, has criticised her leadership style, talking of “bullying”. He has criticised the decision to cut sheltered housing wardens, calling it “morally dubious”. He has described the council’s cherished Future Shape/easyCouncil privatisation plan as a “Soviet bureaucratic initiative”.

And all of this comes from a fellow Conservative!

We do not believe that this administration has the moral authority to continue in office, to impose their regime of cuts and privatisation on Barnet council workers and residents. We believe that cuts will harm the most vulnerable and degrade the quality of life for all in Barnet. Mass outsourcing of services will lead to worse working lives for Barnet’s workforces and worse services for residents. And disruption when contracts go wrong, as has happened through the collapse of Connaught.

We don’t accept that public services should be slashed to bail out the banks, which are now merrily paying out dividends and bonuses again. If you have an issue with this council, please come along on the night and make your voice heard!

For more details or to help build the event, please email info@barnettuc.org.uk.

Also for your diary: 7-9pm, Thursday 23 September
Emerald Suite, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1GN
Launch of Barnet Alliance 4 Public Services. Public meeting, all welcome.

Don't cut our services! Don't privatise our services! No to easyCouncil!

We (trades council and friends) revived our public stalls today. We had three this morning, in Burnt Oak, High Barnet and central Finchley. I think the attitude against the Tory administration has hardened since I last did a stall in Burnt Oak in the spring.

Business was brisk in Burnt Oak. There were four of us personing the stall; we also went up and down the shops in Watling Avenue asking the shopkeepers whether they would display our advert for the lobby of the council meeting on Tuesday 14 September (6-7pm, Hendon Town Hall, NW4 4BG).

We are going to need many more such stalls and mobilising of the residents, encouraging them to DO SOMETHING about what many are unhappy about. People lack confidence that they can make their views heard. I felt more than ever before that whether one enjoys doing such activity or not, it is vitally necessary now. There is no alternative to getting onto the streets, talking to people, and convincing them that unless they actively resist, services will be cut and/or privatised, their living standards will fall, and the area they live in will be degraded. (Burnt Oak, much as I like it, is already no oil painting.)

Knowing this made it a lot easier to motivate myself; actually, it is no harship at all to talk to fellow Barnet residents. I learned some interesting stories of things that are going on in the area, and among the council workforce, since many council workers live in the area.

Next stalls: Saturday 11 and Saturday 18 September, Burnt Oak, High Barnet and central Finchley, from about 10.30 till noon; and also Golders Green tomorrow, and Sunday 12 and Sunday 19 September. If you want to help out or know more, come by the stalls or email info@barnettuc.org.uk.

Gone... cuts in Barnet

I am compiling a list of cuts in Barnet due to the Tory-Lib Dem government. It won't be comprehensive - there are just too many cuts to keep up with! But it should indicate what we are losing as a community because of the skewed priorities of the government.

If you have any cuts to add to the list, please email some details to info@barnettuc.org.uk. Thank you.

Vicki

P.S. Here's the list so far:
- Building Schools for the Future projects
- grants to voluntary bodies including East Finchley Advice Service and East Finchley Neighbourhood Contact (merged with Age Concern Barnet)
- Henlys Corner improvement plan under review
- Stonegrove Playscheme

Barnet Public Services Alliance launch, Thursday 23 September - and why we need it

Last post for today, on a busy news day in Barnet. This only reflects the quickening pace of the cuts, privatisations, fake consultations, etc, that are going on, and that's just in our little London borough.

This story, again culled from the Times series, is about the cuts in pay and conditions of the Street Scene Department. This is basically the blokes (mostly) who clean the streets and do the dirty jobs that others would rather not do.

They are angry at the cuts that are being threatened to their pay, particularly in the light of the rise Tory councillors have voted for senior councillors' allowances, and they are muttering darkly about strike action. (This is not just rhetoric: staff in LB Barnet really are miffed at what they see as councillors' hypocrisy.)

Read the story here.

This only makes me all the more happy to tell you of the public launch meeting of the Barnet Public Services Alliance. This is an anti-cuts, anti-privatisation campaign for residents and workers in Barnet. The meeting is on Thursday 23 September, from 7.30pm at the Emerald Suite, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, N11 1GN.

We are lining up guest speakers now, but the main business of the evening will be to share ideas for concrete campaigning. For more information please email info@barnettuc.org.uk. We will have street stalls around the borough on Saturdays 4, 11 and 18 September to build for this.

There is a statement to sign, which reflects the core positions of the trades council. If you or your organisation or campaign would like to sign, please email info@barnettuc.org.uk. We would like to publicise the names of those who have signed, so please get in touch if you are happy to go public!

You don't have to agree with the full statement in order to attend the meeting or get involved with the Alliance. We hope we can provide a meeting point for disparate groups and views.

Statement:

We champion democratically accountable, high quality public services. We reject the idea that public services should be cut in order to bail out the banks.

