Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

What would you say is the 'core business' of a pub? Selling beer to its customers would be at the top end of my list because that's what pubs are all about and a pub without beer doesn't make any sense. So what about the core business of trade unions? Negotiating and campaigning on over pay is a bread and butter issue for any union, both locally and nationally, and a key part of that process is holding regular meetings with the rank and file union members. Now that's the lifeblood of trade unionism, if you ask me: reporting back to members' meetings and asking for their continued support over a campaigning issue or an industrial dispute, for example.      For certain that was the case during my time as a full-time official with NUPE and latterly in my role as Unison's head of Local Government and chief negotiator in Scotland. So it comes as a real surprise that the GMB union is reluctant to hold meetings with union members to discuss the handl...

The following entries to the Private Eye's 'Dumb Britain' column  gave   me  a great laugh, especially the one about Arthur Scargill (the former miners' leader) being in a James Bond movie.  DUMB BRITAIN The Chase, ITV Bradley Walsh:  Which London mayor supposedly became rich to due his cat's ratting abilities? Contestant:  Boris Johnson. The Link, BBC1 Mark Williams:  I attended Downing College, Cambridge, to study law. I was one of the performers on The Frost Report. I have played the character of Q in a James Bond film. Who am I? Contestants (after some discussion):  Arthur Scargill. Perfection, BBC1 Nick Knowles:  The German parliament is  known  as "The Dummkopf". True or false? Contestants:  DWe'd like to change Bev's answer from "False" to "True" please. Tipping Point, ITV Ben Shephard:  In the famous equation E=mc2, what does the "E" stand for? Contestant:  Einstein

NASA released this beautiful photo of the sunlit Earth which was taken by a satellite one million miles into space. Now that's a long way away, but a million miles is mere grain of sand across the almost unimaginable vastness of the Universe 

Now here's an amazing photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope which shows an image of an exploding star - a Supernova - that blew itself to bits 10 billion years ago. The science buffs among you will realise the significance immediately, i.e. that the light from the Supernova therefore took 10 billion years to reach Planet Earth - travelling at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Which is fast, you've got to admit. And it also means that the Universe is such an imaginably large space - containing billions of galaxies and stars - all at different stages in the great cycle of life and death. I have a great sense of wonder and amazement looking at such images - but also huge appreciation for the scientists who are able to explain the workings of the Universe in such incredible detail.  I suppose it's just as well we're finding all this out in the 21st century - because not that long ago scientists like ...

Now while it's extremely unlikely, I suppose it is possible that an all-powerful God or Supreme Being created the Universe, then waited billions of years before revealing himself to human beings on Planet Earth. And if we are to believe what competing holy books say, God revealed himself, first of all, to the followers of the Jewish faith before changing his mind and deciding that the Christians were really the chosen people, although this only lasted until 610 AD when Islam was born.  To be fair this narrative excludes a whole number of offshoot religions which came into being at a letter date such as Mormonism, Scientology and the Bahias, but you get my general drift which is that the Planet Earth and the people who live here are no big deal in the grand scheme of things.      

My recent post about the expenses racked up by John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons, reminded me of this great track from the English rock group Free - 'Travelling in Style'

I came across this article from The Daily Record which reported in 2012 that North Lanarkshire Council's chief executive, Gavin Whitefield, opted to forego his election 'returning officer' fee of around £10,000 because of a mess that was made in issuing postal votes.  Now that was the right thing to do if you ask me, but the postal voting error must pale into insignificance when compared with the terrible mess the Council and its most senior officials made in their handling of equal pay.   The cost to North Lanarkshire was reported by Private Eye recently at more than £70 million yet as far as I know neither the chief executive nor his senior officials have offered to return the big performance bonuses they 'earned' while the long fight for equal pay in NLC was still underway. North Lanarkshire Council chief coughs up for election leaflet error BY EUAN MCLELLAND  - The Daily Record (13 June 2012) NORTH Lanarkshire Council chief executive Gavin Whitefiel...

