Flexible Working: A Small Change For The Better

It seems that the government has agreed to extend flexible working legislation to cover parents of kids up to the age of 16. As someone who proposed a resolution demanding this at TUC Women's Conference a while back, I'm pleased. The existing legislation, under which you could only request changes to your hours and location of work when your child was 5 or under (unless s/he is disabled) seemed to suggest that juggling the demands of work and children becomes a piece of piss on the day the littl'un turns six. Not.

Mind you, it remains merely a right to ask for flexible working, and employers retain the near-limitless right to say 'bugger off'. As with many employment laws, its usefulness in the workplace is limited by the weakness of the law itself, and also dependant on the strength of union organisation. In a non- or weakly-unionised workplace, the boss will feel free to say yes or no entirely on their own whim. But with a strong union, high membership level, and trained, confident reps well-integrated into an active branch, you have a much better chance of workers getting what they need.

I represent quite a number of union members in flexible working applications. You win some, you lose some. The legislation sets up the member to have to practically beg their manager to make adjustments to their working conditions that are actually no big deal for the company but mean the world to the worker. Sadly, you also frequently have to contend with resentment amongst the workforce, sometimes deliberately stoked up by managers. In a shiftwork industry, workers can get to believing that if someone gets, for example, daytime weekday shifts, then that's not fair on everyone else who has to do the dead-early starts, post-midnight finishes and weekends. Somehow, it gets forgotten that many flexible working applicants ask for shifts that most workers would consider anti-social, meaning that their workmates have to do these less often.

So this new change in the law is welcome, but does not not go nearly far enough. Workers need the right not just to ask for hours that fit our caring responsibilities but the right to get them. And to get them without causing detriment to other workers.

Asperger Syndrome: To Diagnose Or Not To Diagnose?

A while ago, I was asked for my thoughts on whether parents who suspect their child may have Asperger Syndrome should get him/her diagnosed.

This was a little startling to me, as it had never crossed my mind not to seek a diagnosis for Joe as soon as I had grounds to suspect he had Asperger's. We had been concerned about certain aspects of his behaviour for some time, in particular how readily he became distressed and sometimes violent, and how very reliant he was on routines. Scouting around for answers, I came across this on the National Autistic Society's website. It describes Asperger's, and it describes Joe as accurately as if it knew him personally. It seemed the most obvious thing in the world to seek an official diagnosis.

A year and a half later, being asked to discuss whether to seek a diagnosis provoked thoughts I hadn't even considered, but at the end of the thinking and discussing, I am as convinced as ever to recommend to any parent in this situation that yes, you should seek a diagnosis.

Here are some good reasons why. You, your kid, your other kids, their school, and others in his/her life would have an explanation as to his/her behaviour. You gain an insight into how your kid sees the world. This firstly puts a stop to unhelpful labels of 'naughtiness' or 'anti-social behaviour' or what have you, and secondly can give you and others - such as siblings - a shedload more patience when unpleasant behaviour kicks in. And it prompts you to learn more about Asperger's and develop strategies to deal with it.

'Dealing with it' is not the same as 'treating' an illness. It means adjusting your family's life a little - for example making family routines more predictable - and helping your kid understand the world and learn those social skills that Asperger's kids don't pick up in the everyday course of life.

To do this, you need to learn about Asperger's and autistic spectrum disorders. Read stuff, go on the 'Early Bird Plus' course that we found very helpful. Spend time with child psychologists and others who can explain. And seek out the views of aspies themselves. Look at more radical analyses of autism and challenge the more conventional or negative ones.

So getting a diagnosis for Joe has enabled us to better understand his behaviour and needs. It has also given us access to various support (though not enough!), including such things as referral to the fantastic, inclusive Evergreen Adventure Playground. It may give you access to certain financial and other benefits eg. Joe's after-school club fees are waived because his consultant wrote a letter to say that it is in his clinical interests to attend, we have applied for Disability Living Allowance, and we will soon apply for a Blue Badge.

A diagnosis allows us to apply for flexible working whatever age he is, a right that would otherwise have expired when he turned six (last January). And it gives Joe - and, thanks to a recent European ruling, us - some legal protection under the Disability Discrimination Act.

