UNISON Activist Briefing Everything You Need to Know About the TUC

1 October 2015 UNISON activist brieﬁng Everything you need to know about the TUC mass lobby on 2 November

The Trade Union Bill currently before Parliament is unfair, unnecessary and undemocratic. MPs need to focus on the real problems the country faces and talk to us about how we can work together for a better future.

We’re so glad you’re going to be part of the lobby of Parliament on 2 November. This is the best opportunity we have to change the minds of hostile MPs, and ensure friendly ones continue to oppose the Bill actively. At the end of this document are some topics you could discuss with your MP.

There will be lots of people there from different unions, so it will be an exciting day and will show MPs that we really care about this, but it may also mean some waiting around a bit, so please be prepared for that.

Please make sure you read the section of this guide called ‘talking to your MP’ before you get to the meeting. This is your chance to show your MP that this Bill will have a really detrimental impact on everyone who lives in their constituency, so we have provided some key bits of information that we think could persuade or challenge Conservative MPs.

In this guide

• Before the day

• On the day

• Talking to your MP

Before the day Try to arrange a meeting with your MP before the day. We have set up an email template you can use, just by putting in your postcode and a few details, here: http://goo.gl/4tYUrO 2 You can also write to them by post if you would prefer, at the House of UNISON activist briefing Commons. Put your post code in the box on this website: http://www. Everything you need to know theyworkforyou.com/ to find our their name if you don’t know it, then send it about the TUC mass lobby on to House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA. 2 November You can also phone via the House of Commons switchboard on 020 7219 3000 to speak to your MPs office. All MPs have already received a letter from the TUC about the lobby, so should be aware of the event.

If you do not hear back from your MP about the meeting you can still queue up and try to arrange an appointment (there is further information on how to do this below). And please do still come along to the rally if you are able to. There will be some exciting speakers and the more people at the rally the stronger our message.

If you hear back and your MP is not able to meet you, please try to meet them in your constituency.

Please bear in mind that no banners, posters, or T shirts with slogans on are allowed in the Houses of Parliament, so sadly please don’t wear any of your fashionable UNISON t shirts.

On the day 12.30: Arrive (please do arrive by 12.30)

Arrive for the rally at Central Hall Westminster, Storey’s Gate, Westminster, London, SW1H 9NH. (The building is open from 11.30 am if you want to arrive earlier.)

Please ﬁrst go to the Great Hall (inside the Central Hall building) to register. There will be a UNISON table and UNISON staff will be there to answer any questions about what to say to MPs.

1 – 3.30pm: Rally

Hear from some exciting speakers from 1pm – 3.30pm.

2pm: Lobbying starts

The lobbying in Parliament will start from 2pm and throughout the afternoon groups will go over to the House of Commons to meet with their MPs to explain why they should vote against the bill.

Please the queue outside the main entrance to the House of Commons from 2.00pm. You will need to enter through a ramped entrance (the Cromwell statue entrance) to the left of the St Stephen’s entrance to the Commons. Any policeman will tell you where this is. 3 When you get inside UNISON activist brieﬁng Everything you need to know You will have to go through ‘airport type’ security to gain access to about the TUC mass lobby on Parliament - on a busy day this can take at least 15 minutes. 2 November Once inside the building, all lobbyists will be directed by the House of Commons’ police and staff to the Central Lobby where you can ask to see your MP. This is known as the ‘Green Card’ system.

1. Lobbyists will be directed to the Central Lobby. There is a desk to the left of the entrance to the Lobby staffed by ofﬁcials from the Serjeant-at-Arms Ofﬁce.

2. Go to the desk and ask for a ‘green card’. Enter your name and address and the purpose of your visit as “to highlight concerns about the Trade Union bill. ” You should say on the green card that, if it is not possible to meet on the day of the lobby, you would like to meet them in the constituency.

This is important because if you do not meet with your MP, the card is then sent on to the MP’s ofﬁce.

3. Then you have to wait for your MP in Central Lobby. The desk staff will take the card and attendants will then seek the MP in the Chamber and other committee rooms.

4. If your MP has been found and has arrived your name will be called out. If you do not know what your MP looks like, you might have to listen out for your name. You may ﬁnd that Central Lobby can be quite noisy and crowded.

5. Your MP may have somewhere in mind for your discussion. If not, politely suggest that if you leave the Central Lobby it will allow other lobbyists in to see other MPs and will make the conversation more comfortable (there are a list of possible rooms below).

If MPs do not appear within half an hour or so of the green card going in, it is unlikely that they will come at all. Sometimes they will send their staff on their behalf if they are caught up in other meetings. You must decide how long you can wait but remember that the longer you stay the less likelihood there is of colleagues further back in the queue being able to enter and submit their green cards. For every lobbyist that leaves, the police will allow another one into Central Lobby.

