A Luta Continua, at least it does down Folkstone Road.
We have been asked to provide a fuller account of why the current Labour Mayor and Council are in dispute with the refuse workers, and whether there is any conflict inside the Labour Party as to which side is right.
The dispute is actually two disputes.
Nationally, both the GMB and Unite have balloted their members and are taking industrial action over wages. In short, there has been a period of wage restraint. Now, at a time of high inflation, staff are demanding pay rises to reflect both the restraint of the past years and the effect of inflation.
Locally, the mayor is in dispute with Newham refuse workers, (Unite members mainly), specifically about overtime rates and special allowances and what they claim is Newham’s bad faith in failing to abide by an earlier agreement. The Newham staff are paid less than their colleagues in neighbouring Tower Hamlets, but not, we suspect, less than their neighbouring colleagues in Barking and Dagenham.
With regard to the national negotiations, Fiaz has very little control. The government is not likely to provide additional funding for a settlement that breaches their guidelines. That will mean that financing will have to be done at a local level; cuts in one area to pay for increases in another.
The local negotiations are equally difficult. All of the increase for additional money, in the event that the mayor was minded to offer more, would have to be found locally. Having exhausted her reserves, she has very little room for manoeuvre.
This may go some way to explaining why this mayor has been combative in her public statements about the dispute.
It does appear that, having cultivated and relied upon Labour’s Left to get elected, Fiaz has now cut, or at least severely damaged her relationships with that section of the party.
She is criticised in Newham65 alongside the Labour Party in general. Readers will recall that the Labour Party suspended the two Newham constituency parties. They remain suspended. As the N65 writers correctly assert, because of this, there is no forum for internal criticism of the actions of the council or the mayor.
The only forum that seems to be open to Labour is on the council, but Newham councillors appear to be largely supine in the face of the dispute.
We assume that Mayor Fiaz is relieved and that she hopes for an extended period of suspension.
N65 charts the fractious history that Fiaz has had with various unions, comparing her unfavourably, if somewhat sarcastically to Grant Shapps. But not her alone. “Starmer has demonstrated a hapless inability to find a coherent position on the growing unrest.” It seems that Newham’s Left have decidedly fallen out with their national leader as well.
As to the position of the Labour councillors, several have signed a nationwide petition organised by the RMT and this includes some who have been appointed to Special Responsibility posts by Mayor Fiaz. We begin to see the hoary old Leftist dialogue resurfacing and find that they are not above a little re-writing of history. John Gray, it appears left the cabinet because of Fiaz’s mismanagement, not because he oversaw a Labour Party Facebook page that had been allowed to propagate various antisemitic tropes.
It is possible to read events in several ways.
The Left is getting restive, and whilst the opportunities for disruption are currently limited, there will come a time when the suspensions are lifted and Labour can get back to the fractious internecine blood-letting that Labour does best.
The petition is a subtle warning to Fiaz that she cannot rely on, even her own cabinet members.
Signing it was simply a tokenistic piece of virtue signalling that actually has no real meaning and no cost to the signers.
Most councillors can’t be bothered.
Most councillors want to keep their heads down, at least until they can see which way the political wind is blowing.
It is worth noting, that none of the cabinet seem to have made any public response to the dispute. They, it seems are keeping well clear of anything that might involve taking a stand, on either side. This is a burden that is left entirely to Fiaz. The result is that Fiaz looks increasingly isolated.
As to what happens to the Newham refuse workers, your guess is as good as ours.
The Mayor’s statement on the dispute:
Statement from Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz OBE, update on bin strike action Saturday 27 August to Saturday 3 September 2022
Unite union members turn down package that would have seen pay increase of between 13.8%-17.9%
Despite the herculean efforts by senior Council officers over the past week to avert bin strike action in Newham, staff members in our waste and recycling service have yet again turned down a generous pay package on the table.
Not only have they snubbed wage rises of £2,229 - representing annual salary increases of between 7.8% - 9.9% for both loaders and drivers – they have turned their back on a wide-ranging package of benefits.
The package represents at least an additional 4.1% increase to their salaries, including a £2000 retention fee for HGV drivers, enhanced overtime payments and increased payments for bank holiday working for all staff.
Combined with the nationally proposed negotiated pay settlement, our staff in the waste and recycling service would have been in line for an overall total pay increase of between 13.8% - 17.9%.
Regretfully, Unite union members have rejected the generous package on the table, and sadly the people who will suffer the most are our hard-working Newham residents who earn significantly less than what has been offered to our refuse workers.
Our residents now face the crippling impact of rising energy bills and a cost of living emergency, as well as the impact of a week-long strike led by the Unite union which will start on Saturday 27 August. This will cause a build-up of refuse waste and fly-tipping plus disruption to refuse and recycling collections for several weeks, and I thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.
I am really sorry that Newham residents have to suffer even more in these most difficult of times because of the actions of the Unite union.