Probation Works video

GraylinG4s, The King of Cuts is coming to town

Mockery of Justice

The Conservatives have their conference in Manchester on the 29th September.  Join other branch members in giving the Tories the welcome they deserve,

It is vital that people protest against the Tories and their self serving cuts, and whilst fighting cuts will not guarantee that they will be stopped, not fighting them will guarantee that they will carry on

The Assembly point for the march is on Liverpool Road at the junction with Deansgate. This will be marked and the form up order will be communicated once finalised. We are asking the march to assemble from 11am onwards. We will move off at 12:30pm.

email info@nwpc.org.uk to get involved

Free the Miami Five

cuba

The Northwest Probation and CAFCASS branch of UNISON supports the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and asks members to take 30 seconds to email your MP now and ask them to sign EDM 497 in support of the Miami Five

Get Involved – Women’s Suffrage Centenary Celebration

Sufragette

Saturday July 6th 2013 at

1.30p.m. outside Bolton Town   Hall

Out Now – Probation News July 2013

On our Toolkit page

We make a very important announcement

From 8 July, you will receive an important survey in the post from UNISON to ask you two ques-tions:

1.  Do you oppose the Government’s plans to break up the Probation Service?
2.  Would you be prepared to take industrial action to defend your job, your terms and conditions and your pension, later this year, if this were necessary?

No trade union undertakes industrial action lightly, but it may be that such action will be needed to protect your interests as negotiations progress over the Govern-ment’s plans. Industrial action can take many forms, up to and including strike action, and no decision has been taken yet on the form it might take. First, members must show their support for it.

 

Austerity Uncovered, tomorow 20th June

Wages, Poverty & Pay Day Loans

Date: Thursday 20th June

Time: 5pm refreshments – finish 6.30pm

Venue: The Flensburg Room, Civic Centre, Carlisle

Register: Melanie Lowden, mlowden@tuc.org.uk

Wages are being squeezed, living standards are in decline and some of the poorest in society are being hit hard by welfare cuts and changes. This meeting brings together those wanting to make a difference either locally, regionally or nationally. Together we will examine the scale of the problems and discuss what positive action we can each take.

Speakers: Welcome by Alan McGuckin, Chair of the Cumbria Forum, Cllr Jessica Riddle, Carlisle City Council (Communities and Housing), Rachael Rodway, Carlisle Foodbank and Neil Foster, TUC Policy and Campaigns Officer. It is hoped to have a representative in attendance to talk about the Loan Shark campaign.

Participants are being encouraged to bring an item of food from the foodbank list – see the website for details http://carlislefoodbank.org.uk/shopping-list.html

To coincide with the seminar, the Austerity Uncovered tour bus will be coming to Carlisle – the bandstand on English Street – arriving around 3.00pm. Further information to follow.

Download the flyer http://www.tuc.org.uk/tucfiles/599/Poster 20th June.doc

NEC election results

OPT Unison banner

UNISON members have elected a new national executive council to run the union from 2013 to 2015.
The members of the new NEC are:
Regional seats

  • Eastern: Sarah Crowe; Kevin O’Grady; Polly Smith.
  • East Midlands: Nicole Berrisford; Chris Tansley; Sarah Brown.
  • Greater London: Kim Silver; Helen Davies; Jon Rogers; Irene Stacey.
  • Northern: Josie Bird; Sue Forster.
  • Northern Ireland: Lucia McKeever; Stephen Kennedy; Margaret McKee.
  • North West: Tony Wilson; Bernadette Gallagher; Karen Reissmann; Roger Bannister; Rena Wood.
  • Scotland: Jane Carolan; Davena Rankin; Sandra-Dee Masson; Gordon McKay; Maggie Cook.
  • South East: Jacqui Berry; Diana Leach; Steve Milford; Jean Butcher.
  • South West: Lesley Discombe; Mike Hines.
  • Wales / Cymru: Melanie Fender; Mike Hayes; Sian Stockham.
  • West Midlands: Carol Sewell; Eleanor Smith; Dave Auger; Mary Locke.
  • Yorkshire and Humberside: Helen Jenner; Sue Highton; John Campbell; Vicky Perrin.