Alternative locations to meet your MP

To help ease congestion in the main central lobby, several upstairs Committee Rooms (namely numbers 10, 14, 15 and 16) have been booked in the main House of Commons. These rooms are located on the Committee Corridor and are accessible via the Central Lobby staircase. You may 4 be asked which MP has booked the room. This information is therefore UNISON activist brieﬁng included alongside the room number below. As the rooms are relatively Everything you need to know large, each one has been allocated to MPs and constituents representing 2 about the TUC mass lobby on or more geographical regions as outlined below: 2 November From 2-4pm

Committee Room 14 (booked in the name of Ian Lavery MP) - NE, NW and Yorkshire MPs

Committee Room 15 (booked in the name of Jo Stevens MP) East and West Midlands and London MPs

Committee Room 16 (booked in the name of David Anderson MP) SE, SW and Wales MPs

From 4-6pm

Committee Room 10 (booked in the name of Emma Lewell-Buck MP) NE, NW and Yorkshire MPs

Committee Room 15 (booked in the name of Rachael Maskell MP) East and West Midlands and London MPs

Committee Room 16 (booked in the name of Richard Burgon MP) SE, SW and Wales MPs

Please note, room bookings are sometimes changed at the last minute, so there may be some last minute changes which the TUC staff will do everything they can to communicate to you and your union on the day.

Disabled access

If you are disabled, telephone the Serjeant-at-Arms’ office at the House of Commons, who will advise you procedures for entering the building (phone 0207 219 3000 and ask the switchboard officer to put you through to the Serjeant’s office), the Serjeant’s office do allow some parking where it is required by disabled people, but individuals will need to verify this with the office. It is usual for one of your MPs’ staff to accompany you once you enter the building. This needs to be arranged in advance.

Talking to your MP Remember your MP is paid for by your taxes, they are accountable to you and you are well within your rights to ask them any questions (politely!).

If your MP is a Conservative this is a real chance to make them realise the negative impact of the Bill. If they are not Conservative they are likely to be 5 supportive of us but you can tell them about these issues and ask them to UNISON activist brieﬁng talk to Conservative MPs that they know. Everything you need to know about the TUC mass lobby on The Trade Union Bill undermines the ability for ordinary workers to carry out 2 November collective bargaining and undermine the positive working relations that trade unions and employers have developed – it does this by:

• Imposing many bureaucratic and legal hurdles which will take up members’ time when they could be carrying out work that improves the workplace for employees and employers

• Making strikes almost impossible and therefore disincentivising employers to take part in discussions, unscrupulous employers will feel free to ignore their employees concerns

• Enabling the Government to limit the amount of time ordinary members can spend on trade union activity (facility time)

You know that the ability to carry out collective bargaining is what enables people in unions to ensure health and safety in their workplace for all employees, campaign for better pay for all employees, make sure people get holiday and sick pay, and combat discrimination and bullying in the workplace.

In talking about this Bill the Government has focused on thresholds for strike ballots, so your MP may not realise all the other negative consequences the Bill will have on ordinary workers in their constituency. This is your chance to tell them that the Bill will impact the people they have been elected to represent, the people who they need to vote for them in 2020 if they want to keep their job!

Below are some issues we suggest you raise with your MP.

Public services

The cuts to public services combined with the Trade Union Bill will have a detrimental impact on the public services in your area.

• Trade union reps play a huge role in resolving workplace problems, they deal with issues before they escalate and have to be dealt with by managers, they stop discrimination and promote learning amongst staff and they generally improve morale. Tell your MP about what you or other reps do in the workplace.

• Facility time improves industrial relations - issues that would otherwise go to tribunal are resolved before that stage. If an employer has good facility time arrangements, disciplinary hearings and grievance hearings, for example, are conducted in a timely fashion. If facility time is interfered 6 with the time taken to resolve grievances and other problems in the UNISON activist brieﬁng workplace will slip drastically. With the imminent cuts to public services Everything you need to know trained union reps will be needed more, not less. about the TUC mass lobby on 2 November • STATISTIC: 11.3 million days per year are lost through stress and depression (according to government statistics). Without trade union reps, and with cuts, this is likely to increase.

• Less trade union activity, along with the planned cuts to public services, will have a harmful effect on schools, hospitals and all other local services.

Partnership working The Bill will outlaw payroll deductions (DOCAS/check-off). Across the UK employers and trade unions work together in partnership to provide effective services, having union members pay through payroll deductions is a key part of this.

• Many employers value what trade unions do and work well with trade unions - they like that trade union reps support their employees when they’re having difﬁculties. They like the workplace learning that union reps encourage, they like the help union reps offer in implementing health and safety requirements, and they like the support union reps offer when they have to go through structural changes in the workplace.

