Home Care Enablement assistants protecting the Home Care services

Jul 11

Posted by Naeem Malik in Home, Industrial Action, International Soliidarity | No Comments

BTUC has received a following request of support from the Branch Secretary of the city’s UNISON branch representing the Birmingham’s Home Care workers.

You can send messages of support or donations to the hardship fund by contacting info@birmighanunison.co.uk or write to the branch office at UNISON, 19th Floor, McLaren Building, 46 The Priory Queensway., Birmingham B4 7LR.

You can also show your support by attending the lobby of Birmingham City Council Cabinet meeting on Tuesday the 31st of July https://www.facebook.com/events/1229002903908559/

I am writing to update you on the dispute being fought by our home care enablement assistants. Last year Birmingham City Council put forward a proposal to cut the enablement service by 40% and to bring in a 3 shift in one-day rota.

Our members in home care passionately believe in the work that they do. The service they provide is a vital one as they are out in the community often the first person someone will see when they are bought home after a hospital visit. So when the council said they had to cut the budget unison members voted to strike as they know the service is needed and they knew the shift pattern would make them too tied to do their job properly.

The staff wanted to try to draw up their own rota to cover the shifts and management agreed to this if we called off action as they were worried about strikes in the run up to the local elections. They also knew that we had to re-ballot after 6 months. So they offered to let the staff draw up rotas, we called off 5 days of strike action then as soon as the election was over they stopped the staff self-roster pilot. We re-balloted and again the members voted in a 57.5% turn out by 97.3% to strike.

Management have now issued a new business case to make all the staff, 60% of whom are full time or work over 30 hours redundant or offer them a contract 22.75, 21 or 14 hours. Management say that they want the 286 staff to fit into the new service where there will be 90 contracts of 22.75 hrs, 82 contract on 21 hrs and 54 contracts of 14 hrs. Staff will be expected to fit into 3 working patterns or leave. They will be asked to work 7 days out of 14 working opposite days each week. 14 hours’ contracts will be 7-11am. 21 hr contracts 4-10pm and 22.75 hr contracts of 7-11 and 12-2.30. This will make it almost impossible to get a second job. Management have made de it clear anyone not fitting these patterns will be made redundant. This will impact on those with caring responsibilities or with a second job already. The hours being offered do not fit with claiming universal credit or working tax credits accessed currently by staff.

These rotas are designed to make staff leave.

At the same time management have engaged an external consultant to look at the merger of the Birmingham and Solihull STP footprint and social care and health services for older adults. They have agreed to spend £12 of this work. The company are called Newton Europe and they are charging very high consultancy rates to councils all over the place on how to make cuts. It’s clear that they want to merge the services with staff on the lowest terms and conditions they can get away with.

Our home caters are not prepared to see their lives ruined, service user’s services cut by another £3m while the council pay £1,400 a day to a man in a suit without a fight. Our 282 home care members are heartbroken by this proposal but they are also organised and angry.

Members have voted to take 14 days’ strike action over the next 6 weeks and they would really appreciate your support. We cannot allow low paid women workers to be treated in this way.

Please send messages of support or donations to the hardship fund by contacting info@birmighanunison.co.uk or write to the branch office at UNISON, 19th Floor, McLaren Building, 46 The Priory Queensway., Birmingham B4 7LR.

Best wishes

Caroline Johnson, Branch Secretary, Unison Birmingham Branch

Birmingham Trades Council Delegates Meeting 5th July 2018 7:30 pm Council House

Jul 3

Posted by Naeem Malik in Home | No Comments

Birmingham’s affordable housing shortage – how developers exploit loopholes to put profit first

The Council promised that 35% of new developments would be affordable housing, but achieved less than 10%. Of the 4,768 houses approved for development in 2016/17, just 425 were lower cost housing, according to figures obtained in a Freedom of Information request by BirminghamLive.

The Birmingham Post online July 2 reports that house builders are exploiting loopholes in planning regulations to avoid providing affordable housing in the city. They are allowed to sidestep rules on affordable housing if they can show that providing discounted homes would stop the development making a profit.

Last year, the housing charity Shelter revealed that during 2015/16, Birmingham developers behind the construction of 2,916 homes were able to backtrack on promises to deliver 1,003 of them at the affordable rate by arguing their profits would be unfairly hit.

The problem also impacts on people trying to get social housing. In the West Midlands, there are 97,526 households on the social housing waiting list, according to figures from 2017, but there are just 37,840 available lettings. In Birmingham alone – a deficit of 3,135 social rent lettings.

By far the biggest developer of housing in the city is the council itself, under its Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust arm. But even it has to sell about 50% of the 1,000 plus homes a year it is building to fund further building.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, says the social housing waiting list “a national scandal” that is happening right across the country including in Birmingham and the West Midlands.

“People are being condemned to a life of unstable and expensive renting, forcing them out of areas they can no longer afford to live in,” she says. “But if we want to build enough genuinely affordable housing, we need to be prepared to pay for it.

“This means bringing down the mammoth cost of land. And getting rid of planning loopholes that make it too easy for developers to wriggle out of building affordable homes.”

So what can be done to solve the problem? Birmingham Labour councillor Peter Griffiths, who was until May the city’s cabinet member for housing, argues that the council should be more forensic in its analysis of developers’ figures.

He also suggests linking affordable housing contributions directly to the profitability of building projects.

Griffiths, who is now on his second spell on the city’s planning committee, is sceptical about the viability assessments that developers have to do to prove that they could not afford to build if forced to discount homes, and wants to get more of them independently audited.

In some cases he has found figures to be questionable. Affordable housing is supposed to be below 80% of market value, yet he says that some developers make assumptions of 60% just to tip the development into a loss on paper and excuse themselves the discount.

The Birmingham Post report quotes one would-be home-buyer priced out of the market. Jess Taylor says the solution should be simple. Birmingham Council – and the government – should choose to prioritise building affordable homes to fix the problem. “I think all new homes should fall under affordable brackets. Thirty-five per cent isn’t enough.”