The Olympics and Paralympics are over! It seems like they have been around in Stratford for ever doesn’t it?
There is no doubt that they have been a huge success. The whole country has been sport mad for the last month. The newspapers are full of the ‘feel good factor’ and the optimism and legacy that the Olympics promised to bring.
The victory parade has passed by. Now what?
London Ambulance Service has done itself proud by the way LAS staff have gone about their business, mixing in and working alongside ambulance staff from around the country.
While that has been going on all staff outside the Park have been keeping ‘Business as Usual’! The point is that everyone has played their part.
There has been an almost constant carnival atmosphere. Nothing wrong with that of course, except the Coalition government has been busy exploiting it. Now there’s a surprise!
They have hoped to send this message out:
‘While Team GB win medals then everything in the garden is rosy. See how we are a caring country when thousands upon thousands turn up to support and cheer the Paralympians’.
George Osborne got booed by the crowd in the Olympic Park because they (ordinary working people)Â really do care and they knew that he (multi millionaire), and the Coalition, don’t.
Compare the endeavor and courage of the athletes with the smugness and insincerity of the Tories and you will see that it will take more than a month of carnival to pull the wool over our eyes.
The Tories are cutting benefits for the disabled at the same time as putting medals around their neck! They are making speeches praising the emergency services while at the same time cutting and slashing our pay, jobs and conditions.
The Olympics are over – it is back to business!
Pensions and pay have not gone away (all together now) pensions and pay have not gone away!
We still have outstanding issues regarding pensions. Retirement age within ambulance is a major concern.
Part of the pension agreement is the setting up of a tripartite review on the impact of working longer in the NHS in general and ambulance services in particular. Government, Unions and Employers will come together in this review.
This review is important. It is part of a number of concessions that were won on the back of the 30th November 2011 action along with the likes of better protection and better accrual rates.
We didn’t get everything we would have hoped for out of the dispute, but we certainly got more than the government wanted to give us. A year ago they wanted to completely destroy our pensions, to steal them from us. They didn’t succeed.
We have to wait and see what comes out of this tripartite review before we decide on any next steps.  It is unlikely that the review will be concluded before the end of the year or early 2013.
So the campaign for fair pensions and a fair retirement age goes on, led by Unison.
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Those who are following the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Brighton this week will be pleased to see that pay is back on the agenda.
Unison moved a motion calling for a major pay campaign to end the pay freeze next year.
The pay freeze for public sector workers is unfair. I have written about the unfairness in a number of past blogs and have always said that pay, and pay alone, should be our priority at this time.
Part of the campaign is the TUCÂ demonstration in London on SATURDAY 20th OCTOBER 2012.
Do you want a future that works? Then come along and march with your Trade Union Branch. LAS Unison members will be marching together to show the Coalition government enough is enough.
If you believe that government cuts are not the way to deliver the future that our country needs, then you need to let your feet do the talking!
Join us on 20th October. Tell us you are coming. Tell your colleagues, family and friends about the march and ask them to let their feet do the talking also alongside us.Â
More information will be sent out soon.
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My fondest memory from the Olympics?
Medal winners, joy, tears, pain, courage, strength, agony, endeavor, passion?
Nah!
Boris Johnson hanging from a zipwire high over the park! Priceless! A Tory London Mayor left dangling high and dry above hundreds of tourists.Â
You could almost see the comic speech bubble from his mouth with the words ‘Cripes Bunter’! If ever one picture, frozen in time, showed all that was wrong with Mr Johnson, that is it!
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Today 11th September: Whatever horrors that 9/11 and its aftermath brought on the world, don’t forget that it was not the fault of the air passengers, air crews, Twin Tower staff and emergency workers who were murdered on that day.
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I have heard all the rumours and opinions of course about the departure of a number of senior managers.
People leave. People move on. Working for the LAS is not a life sentence (it may feel like that – but it isn’t!).
Under the present Coalition government the NHS is in for tough times, there is no doubt about that.
However, let’s not forget that the LAS has come a long way in the past 15 years, and the people who are leaving have all played a part in that, working with the Unions and Union Representatives to improve things for staff, patients and the Service itself.
So, in the interest of messroom and workplace banter, scientific debate and understanding of the phrase being whispered I leave you with this interesting link which argues that things may not be as they seem:
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SATURDAY 20th OCTOBER 2012
MARCHING FOR A FUTURE THAT WORKS
JOIN US!
Eric Roberts
Branch Secretary