Service group seats

  • Community: John Gray; Janet Bryan.
  • Energy: Paul Glover.
  • Healthcare: James Anthony; Ann Moses; Christine Sullivan; Eric Roberts.
  • Higher education: Max Watson; Tomasa Bullen.
  • Local government: Paul Holmes; Lynn Poulton; Wendy Nichols; Paul Gilroy.
  • Police and justice: Chris Hanrahan; Maureen Le Marinel.
  • Water, environment and transport: John Jones.

National seats

  • Black members’ seats: Elizabeth Cameron; April Ashley; Calvin Smedal; Abiola Kusoro.
  • Young members’ seat: Daniel Goodwin.

The new NEC will take office from the end of the 2013 national delegate conference, which takes place in Liverpool from next Tuesday to Friday (18-21 June).

Get Involved – The Retired Members’ Conference 2013

28/3/09. People Not Profit March in central London.

The Retired Members’ Conference 2013 will be held at the Brighton Centre, Brighton, Tues 8 – Weds 9 October

The Branch Executive Committee will select its delegates on Thursday 13th June and to ensure that members are not deterred from attending conference a range of practical and financial support is available.

If you are interested in attending as a delegate of the branch or want to know more then contact chair@nwpc.org.uk or ‘phone Kev 07595009189

Nominations should be received by no later than Thursday 6th June at chair@nwpc.org.uk

 

Get Involved – Retired Members’ Conference 2013

28/3/09. People Not Profit March in central London.

The Retired Members’ Conference 2013 will be held at the Brighton Centre, Brighton, Tues 8 – Weds 9 October

The Branch Executive Committee will select its delegates on Thursday 13th June and to ensure that members are not deterred from attending conference a range of practical and financial support is available.

If you are interested in attending as a delegate of the branch or want to know more then contact chair@nwpc.org.uk or ‘phone Kev 07595009189

Nominations should be received by no later than Thursday 6th June at chair@nwpc.org.uk

Transforming Rehabilitation

UNISON welcomes the big idea in the Ministry of Justice consultation paper ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’, which is to provide supervision and rehabilitation to those leaving prison after short term sentences.

But the government is going about this plan in completely the wrong way.

Our response to the consultation paper examines the flaws in the Ministry of Justice proposals and sets out our alternative to deliver the rehabilitation revolution we all want to see via ‘Primary Justice’: local, democratically accountable public-public partnerships between Probation, Local Government and the Police.

Read Primary Justice reloaded

Get Involved – Become a Workplace Contact

Workplace contacts have a more informal role than stewards or safety representatives. They can also operate as part of a network supporting an elected steward.

Get Involved, Disabled Members Conference October 2013 MANCHESTER

The 2013 UNISON Disabled Members’
Conference takes place from 2pm, Saturday 26th October to 12.30pm, Monday 28th
October 2013 at Manchester Central

This conference, along with others, enables Trade Unionists to gather and shape the views and future direction of the union.

Trade Union conferences are vibrant and interesting events to attend and the Northwest Probation and CAFCASS branch encourages members to take place by meeting the costs associated with attendance and providing a creche.

The delegation will be selected at the Branch Executive Committee meeting on the 9th May 2013 and members are invited to put themselves forward to attend before 2nd May by emailing chair@nwpc.org.uk or ‘phoning 07595009189 for more details.

2012 National Disabled Members’ Conference Decisions

TUC campaign to make case for radical economic reform

TUC

A jobs guarantee for young people, spreading the living wage across the public and private sectors, putting communities not profits at the heart of public services, and creating a stronger voice for workers in the management of companies are among the TUC’s five key campaign priorities in the run up to the general election, according to its campaign plan published yesterday (Wednesday).

‘A Future That Works’ sets out five key priorities that will drive the work of the TUC over the next two years. The plan has been agreed by the General Council, which represents the TUC’s 53 affiliated unions who between them have almost six million members.

