After being sacked for
whistle blowing and fighting for her rights Karen Reissmann has been elected to
the National Executive of UNISON. It’s a great victory, but there is still a
risk that Karen’s sacrifice and struggle will be in vain. Karen was offered a
financial settlement by her employers.  When she declined to accept this,
(against advice from the union), the NW Region of the union withdrew her
funding.  She is now appealing to the NEC, because she wants to fight to
get her job back.

While workers are being asked to take below-inflation pay increases to stop inflation, directors’ pay has increased by 6.1%, states a survey by Deloitte’s annual executive compensation study. They looked at the top 350 FTSE companies (except investment trusts).This survey does not tell the whole story. According to the Financial Times (08.09.08), “This understates total remuneration, because most top executives also receive a bonus worth on average of 157% of their salary last year. That is 10 to 15% higher than the previous year. Many also receive long-term stock awards that can be worth up to 165% of salary if […]

The credit crunch spares no-one. Liz Windsor of Windsor Castle has been forced to cut down on travel costs. No more £22,849 helicopter trips to the Kentucky Derby, then. She’s scraping by with just £12.7m from the civil list. How can you expect to keep up all those palaces on that money?

An oil man from Kazakhstan hit a nightclub in Regent Street one Saturday night in August. He and 15 mates started out with dinner and fine wine for £10,000. After that they really pushed the boat out with 20 bottles of Armand de Brignac Ace of Spades champagne autographed by Jay-Z for £40,000. Then… well, we don’t want to bore you, but the drinks bill for the evening came to £95,000.

Lord (Jack) Cunningham – a former Labour MP and Cabinet Minister has been paid £36,000 for just 3 hours a week advice. Not surprisingly Jack was unwilling to reveal these consultancy fees to the House of Lords anti-sleaze register. What, exactly, are these companies buying?

Not quite instant bestseller. Japanese author Takiji Kobayashi wrote The Crab Ship (described as the Japanese equivalent of the Ragged Trousered Philanthopists) in 1929. Since then it’s sold a steady 5,000 a year. Now it’s taken off, because, “Young people…see themselves and today’s situation in the novel. ” 79 years on it has just sold half a million copies. Unfortunately Takiji won’t be counting his royalties. He was tortured to death by the secret police in 1933.

Mind the gap. Brad Mills, boss of platinum mining company Lonmin, gets £8.2m a year. That’s just 790 times as much as the firm’s average wage of £10,410 that workers in South Africa get for risking life and limb in one of the most dangerous industries in the world. Mills reckons the pay gap is down ‘in large part’ to the lower cost of living in South Africa. So that’s all right, then.

Parliamentary expenses: Tony Blair as PM was on around £190,000 (a sum that he regarded as a poverty wage). So he claimed for his TV licence! Gordon Brown also claimed for his TV licence.  He claimed £55,000 over three years towards his second home despite having the run of a ‘grace and favour’ apartment in Downing Street. He also claimed £15,000 to fit up his London flat, £2,300 for food, and £4,980 for cleaning. He then had the temerity to claim for his council tax. Prudence indeed!

Never mind the Olympics medal table. Here’s a table to watch. Boston Consulting Group has drawn up a table of millionaire households. To get in you have to have more than $1 million of assets under management. So you can’t include your house or your Lear jet. The USA is top with 4.5 million millionaire households. We’re third with 610,000. Hurray!

Former
Bristol Rolls Royce Convenor and Amicus Executive member Jerry Hicks has lodged
a complaint with the government appointed Certification Officer over the undemocratic
extension to office of Derek Simpson, the Joint General Secretary of Unite, beyond
his retirement age next year. In a change of rules agreed as part of the merger
between Amicus and the TGWU last year Simpson’s period of office was extended
to December 2010 when he will be 66. Simpson was elected as General Secretary
of the AEEU in 2002 after successfully challenging the change in rules to
extend Sir Ken Jackson’s period of office beyond retirement without an
election.

Everybody loves LS Lowry’s ‘matchstick man’, paintings of working class people in Salford in the Great Depression.  Everybody now includes luxury group Burberry who have created a Lowry handbag selling at just £1,395. He also has a luxury hotel named after him and his paintings go for up to £3.7m.

Transport Minister Tom Harris remarked that if the Tories hadn’t privatised the railways, New Labour would have done it in 1997. We invest three times as much as when the industry was nationalised through our fares and taxes. The train operating companies alone get £2bn. £800m goes straight out without even touching the sides to private ‘investors’ (looters), some of whom get a 30% rate of return. You couldn’t make it up!