The diagnosis led to Joe getting a Statement of Special Educational Needs, after an admittedly uphill battle about which I will blog soon. And the Statement should ensure that he gets into the secondary school of our/his choice - very important, as he will be able to go to a school that meets his needs, and one near home so that he does not have to travel miles to school each day. Our two nearest secondary schools are massively over-subscribed, so this is a big weight off my mind.

Some of these would not be factors if government policy were better or society were organised differently. For example, every child should have the guaranteed right to a place at their nearest school, and should not need a Statement in order to queue-jump. After-school clubs should be free to all kids. And flexible working legislation should extend to all workers with caring responsibilities, including all those with dependant kids of any age, special needs or not. But that is not the reality now, and in any case, the other factors still stand.

Of course, the other reason to seek a diagnosis is that your child might not have Asperger's, and you wouldn't want to work to the assumption that s/he had if it weren't the case, and perhaps miss out on addressing other issues or conditions that might need addressing.

I should stress that the decision for an adult about seeking a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome is probably very different; but when your kid is 4, you make the decisions - and this is one I have never regretted.

Next Sunday: What getting a diagnosis actually involves.

Women and the Economic Crisis

There are many issues for women in the economic crisis that is upon us. It's not that I think that there is particularly a feminist analysis alternative to the Marxist analysis that we need (although there is a need for economic analysis to take account of women's unpaid work). But there are ways in which the crisis will impact on women - primarily working-class women - that we need to prepare for and address.

'Lord' Mandelson has already announced that government plans to extend flexible working rights are on hold because of the recession, his government's generosity to overfed bankers obviously extending far beyond that to hard-pressed working parents. Although this legislation covers both men and women - and as a union rep, I have helped both men and women to benefit from it - the majority of those who benefit are women workers.

Pressure on household budgets is usually pressure on women. Paying bills, getting in the weekly shop, making sure the kids are clothed and the holiday paid for still falls mainly on women's shoulders, so when prices go up and/or incomes fall, it will be mainly women who are expected to work wonders with the balance sheet or to go without.

There are also more women than men who are single parents, who may struggle even more. This will also mean that the majority of parents whose kids risk losing the roof over their head through repossession or eviction will probably be women.

Domestic violence tends to increase during recession. According to a 2004 study by the US National Institute of Justice, women whose male partners experienced two or more periods of unemployment over the five-year course of the study were three times more likely to be abused. Perhaps this happens because of the stress of unemployment and financial hardship; perhaps because of rows over women's and men's priorities over spending scarce household resources - as Paul Weller once asked, "Do you want to cut down on beer or the kids' new gear? It's a big decision in a Town Callled Malice." (Suggesting reasons, of course, does not mean looking for excuses.)

To add insult to injury, at the same time support services for abused women will find their funding under threat. This is because the state does not provide enough, so many services - such as hostels and phonelines - rely on charitable donations and year-by-year grants, both of which become more precarious as recession bites.

Recession may well lead to attacks on public services - Gordon Brown has to pay for his bank bail-out somehow. Such cuts affect women not just as service users, but as the people who usually pick up the workload of caring for relatives young and old if, for example, playschemes or old people's day centres close down.

It seems to me that because of these issues we might see - and should certainly encourage - working-class women in communities organising against service cuts, evictions, bailiffs and price rises, as well as supporting unions fighting against job losses and for inflation-proof pay settlements.

Ruth Kelly Quits Cabinet. Good.

News breaks this morning that Ruth Kelly has quit the Cabinet.

Long-time readers will be familiar with the contempt in which I hold Ms Kelly - whether she is cutting back on translation services in order to 'fight fascism'; or sending her son to private school to get him out of the under-funded state system that she used to be in charge of; or pretending to be a champion of women's rights.

Usually, when a politician departs from office "to spend more time with his/her family", it is widely seen as code for "sacked" or "resigned because pissed off with party leadership". In this case, maybe it is this, but maybe it really is to spend more time with her family, as she has four kids of primary-school age (and this usually seems to be seen as more of a 'responsibility' for women than for men).