We reject Barnet council’s plans for mass outsourcing of its services – no to easyCouncil!

We oppose privatisation and cuts to public services, whether NHS, education, or local authority, and will resist them.

We oppose free schools and the extension of academies.

We demand that Barnet council reverses its recent decision to pay the council leader and cabinet members higher allowances.

Barnet unions in the news

Austin Harney, the secretary of Barnet trades council, a colleague of mine, is featured in the Times series, commenting on the council leader and cabinet members' allowances hike. Austin says:

The Conservative Party should not hesitate to discipline their members on the cabinet of Barnet Council, and even threaten them with expulsion from the party if these Councillors do not forfeit their latest increases.

The truth is that these Conservative councillors know that they can impose any policy to their whim and still become elected for every term of office.

Yet, the fact remains that if they stood as independents tomorrow, they would easily lose.

Austin calls on

all people working and living in the London Borough of Barnet to petition their three Conservative MPs, and demand that these councillors withdraw their preposterous increases or face expulsion from the Tory Party.

Meanwhile, the GMB union has calculated that "more than £9m in taxes went uncollected by Barnet Council last year":

The council, which needs to save more than £6m after budget cuts this year, failed to gather £9.873m in council tax and business rates in the 2009/10 financial year.

This makes it the fifth worst offender in London after Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham, Croydon and Southwark.

Blimey, was he talking about Neil Kinnock?

I chanced upon this impressive poem by Adrian Henri at the start of the Labour Party's 1992 election manifesto "It's time to get Britain working again".

The poem is called "Winter Ending". It's apt to read this poem now because, good as the poem is, I don't want to go through that cycle of winter and spring again. Shall we strain every sinew to make sure we don't have the cardboard cities, leaking classrooms, peeling waiting-rooms and polluted streams (?) this time around?

Barnet trades council is hosting a meeting on Thursday 29 July at 7.30pm in Committee Room 1, Hendon Town Hall, the Burroughs, London NW4. We aim to set up a Barnet Public Services Alliance to head off cuts to public services, and privatisation. Any organisation that would like to send a representative and interested individuals are invited to attend. For more details email info@barnettuc.org.uk.

And if anyone doubts there are other sources of wealth sloshing about that we could tap to pay for public services, check out today's news on Goldman Sachs.

Winter Ending

'A cold coming we had of it'
huddled together in cardboard cities,
crouched over shared books in leaking classrooms,
crammed into peeling waiting-rooms,
ice stamped into crazy-paving
round polluted streams.
Winter ending:
paintings, poems bud hesitantly,
tentative chords behind boarded facades;
factories open like daffodils,
trains flex frozen rheumatic joints,
computer-screens blink on
in the sudden daylight.
As the last cardboard boxes
are swept away beneath busy bridges,
the cold blue landscape of winter
suddenly alive with bright red roses.

Never mind the politics

I have read on some blog comments (eg, this one) that Malcolm McLaren was from Burnt Oak, at least, that he attended Orange Hill grammar school. Stone me! Can anyone confirm?

I'm off to Blackpool in a couple of hours for the trades councils conference. As to what is happening in the wider world of politics right now, my only comment is "what he said".

Props to Barnet Unison

One blog - for blog it is - that I forgot to mention in yesterday's post on Barnet's bloggers is the Barnet Unison blog.

This is maintained by the Barnet Unison branch secretary John Burgess.

Not only does John run a good Unison branch in a very challenging borough, he is also a mainstay of Barnet trades council, and engages with the community, getting his branch to support the campaign by Barnet's sheltered housing residents to retain their wardens.

He does loads of work for charity - no, seriously, he does! And his blog is relevant and informative, and often has much better jokes than this blog. See here for the most recent example, which is inspired!

P.S. "Props" means "proper respect", a phrase I learned from Facebook.

FBU president Mick Shaw usurps Brian Coleman

I'm going to Scotland tomorrow for a couple of days. I only have time to write a brief report of the Barnet trades council AGM held last Thursday night. Suffice it to say that, incredibly, our agenda was so full we didn't even get around to talking about easyCouncil!

Yes, the challenges are coming thick and fast. The growth of the far-right, what attitude we should take in the elections, tabloid press vilification of trade unions, proposed abolition of the Civil Service Compensation Scheme...

Still, we found time to smile, as the photo at the top, of our guest speaker Mick Shaw, president of the Fire Brigades Union, sitting in the chair usually occupied by Barnet mayor Brian Coleman, shows. We had booked to have our meeting in one of the committee rooms at Hendon Town Hall, but it was needed for another event, so we were fobbed off with the council chamber.

The photos below are, first, of local civil servants talking about their dispute, and, second, the tasty chairs that the councillors sit in when they are in the chamber. Naturally, this being Barnet council, the rest of the time, the chairs just go to waste.