Merthyr nightmare
Do you remember Old Labour or just Labour? For those who don’t
they were once a party of the working man – a people’s party even. Modern
Labour of course is New Labour as well all know well.
One of the most famous Labour figures is Kier Hardie, Hardie was in 1900, elected
as the junior MP for the dual-member constituency of Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare.
Merthyr Tydfil – a bastion of the Labour Party – a place, like many where you
could once weigh the Labour vote.
I wonder how Keir Hardie would view Labour today in Merthyr
Tydfil? I wonder if he would be proud of what the Labour-run council are doing?
If only we could ask him – but as of yet, time travel is beyond us.
What are Labour doing you ask?
Merthyr Tydfil council to 'sack and re-hire 1,000 staff'
Unison and GMB have written to Merthyr Tydfil
council leader Brendan Toomey after the notices were issued to council staff.
They say they are "disappointed" the
council has begun a 45-day consultation on changes to terms and conditions
without talking to them first.
Mr Toomey said the council needs to cut costs.
The council faces a £13m deficit between 2015 and
2018 and Mr Toomey said if negotiations with the unions failed, then formal notifications
about redundancy talks would be issued immediately.
If an agreement cannot be reached on new terms and
conditions, the council will start sacking and re-hiring staff from 19 January
2015.
The process is expected to be finished by 13 April.
'Difficult'
In a joint statement, the unions said: "We
find it disappointing
that a Labour council should consider it acceptable to propose dismissal and
re-engagement of staff on worse terms and conditions and demand the council
finds an alternative to this measure."
The unions have asked for the matter to be referred
to the joint secretaries of the National Joint Council for Wales.
A Welsh government spokeswoman said staffing
decisions were up to local authorities, adding: "Funding reductions do not
necessarily mean withdrawing services or making redundancies."
Jeff Jones, a local government consultant and
former leader of Bridgend council, said: "For a Labour-controlled
authority to go down this route shows how difficult it is.
"The problem for Merthyr is that it's so small
and it has little room for manoeuvre."
Unions claim an early merger with neighbouring
Rhondda Cynon Taff council would help relieve some of the council's financial
problems and should be considered as a priority.
The council planned a
similar move in October but backed down.
The reality is, Labour (New Labour, Modern Labour or the
RedTories have turned their backs on the working man and woman). Once we lose
sight of the value of our workers, we go blind to the truth.
Why not scrap the renewal of Trident and ensure Wales is fairly
funded? Let’s move Wales forward not backward.
All well and good for Plaid Cymru to be righted outraged but where are your local representatives and Trade Union fighting for the Council workers in the town?
ReplyDeleteI'm not a Labour member, a Trade Unionist and nor do i work for the Council but i do live in the town and all the choices facing the Council are bad, sack and rehire staff will keep jobs but set an appalling precedent for other welsh councils or Merthyr can merge with another basket case Labour run Valleys Local Authority of Rhondda Cynon Taff who are slashing budgets left, right and centre and making no guarantees over job losses after a merger.
The GMB and Unison are pushing extremely hard for the merger and will end up doing more damage than good in this situation, the Union reps keep their jobs come what may, not all the Council staff will
What are your suggestions to resolve the situation Vaughan as your clearly interested in this or is it just to score political points against the useless Labour Party?
You’re right of course, the choices are indeed difficult.
ReplyDeleteAs a school teacher year after year I see larger class sizes and less teachers (for example if a teacher retires, they are not replaced, this has been the case for 6 years). My belief is that the priorities are all wrong.
Why are our councils in this position? It is because we are being underfunded by Westminster to the tune of £300m a year. Securing fair funding for Wales, that is money that is ours is a basic start.
Labour rightly condemns the Tories for not funding Wales fairly but forget that they had 13 (13years x 300,000,000 = a huge difference) years in government to right that wrong, but didn’t.