We can expect many tributes to her superwoman status, bravely juggling the competing demands of kids and work, courageously blazing a trail for mothers in politics.

I can certainly empathise with this juggling act, with three primary-age kids of my own, and many years behind and ahead of me of battles with my employer and sometimes even within my union for this not to be held against me.

But my empathy does not extend to Ruth Kelly. Why? Because her policies have condemned many working-class women to a struggle harder than hers:

• The pathetic level of the minimum wage leaves many women having to work long hours, or have two or even more jobs to make ends meet, leaving them very little time to spend with their families.
  
• Most of us can not afford to send our special-needs kids to private schools, and would be happy with their state schools if the Government in which she used to be Education Secretary had funded them properly and reorganised them to meet children's needs rather than burden them with tests and targets.
  
• Many people are unable to balance work and parenting, because New Labour's flexible working legislation is so piss-weak.
  
• She led the charge to allow 'faith-based' adoption agencies to discriminate against gay people - so presumably, some people have more right to spend time with their children than others.
  
• And her opposition to abortion rights would force women to have children that they didn't even want.

So, mincing no words - good riddance. Let's have some concern for working-class parents left to struggle by New Labour instead.

Lone parents and the green paper on welfare reform

Article for next month's Labour Left Briefing

Peter Hain recently insisted that getting lone parents back into work, was, apparently a respectable socialist cause.

According to Hain, full employment and conquering child poverty, in his opinion are socialist statements and “nobody can argue with them”.
But Peter, penalising and coercing people back into work with threat of benefit loss is something socialists would reject.

The proposals outlined in the green paper on welfare reform have a dishonest ideological basis with the emphasis on “culture of dependency”. With various legislative attacks on the poor in this society (Welfare Reform Act and Freud Review) this green paper and its contents comes at no surprise.

What comes across is that worklessness in marginalised groups such as single parents is seen by the government as the result of individual failure. If it is anything collective at all, in the government’s view, it is about culture of dependency and low expectation.

A real progressive socialist government, contrary to Hain’s recent pronouncements, would envision a more inclusive society that has affordable housing and good quality childcare as opposed to the free market view of work as simply being as much productivity as possible for as little wage as possible.

The aspiration behind the green paper is full employment for disadvantaged groups. A noble goal but to be pursued by ignoble means: More mandatory requirements on Jobseekers and tighter job search conditions before benefit is paid.

Nowhere in the green paper is there any mention of universal childcare be provided; a traditional socialist demand that would immediately free up single parents to study and work.
John Hutton earlier this year sited Sweden, which has around 80% of lone parents back at work as opposed to over 56% in the UK. Hutton failed to mention that money has been invested in the childcare system in Sweden.

Many European countries spend 3 or 4 times more than the UK on child care provision. In Sweden the early system is an almost universal public service and in Finland every child has the right to childcare from birth. While in the UK childcare is fragmented and beset with uncoordinated initiatives.

As Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) recently argued, lone parents need good supportive and flexible working conditions (certainly the pay gap is amplified for women workers who return to the workplace).

For example nowhere is there a proposal to help fund study so lone parents can increase their chances of getting better paid work. Instead the list of companies the green paper boasts as “partners” suggests careers of badly paid drudgery in the retail, hospitality and care home trades…the jobs nobody else wants. Many of these jobs would vanish over night in a recession. It would people from disadvantaged groups that would be laid off first if the firms are hit by the fallout from the credit crunch or a similar crisis courtesy of the merchant banks.

A recent book (Collapsing Careers by Joanna Grigg) reveals that every year 30,000 women in Britain are sacked, made redundant or leave their job because of pregnancy discrimination.

And further stigmatising of lone parents is David Cameron’s support for tax breaks for married couples as Britain must “lose its anti-marriage bias" if the UK's "broken society is to be fixed”. Cameron has back peddled over this as last year he said the, “Tory war on single parents was over”. He is surging towards to the right and championing the ideology, once again, of the heterosexual nuclear family (married of course). The same old Tories!

