Midlands News 41

From the Regional Secretary

This week we have seen a report published by the Chartered Institute of Management which says that UK chief executives saw a 15.8 per cent increase in their salaries in the past year - mostly made up of bonuses. It is clear that ordinary people are suffering the biggest squeeze on their incomes in almost a century, but families' financial pain is not being shared by their top bosses who have huge bonuses to cushion them against any drop in their living standards.

While real wages continue to fall for working people, the cosy pay clubs setting salary and bonus payouts for top executives are awarding payouts that bear little relation to company performance and that only serve to widen the gap between the richest and the poorest in the UK.

With the AGM season almost upon us, our new TUC share owner group aims to inject a long overdue dose of reality into British boardrooms and will use the power of our pension funds to encourage a new and more responsible corporate Britain.

Welcome to our new affiliate

This month we are delighted to welcome the 'SU West Bromwich Building Society' as a new TUC affiliate union. Currently, the 'SU' are involved with a unionlearn project to expand online learning opportunities across the workforce. So, a warm welcome to the TUC fold and we look forward to SU playing a role in the work and activities of the Midlands TUC in the years ahead.

We have also seen figures published by the Cranfield School of Management - which show that progress on appointing more women to company boards has stalled - so the TUC has called on ministers to introduce compulsory quotas.

While we welcome recent cross-party efforts to alter boardroom culture, this has not led to meaningful change. These figures make for depressing reading. The only way we will end the old boys' network is if the government introduces compulsory quotas for the composition of boards, as recommended by the European Commission. Without this, female board members will continue to be a rarity.

We will use our new share owner group, which has over £1bn of pension assets, to challenge poor corporate governance and call for greater diversity on boards.

Rob Johnston

Midlands TUC Regional Secretary

Women Chainmakers festival

The ninth Women Chainmakers festival will take place at Bearmore Park, Cradley Heath, on Saturday 8th June. We are delighted to have as our keynote speaker Lesley Mercer, President of the TUC, together with Gloria Mills of Unison.

This year we are planning to hold a commemoration of the Chainmakers at the monument in Mary Macarthur Memorial Gardens, followed by the traditional banner procession along Cradley Heath High Street and then to the festival site. We are hoping to be led by local schoolchildren who have designed and made new commemorative banners especially for the 2013 festival.

The leaflets advertising the festival are being distributed via unions, trades union councils, Thompsons Solicitors, and the Labour Party in Sandwell. Some 50,000 leaflets have been produced - and many of these went to the NUT national conference in Liverpool over the Easter holiday.

Further attractions have been added this year including taster sessions from the University of Birmingham Archery Club and a stall exhibiting Dudley Heathens Speedway team - formerly the Cradley Heathens.

The festival will feature Stacey Blythe singing the Chainmakers song, and acts organised by local promoters RoosterSpake.

Our Family tent will include circus skills, face painting, the chance to look at old maps of the Cradley Heath area, badge making - and new this year - 'A Mile for Mary' paper chain challenge for youngsters.

The festival will start at 11.00 a.m. and run through until 5.00 p.m. Further details will be announced in the run up to what we still believe to be Europe's only festival dedicated to the achievements of women trade unionists.

Birmingham Netroots

Unison in the west midlands hosted our first midlands Netroots UK event which brought together both union and non union web campaigners to hear from acknowledged experts in the field of on line campaigning.

Following introductions from Katherine Segal of Digital Action Lab (pictured, above) and UNISON's regional secretary, Ravi Subramanian, a general discussion was held on what makes a good campaign.

There followed workshops on 'Getting more out of online petitions' and 'Writing better blog posts' run by Weldon Kennedy of Change.org and Sunny Hundal from Liberal Conspiracy respectively.

The afternoon workshops were very hands on looking at creating campaign websites and writing more effective emails. The final session saw Weldon Kennedy lead on using social media effectively.

The day was interesting and thought provoking, and we may well look to run another workshop later in the year.

Pensioners Network agree plan of action for 2013

The month of March saw our equalities committees start their new cycle of meetings and the chance to define their priorities for the year.

The TUC Midlands Pensioners Network has agreed a plan of action covering three strands of their work; strengthening retired member's organisation; Campaigning; Closer working with the Midlands TUC.

