February 2022

Wolverhampton, Bilston & District TUC Secretary’s Report

• 2022 WB&DTUC officer nominations elected: President Marie Taylor UNITE LE/372; Secretary Nick Kelleher UNITE WM/6150; Treasurer John Grant UCU also on Executive Clare Simm PCS and Bob Simm UNISON. Nominations for other Executive Committee positions to be taken at next delegate meeting.

• Thanks to branches that have so far re-affiliated for 2022: ASLEF, Community, MU, RMT, UNISON City of Wolverhampton, UNISON Sandwell, UNITE WM/6150, UNITE WM/5203 (Ret Mem)
• affiliation form at https://wolvestuc.org.uk/affiliating-to-wolverhampton-tuc-2022/

TUC ♥ Unions week

We decided not to do our usual street stall activities. We’ve paid £50 for Facebook TUC Join a union adverts, running 3 weeks up to end of #HeartUnions week, targeting working age people from Wolverhampton. 60 had clicked to join a union, halfway through campaign.

• 12 Feb 2022 HeartUnions Rally – To mark the start of HeartUnions Week, the Morning Star and the TUC have teamed up again to host an online rally.

• 14 Feb 2022 HeartUnions: Every worker needs a union – organising call
  This organising call will invite union members to talk to non-members about the union during Heartunions week, because ‘Every worker needs a union!’
• 16 Feb 2022 HeartUnions: Trade unions organising to win around the world
  This webinar will show how trade unions are organising to win major industrial and political victories around the world.

The research which we commissioned into Wolverhampton/Staffordshire links to slave owners paid state compensation at abolition. Our researcher has produced a draft report – separate meeting will be arranged.

The Government wasted over £9.9 billion on PPE, which is more than it would cost to give every nurse in the NHS a 100 per cent bonus on their salary. The figure comes from the Department of Health’s

Annual Report, which reveals it spent:

• £673 million on PPE “not suitable for any use”
• £2,581 million on PPE “not suitable for use in the NHS”
• £4,700 million paying inflated pandemic prices for PPE we didn’t need to buy
• £750 million buying PPE which will pass its expiry date before we can use it.

It has also “written down” the value of £1,231 million in PPE, which is still yet to be delivered. The Department also reports that some of the PPE will need to be recycled and it’s now contracting “waste providers”. Some of it is too complex to be recycled and so will need to be burned.

A FOI response from the Good Law Project revealed that, between April 2020 and August 2021, the Government spent £677.6 million storing excess PPE, and continues to spend £500,000 a day on this.