• For example, NHS HR directors said this in a letter to Matthew Hancock MP:

“You will appreciate these are challenging times across the public sector with signiﬁcant challenges ahead and this will involve signiﬁcant consultation and negotiation with trade unions. We have worked with trade unions over the last few years often in partnership arrangements both locally and nationally (such as the National Social Partnership Forum in Health) to bring about change. These discussions require good will and transparency on both sides. Although we understand the government will want to explore all elements of cost avoidance (as we do), we want to highlight the cost savings we achieve through effective consultation and communication with and through trade unions. It is also helpful for us to easily understand our union density, particularly when we work with multiple trade unions.”

• In many public sector workplaces employers allow union members to pay their union fees straight out of their wages. Payroll deductions (known as DOCAS or check-off) are a key part of this partnership working as it is an efﬁcient method and beneﬁts employers as well as employees.

• Payroll deductions are easy, efﬁcient, very cheap to administer, and create a transparent relationship between the employer and the union. They are used in a variety of ways by employers such as charitable giving, pension contributions and bike loans, but at present the 7 Government is proposing only to prevent union subscriptions being paid UNISON activist brieﬁng through the payroll. Everything you need to know about the TUC mass lobby on • No one has forced employers to implement payroll deductions or to 2 November continue to use the method, they use it because it is part of the way unions and employers work in partnership. UNISON has 9,334 voluntary payroll deduction agreements with employers. These employers have all freely entered into these arrangements as part of constructive industrial relations and none has been asking for their removal. Many HR professionals value the information it gives them for a variety of purposes.

• Many councils across the UK are not happy with the suggestion to change this because they feel it is interfering in local politics.

• The government has said it is looking at taking away payroll giving because it is ‘tax payer funded’ but actually in many cases UNISON pays an administrative fee to the employers and in some cases this raises valuable extra revenue for the public service.

• Terry Walker, former Chair of Avon Fire and Rescue Authority, called on the government to “listen to those of us with experience as employers who have worked with Trade Unions… I served for 34 years as the Chair of Avon Fire Authority and employed a large number of staff within Avon Fire & Rescue Service. All of my experience tells me that instead of attacking Trade Unions, the government should be looking at measures which enhance the vital role that unions play within the workplace.”

• Peter Cheese, chief executive of the CIPD, said: “It’s time to start talking about prevention rather than cure when it comes to strike action and the public sector’s workforce challenges in particular. Taxpayers’ interests are best served by an efficient, engaged and productive public sector workforce. We need to see more consultation and ongoing dialogue, and engagement with, the workforce, rather than the introduction of mechanisms that reflect the industrial relations challenges of the 1980s. To jump straight to legislating strike activity without considering this seems to be a significant step back.”

Inequality

People in trade unions do a large amount of work to combat inequality, this work will be hindered by the Bill. UNISON has 1.3 million members. 81,000 of them are men who earn under £17,000 per year. 481,000 of them are women who earn under £17,000 per year.

• Organising through trade unions is one of the most effective methods for reducing the gender pay gap. Restricting time union reps can spend 8 on union activity will affect this, as will all the measures in the Bill that UNISON activist brieﬁng undermine trade union organisation. Everything you need to know about the TUC mass lobby on • The 2015 Conservative manifesto said: “We want to see full, genuine 2 November gender equality. The gender pay gap is the lowest on record, but we want to reduce it further.”

• Trade unions help reduce the gender pay gap. In local government and the NHS, where 78% of the workforce are women, trade unions worked with employers to produce non- discriminatory pay systems. As a direct result of this and other measures jointly agreed to improve women’s workplace opportunities, the pay gap in the public sector has been consistently lower than the private sector since 2003. It currently stands at 11%, compared to 17.5% in the private sector. This work was carried out because trade union reps achieved it through collective bargaining, underpinned by a credible right to strike. Measures that undermine trade union organising will slow down progress.

• A large part of what UNISON reps do is challenge discrimination in the workplace, for example UNISON trains reps to deal with a range of issues, including bullying and harassment and promoting equality at work and in the community.

• Is the government planning to implement any sort of programme to replace this programme of work?

Health and safety

Health and safety in the workplace is under threat because the Bill will enable employers to use agency workers during strikes, it will enable the Government to cap health and safety work speciﬁcally, and the cumulative effect of the Trade Union Bill will weaken collective bargaining around health and safety.

• Union safety reps saved taxpayers between £181 and £578 million every year by reducing lost time from occupational injuries and work-related illnesses. (According to government research from the DTI, now the department for Business, Innovation and Skills carried out in 2007).

• Union workplaces are safer workplaces. Every year more than 10,000 union health and safety reps are trained to raise safety concerns in the workplace.

• Health and safety committees and collective bargaining arrangements all help keep our workplaces safer and leads to far fewer accidents at work.

• The use of agency workers during strikes could impact on the safety and quality of the services normally provided by trained and qualiﬁed staff. 9 Reporting back UNISON activist brieﬁng Everything you need to know Please do email [email protected] to let us know how your about the TUC mass lobby on meeting went, it’s really useful to know if there were certain aspects of the 2 November Bill your MP is concerned about.