The Network has already had a stall at the Midlands TUC Annual Meeting and plans to have a stall at the Women Chainmakers Festival in June. The Network already has invitations to speak at three trades councils in the coming months and is exploring the possibilities of working closely with other TUC equalities committees over events such as Pride and World Mental Health Day.

The Network is also keen to be involved with union and TUC campaigns such as the Living Wage campaign, the Unison 'Time to Care' campaign and anti NHS privatisation campaigns.

The committee also elected their new officers for the year ahead, Yvonne Washbourne, known as Wash, as Chair, Bob Deacon as Vice Chair and Sheena Gordon as Secretary.

Members are committed to getting beyond the committee room to attend events and talk to people about TUC priority campaigns. There are also plans to jointly campaign with the Disabled Members Forum on World Mental Health Day.

Building Stronger Unions - regional briefings.

The TUC are developing a series of half day briefings for trade union Officers, Organisers and reps to help develop understanding of the challenges unions face in building membership and activity, and to assist in the development of effective strategies on organising and recruitment.

Sessions will run for between two and three hours and will feature presentations, activities and discussion. If you are interested in attending any of the briefings please contact mkesterton@tuc.org.uk to book your place

1) Defending the right to organise and represent members

This session is designed to help unions protect and promote facility time and use the paid time off that reps have more effectively. The session reflects on recent political and policy developments and considers how unions can make the case for facility time both within and beyond the workplace. The session will also include a demonstration of the TUC's new on-line Facility Time campaign module.

Date: April 23

Venue: UNITE, Transport House, 29 Burleys Way, Leicester LE1 3BE

Time: 10.00 - 13:00

2) The state of the Unions

This half day briefing draws on the latest Labour Force Survey statistics on Trade Union Membership and Bargaining Coverage and the Workplace Employment Relations Survey. The session will highlight some of the key national and regional issues arising from the latest statistics and consider the implications for unions and members.

Date: June 19

Venue: UNISON, 24 Livery Street, Birmingham, B3 2PA

Time: 10.00 - 13:00

3) Reaching out - Organising new workplaces

This half day briefing covers how unions might reach out beyond workplaces and sectors where unions have existing members and recognition. In particular, it considers how unions might use existing bargaining relationships in public and larger private sector employers to influence workers in supply chains

Date: September 25

Venue: GMB 542 Woodborough Rd, Nottingham NG3 5FJ

Time: 10.00 - 13:00

Dates for your diary

Workers Memorial Day commemorations

Wolverhampton: 12.30 p.m. at the Workers Memorial Day tree, St Peter's Church, St Peter's Square, Wolverhampton WV1 1TS www.wolvestuc.org.uk info@wolvestuc.org.uk

May Day celebrations

Chesterfield May Day: details are now available at: http://chesterfieldmayday.org.uk

9.00am - 3.30pm. Stalls and Entertainment in Winding Wheel
10.30am. March Assembles at Town Hall
11.00am. March Off-Bruce Kent
11.30 a.m. Rally & Speeches in Rykneld Square
12.30pm. - 4.15pm. Live Entertainment in Rykneld Square

Refreshments available all day in the Winding Wheel provided by Derbyshire Unemployed
Workers' Centres.

Wolverhampton May Day: The Pegasus Pub, off Craddock Street, Whitmore Reans, Wolverhampton, WV6 0QQ

From 7.00 p.m.

Saturday 8th June - 9th Women Chainmakers' Festival,

Bearmore Park, Bearmore Road, Cradley Heath 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Friday 22nd November - Midlands TUC Awards Presentation evening, Nottingham

And don't forget the Blog......

We are publishing all our media releases on our blog: http://midlandstucmedia.blogspot.com/

This includes links to the False Economy website where cuts information is added on a daily basis:

http://falseeconomy.org.uk/

You can also follow us on Twitter @MidlandsTUC

Contact the Midlands TUC:

E: midlands@tuc.org.uk T: 0121 262 6383

Published by TUC Midlands Region, 24 Livery Street, Birmingham B3 2PA

Copyright in this publication is held by the TUC unless otherwise stated. For more copies of this newsletter contact Michelle Kesterton on tel: 0121 262 6383 or mkesterton@tuc.org.uk.

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