OneBarnet and the shafting of UNISON

So once all Barnet Council's employees are scattered far and wide and NLBP has become a TESCO's, what future is there for UNISON, the public sector workers union? Well (according to reliable sources) this can be summed up by a throwaway comment from Brian Coleman. "If the private sector want to fund the union and give them a free office, it's up to them". Coleman and co are persuing the OneBarnet agenda, because they believe that Unions should have no place in the workplace. Like many on the right, they believe "the market" should set the rates of pay. What they don't understand, because they've never worked in the public sector, is that good pay and conditions attract higher calibre staff who stay in post longer. Many of the most successful companies (BMW, Mercedes, etc) in Europe have workers representatives on the board. They recognise that a content workforce delivers quality. What Coleman and co don't appreciate is that if your aged mother has dementia and needs a care team, she needs continuity and caring staff. If they continually change and don't care about her, she will suffer.

British Rail was broken up for precisely this reason. Michael Portillo, then transport minister believed that by fragmenting the system, the Unions would not be able to shut down the country. So now we have a whole bevvy of private companies. Prices have gone through the roof. Whilst we have less strikes, anyone who uses First Capital Connect in Barnet will realise that this has been replaced by management failure. When it is your nearest and dearest who are left in their own shit for hours, because their carer on minimum wage, working for carers are us, who don't care, then you'll wish that UNISON was still around to make sure that those workers had been looked after.

It will be far too late.