TUC campaign plan

WMD – There’s no such thing as a free lunch

Mourne the dead

On Workers Memorial Day it is important that we ask “Why is it so important that we mourn for the dead and fight for the living?”

The collapse of RanaPlaza, an eight-storey building which housed five garment factories, is not the first incident of its kind.  Back in 2005, a similar building collapsed in the same town, leaving 64 garments workers dead. The owner of that factory was arrested but did not serve a single day in custody.

Since 2005, there have been fires, stampedes and other incidents at various garment factories, resulting in hundreds of deaths.  Most recently, over 100 workers perished in a fire at Tazreen Fashions in Ashulia, a township close to Dhaka where hundreds of similar factories are, many producing low cost garments for the international market.

In most of the incidents, the deaths were preventable. Often, workers could not escape because exits were locked.

This week the House of Lords voted to change the law so that in future, even though an employer may have breached health and safety regulations specifically designed to protect workers, the injured worker cannot rely on that breach as evidence of negligence in any claim for compensation.

The government amended the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill without consultation and after the Bill had been through committee in the House of Commons.  This means that the burden of proving what caused an accident will now fall on the injured worker or the family of someone killed, rather than the employer.

In future the worker will have to prove what the employer knew or ought to have known about, for example, a machine being faulty, a substance or practice being hazardous or a leaking roof causing a slip hazard, if they are to recover compensation.

Alarm bells should be ringing further still throughout the Trade Union movement in response to the governments announcement that it will review the Health and Safety Executive to see if its “functions are still needed.”

The TUC points out that far from being over the top, inadequate legal requirements had failed to prevent tragedies such as the drowning of the MorecambeBay cockle pickers or the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise at Zeebrugge.

The Government has already abolished official spot-check inspections in “low risk” areas, such as docks, agriculture, quarries and retail.  Workers die far too often in these three categories and physical and verbal attacks against shop workers has become far too prevalent to be disregarded.  And the number of health inspectors has been cut to dangerous levels, leading inexorably to reduced incidence of safety inspections.

At the same time, the government has unleashed its most effective tool, the Media, often reporting on the basis of falsified information, to dress up workers’ concerns for their well-being at work as “health and safety gone mad.”

An attack upon one workers Health and Safety is an attack upon all workers Health and Safety as the true financial and emotional costs of a workplace incident are paid by the community at large, not by the negligent employer.

Mourn for the dead and fight for the living

Download it, read it, apply it

WORKING TIME REGULATIONS – A NEGOTIATORS GUIDE

Get Involved – Police and Justice Conference 2013

The Police and Justice Service Group Conference 2013 will be held at the Brighton Centre, Brighton, starting 9.30am on Thursday 10 October 2013, ending 1pm Saturday 12 October 2013 and to ensure that members are not deterred from attending conference a range of practical and financial support is available.

If you are interested in attending as a delegate of the branch or want to know more then contact chair@nwpc.org.uk

 

“Bury Thatcherism – Join a Union” initiative

The initiative is designed to use the frenzy and polarisation that has developed since Margaret Thatcher’s death to encourage the angry and disaffected to do something positive on Wednesday, that is join a trade union and if you are already a union member encourage others to join and get involved.

Join UNISON

Act quickly to Stop Clause 62 – Write To Your MP Now

In March, UNISON was successful in influencing the House of Lords decision to remove clause 62 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (ERR) Bill. This clause would have made it harder for an employee to claim compensation for injuries sustained at work.

However, the amendments by the House of Lords will now be considered by the House of Commons on 16 April 2013. The House of Commons could decide to ignore the House of Lords’ recommendation and instead reinsert clause 62 and press on regardless.

To ensure that the House of Commons do not ignore the House of Lords’ recommendations, write to your MP and tell them why you want them to vote to remove clause 62 from the ERR Bill.

To write to your MP, click on the above link, enter your post code, and select your MP. You can copy and paste text from our model email to help you to write your own email about why your MP should vote to remove clause 62 of the ERR Bill.

For further information about clause 62 see UNISON’s briefing written for the House of Lords.