The culture of dependency is an invention of right-wing ideologies and those who go along with this thesis demonises the powerless. Socialists have to challenge this ideology.

Death Knell for Tube PPP?

I've just written the following article for 'Solidarity' ...

A decision by the PPP Arbiter in December may prove to be a fatal punch to private infrastructure company Tube Lines and the whole ‘Public-Private Partnership’ set-up on London Underground.

The New Labour government imposed the PPP at the very end of 2002, despite widespread opposition. PPP organised the Underground’s infrastructure into three groups of lines, and transferred them to private consortia known as Infracos, two to now-defunct Metronet, one – the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines – to Tube Lines.

Metronet collapsed in 2007, and Tube Lines has now hit trouble, falling well behind schedule with its upgrade of the Jubilee line’s signalling, causing closures to the line which are trying passengers’ patience. PPP Arbiter Chris Bolt, an ‘independent’ government appointee, has blamed this on Tube Lines itself, mainly for signing a contract for the work with another private company, Thales, before knowing the detail of the project.

The Arbiter had to decide what Tube Lines’ costs should be for the second 7½-year period of the 30-year PPP contract, due to begin on 1 July this year, and therefore how much London Underground will have to pay Tube Lines in fees. During this period, Tube Lines will have to continue to maintain the infrastructure of all three lines, upgrade the Northern and Piccadilly lines’ signalling systems, and refurbish 38 stations, far fewer than the 100 it was originally required to improve because it underpriced this work in its original bid.

Tube Lines reckoned that this work would cost it £5.75 billion, London Underground reckoned much less, £4 billion; the Arbiter calculated £4.4 billion. This leaves London Underground with a worrying funding gap of £400 million, but Tube Lines with a potentially devastating one approaching £1.5 billion. The Arbiter also ruled that Underground stations and lines should close to allow access to carry out improvement works for far less time than Tube Lines had demanded (15.5 million Lost Customer Hours for minor closures rather than 35.6 million), causing it further difficulties.

So who will pay? Even if Tube Lines paid, the public sector would reimburse it through higher charges, and London Underground and Tube Lines agree that “it would be better value for money for TfL [Transport for London] to raise additional finance than for Tube Lines to do so”. But the government argued the case for PPP on the basis that the private sector could raise the money needed to maintain and improve the Tube more easily than the public sector could! Intentionally or not, this view undermines the whole case for PPP.

Although the Arbiter’s report may speed the collapse of Tube Lines and the return of its work to the public sector, this does not mean that the Arbiter is a friend of workers and passengers. The Arbiter supports Tube Lines’ recent cuts to safety inspections of track and escalators. He also wants the workforce to be more ‘flexible’ by working across all three lines rather than just one, and the response team to have fewer workers.

Tube Lines’ troubles come despite the very generous terms of the PPP contract. PPP guarantees a high rate of profit in the projected costs, and expects an Infraco to follow only Good, rather than Best, Industry Practice. It allows for not just inflation but “differential inflation” (real prices going up faster than official figures show) and even for the risk of differential inflation being higher than expected! PPP protects the Infracos from losses if their risks fail, but allows them to pocket the proceeds if their risks pay off.

Despite their failures to deliver quality improvements to schedule, the Infracos have benefited handsomely from PPP. The Arbiter has caught Tube Lines paying secondment fees to its own shareholding companies – Bechtel and Amey – way above the usual rate. When Metronet collapsed, its Chief Executive walked away with his pockets full while the public-sector Transport for London inherited 95% of the failed Infraco’s debt, setting the scene for the landslide of cuts that now threatens to engulf London’s transport.

The London Underground PPP is an indictment of New Labour, whose turn away from the working class in search of credibility with capital has been not only unprincipled but a spectacular failure.

But even if PPP collapses and the Underground’s infrastructure is fully re-integrated into the public sector, two big dangers remain: firstly, further attacks on workers and passengers due to the debt and the cross-party consensus on the need for public spending cuts; and secondly, that the Tories simply privatise the reintegrated London Underground. Then we may find out that that there is something worse than PPP.