Well what a day it was yesterday in the Glasgow Employment Tribunal - a momentous day if you ask me, because North Lanarkshire Council (NLC) was finally forced to concede that the gradings awarded to many of its women workers are wrong. Specifically, the Council has abandoned its defence of the gradings applied to Home Support Workers (Home Carers), School Crossing Patrol Workers and Playground Supervisors - despite arguing for years that the pay and grading of these predominantly female jobs were absolutely fine. The only way for the Council to rectify the situation is to appoint someone who can evaluate these jobs independently and properly, but that is of course what should have happened many years ago. Other jobs may follow because the case made by the claimants and by the A4ES barrister, Daphne Romney QC, is that someone has to answer for how this could possibly have been allowed to happen - when so many well paid and senior Council managers were overseeing th...

Here's the full text of a speech given recently by Tony Blair on the future of the Labour party. Now if you ask me there's nothing very controversial is what Tony Blair had to say because he was talking about how to win elections which he did very successfully, of course, although there are lots of Labour supporters who appear to hate him for doing so.   When I was a still a member of the Labour party I recall some of my loonier trade union colleagues denouncing Tony Blair as a 'Tory' and if you ask me, Labour is now paying a very heavy price for directing its political pitch to a relatively small section of the electorate. Ed Miliband, for example, made 'zero hours contracts' one of his big issues during the 2015 general election campaign despite the fact that many more people were affected by the fight for equal pay in local councils across the UK, many of them Labour controlled councils of course. The SNP has pushed Labour aside in Scotland and esta...

The BBC reports that the John Bercow's fondness for travelling in style, in his role as Speaker of the House of Commons, is costing the taxpayer a pretty penny. Now I can understand that some politicians have good security reasons for using official cars, but this doesn't rally apply in the case of the Speaker and it really is the height of nonsense that he doesn't just jump in a taxi like everyone else.   Bercow defends £31,400 travel and accommodation expenses BBC -  UK Politics House of Commons Speaker John Bercow claimed travel and accommodation expenses of £31,400 over the past year. The details include more than £13,000 for an official trip to Australia with an aide, and almost £1,000 for a car journey from Halifax to London. The Speaker was invited to address foreign parliaments, and visited UK schools and organisations to boost awareness of Parliament. A spokesman for Mr Bercow said he was "always mindful of costs". But Chief Secretary to the Trea...

(Photographs by Amanda Demme for New York magazine) The New York Magazine has an arresting cover photo on its front page of 35 women who tell their own stories of how they were allegedly drugged, sexually assaulted and raped by the iconic American comedian, Bill Cosby.  You can read the full article online via this link: http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/07/bill-cosbys-accusers-speak-out.html

The BBC reports on the Bill Cosby controversy with this blog piece by Brenna Cammeron. #TheEmptyChair moves discussion beyond Cosby New York Magazine's latest cover features 35 of Bill Cosby's 46 accusers - women, each seated, who say the comedian drugged, assaulted and in many cases raped them. It is a stark visual representation of a "sorrowful sisterhood," as one of the accusers called it. But the chair that has perhaps garnered the greatest reaction is the empty chair, a seat symbolically held for the women Cosby allegedly assaulted but declined to be interviewed by the magazine, or who have not come forward at all. According to lawyer Gloria Allred, who says she represents 17 Cosby accusers, the magazine piece is a damning indictment against a comedian who previously enjoyed a squeaky-clean reputation as "America's Dad". "I haven't seen any other place where all of the women were assembled in a photo together. It's a very powerf...

Here's a letter I sent last week to Sir Paul Kenny the newly ennobled boss of the GMB trade union. Now I've never written a letter to a knight of the realm before and, sadly, I am still waiting on a response from Sir Paul whom I knew as plain old Paul Kenny in the 1980s when we were both full-time union officials dealing with the London Borough of Barnet. I'll have more to say on the subject soon as I suspect this kind of restrictive job requirement is a breach of the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003, but in the meantime I'll let my letter to Sir Paul speak for itself.  Dear Sir Paul  GMB Scotland I came across this advert on the GMB Scotland web site recently. I considered applying for one of the two vacant organising posts until I read Paragraph 6 of the  J ob  D escription which is reproduced below for easy reference: 6) Political • To encourage organisational work at CLP, District...