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‘Not in our name’
Austerity, Unite assistant general secretary Howard Beckett noted, is alive and well, especially in Birmingham if you are a refuse collector.
Intervening at the Labour conference today (September 26) urging delegates to stand with the Birmingham bin workers, he explained all that’s at stake in their fight for decent pay.
These Unite members are paid only ÂŁ19,000 a year and now face the choice of the loss of ÂŁ5,000 or redundancy, Beckett explained.
“Conference this austerity is the thin end of the wedge for workers in Birmingham city council,” he added.
“It is driven by Stella Manzie, a chief executive officer on £180,000 a year and who in one year took home £160,000 a year in expenses on top of her wages.”
Instead of honouring an Acas deal reached in good faith which entailed compromise on both sides and would have ended the dispute, Manzie instead ignored the deal and issued redundancy notices.
But Unite scored a victory in the High Court last week when the Court ruled that the notices must be withdrawn.
Beckett reminded delegates at the Labour Party Conference that Birmingham council is in fact a Labour council.
“Labour must be much more than just a name,” he said. “We are not simply a brand.”
“It is not good enough for Labour councillors to hide behind Tory budgets. It is not good enough for them to hide behind the likes of Stella Manzie. It is not good enough for them to talk about hard decisions – that language has no place in a socialist party.
“We must stand on the side of the most vulnerable in society,” Beckett went on to say.
He described how Unite’s refuse collectors involved in the dispute haves stood up for themselves against Manzie.
“They have twice voted overwhelmingly for strike action and my union has successfully injuncted Birmingham City Council to stop redundancies taking place on October 1st.
But now, Beckett said, the call must be to Labour councillors and Labour MPs in the region.
“Each councillor and each MP must now say – not in my name, not in our name, not in the name of Labour,” Beckett concluded as he urged conference to demand the Acas deal be honoured.
Watch Beckett’s full speech in the video below:
