Will Duckworth: Green Party needs to build links with unions to fight injustice

From the Green Left blog (Virtual Water Melon) LINK

The Green Party’s deputy leader Will Duckworth has called for stronger links between politicians, the general public and unions to fight workplace injustice.

Mr Duckworth spoke out after attending a demonstration against a series of forced redundancies at Halesowen College, which is close to his home and the area he represents as a Dudley Metropolitan Councillor.

He said:

---

Governments in the last 30 years have been working hard to try to destroy unions, and the result is that it’s now too easy for management to bully individual employees, who don’t have the protection they need and deserve. Standing up for workers’ rights is vital, especially during times of economic downturn when increasingly desperate employers look for ways – some of them unfair – to reduce outgoings including wages and sick pay.

The current government is working hard to destroy the collective bargaining power held by unions – one of the only ways employees can safeguard pay and conditions, including basic rights to safety in the workplace. Only by standing together can we protect these basic, necessary rights.

Mr Duckworth joined union members and members of the public to protest against the dismissal of four Mathematics lecturers from the College. He was one of more than 12,000 people who signed a petition calling for the reinstatement of the lecturers.

College management argues that the lecturers have been ‘underperforming’ but many, including union leaders, college students and the lecturers themselves, fear that financial pressures and the lecturers’ union membership may have played a part in the decision.

They also expressed concern about the way the redundancy process has been handled by the College.

Mr Duckworth said: 

We’re very concerned that the proper disciplinary processes haven’t been followed: if the College was unhappy with the lecturers’ performance, it should have issued them with notices to improve before taking this very strong action.

He added that he hoped to build stronger links between the Green Party and trades unions.

He said: 

My attendance at the demonstration was to show support for workers who I believe may have been treated very shoddily. It was also to help to build links between the Green Party and trades unions, so we can work together in future to combat and prevent such injustices.

NW London NHS vote to close Central Middlesex A&E with potentially life threatening consequences

Hospital campaigners from Brent, Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham assembled at a chilly 8.30am today outside the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster in the shadow of Parliament's Victoria Tower. They were protesting against Shaping a Healthier Future plans to close A&Es at Hammersmith, Charing Cross, Ealing and Central Middlesex Hospitals.

Their pleas were ignored just as were their letters, petitions and marches and the Trust went ahead and voted for all four closures.

Campaigners warned that the decision will hit many of the area's most vulnerable residents and could result  in life threatening delays for urgent treatment.

The ITN report on the demonstration and decision can be found HERE

A wonderful facility for children - let's see it widely used

Brent has some resources that deserve to be more widely known and used.  One such is the Brent Play Association on the ground floor of Peppermint Heights (formerly Middlesex House) adjacent to the Grand Union canal and opposite Sainsbury's in Alperton. It is close to Alperton Station. The BPA's John Lyon narrow boat is moored close by.

The Peppermint Heights facilities are  used for holiday and weekend play schemes for children with special needs. However, the facilities would be useful for organisations working with young people during the week including play therapy, art therapy, one to one contact, sensory work, group work as well as for voluntary organisations or community groups wanting a meeting place.


I will let the facilities speak for themselves through the images below:

Art Room

Multi-sensory room for stimulus or calming

TV Room

Play area

Large kitchen

Conference space (up to 100)

Small meeting space

Safe outdoor play

As one of the trustees of the Brent Play Association I would like to see these wonderful facilities much more widely used. The BPA would be pleased to show you what they have to offer. Contact details are HERE

Barry Gardiner quizzes Michael Gove on Michaela Free School

A Brent North resident writes:

 

I thought followers of Wembley Matters  might be interested in the copy letter below. It appears that I was one of several people to contact our MP raising concerns about the proposed Free School at Wembley Park. Barry Gardiner has put our questions to Michael Gove, and has promised to forward a copy of his response as soon as he receives it.

 

When Gove and David Cameron launched their latest list of approved Free School bids in July last year, it showed that its funding for the Michaela Community School was on the basis that it was to meet demand for a Free School in Lambeth, which it highlighted as a deprived area. I know that Brent has some deprived areas as well, and our schools do need to be fairly funded; but it seems unfair that the money for this school should be taken away from Lambeth, where there is the need and apparently the demand for it, and spent in Wembley Park, where I am not aware of any such demand.

 

Barry Gardiner's letter to Michael Gove:

 

Click on image to enlarge

 

Early signs of Spring in Fryent Country Park

A stroll through Fryent Country Park turned into a slipping, sliding, squelchy, sucking battle with mud today but I was rewarded by early signs of Spring. There wasn't much sign of frog activity yet but birds were busy and that drumming of a woodpecker could be heard across the woodland.

Hazel catkins

Lesser Celandine

Pussy Willow

Gorse flowers

Bluebell leaves emerging

Never mind your heritage - get excited by the shops!

Guest blog by local historian Philip Grant

It seems that we are likely to see the last remaining relic of the British Empire Exhibition, the Palace of Industry building in Olympic Way and Fulton Road, demolished within the next couple of weeks.

Quintain Estates advised me on 14 February that they intend to go ahead with the demolition before their planning application for 1350 temporary car parking spaces on the site goes before Brent's Planning Committee on 13 March. They can do this, as Brent gave them permission as part of the overall scheme for Wembley City some years ago. 

I had asked them to allow the east and north external walls to remain standing until the main redevelopment of the site for a shopping centre goes ahead in several years time. This would not stop them from having all of the car parking spaces they require to fulfil their commitments to Wembley Stadium, and would allow visitors coming to Wembley Park for the 90th anniversary of the British Empire Exhibition in 2014 to see the scale and style of the last of these iconic buildings. They claim it would be unsafe to do this, but have ignored my request (four weeks ago) to have sight of their evidence.

It was intended to ask for the retention of the walls to be made a condition of granting planning permission for the temporary car park. It appears that Quintain Estates have decided not to take that risk, so that the demolition will already be a "fait accompli" when the Planning meeting takes place. As a concession to the proposed BEE 90th anniversary exhibition, which it is hoped will be held in the new Civic Centre in the summer of 2014, Quintain have said that they will give Brent the lion's head corbels from the building.

When I suggested to the Quintain representative yesterday that it might be better to co-operate with local people and Brent Museum and Archives on this matter before sending in the demolition team, I was told they 'hope that the excitement about a new cinema for Wembley, with shops and restaurants accessible for all plus 1500 new jobs will outweigh any "bad publicity".'

Cllr Mary Arnold: Gladstone Park forced academy is 'outrageous'

Cllr Mary Arnold, lead member for Children and Families on Brent Council, has declared support for Gladstone Park Primary School in a message to the NUT:

We are giving the governors a lot of support including approaches to DfE.

It is outrageous that the school is at risk of being forced into academy without a further inspection and a chance to improve their progress – especially as results were OK

Cllr Hirani tells Gove Gladstone Park academy conversion 'simply not needed'

In a welcome move Brent Council Executive member,  Cllr Krupesh Hirani,  has  written to Michael Gove regarding the DfE's attempt to force Gladstone Park Primary to become a sponsored academy:

(Click on image to enlarge)