As regular readers of this site will know, I’ve been following the story of the Fremantle Trust careworkers who spent much of 2007 striking against the harsh pay and leave cuts a new Trust contract forced on them in April. The dispute is unresolved.

Part one of this series.

A year’s a long while to fight your employer. Sandra Jones, a careworker at the Fremantle Trust’s Rosa Freedman day centre, says there are days now when she wonders if there’s much point to it. She will “keep on with the fight, because you have to keep fighting,” but she doubts that Fremantle will budge. “Fremantle doesn’t give a shit about its staff. It’s gone on for so long now. They [the careworkers] are so demoralised. Some people have depression and stress.”

One thing everybody is specially stressed about is Barnet Council’s recent announcement that it plans to terminate part of the lease at the Rosa Freedman home - that’s the carehome that Jones works at.

Fremantle says it will move residents in that home into residential care elsewhere. Careworkers say families of residents at the carehome are extremely unhappy about the transfer, because of the effect that being dragged out of one home into another will have on their elderly relatives.

They say Fremantle management got a vinegary response at a recent meeting on the topic with the families of Rosa Freedman residents. The careworkers are worried about the transfer and the job implications of the closure, as well they might be.

“The closure of the residential care part of Rosa Freedman could result in staffing issues,” notes a 6 December 2007 report to Barnet Council’s Cabinet Resources Committee. “Fremantle will be responsible for these issues under the terms of the staff agreement with Fremantle Trust and Catalyst.”

So… who the hell is Catalyst?
Well - as far as I can ascertain (I’ll tell you about the problems I’ve had ascertaining this in a moment) Catalyst Housing is yet another group of grasping wide boys (meaning no disrespect) that have managed to swing themselves aboard the third-sector gravy train. They don’t put it exactly that way on their website - they describe themselves as a “group made up of four registered housing associations, together with a number of associated companies… we operate in 16 local authority areas, and across the group there is more than 140 years’ experience of providing affordable homes for those in need…” Ain’t that grand.

Up in North London, they provide carehome services in partnership with Fremantle. They also appear to have achieved local legend for trying to crowbar higher care fees out of Barnet council - a number of 2007 council reports detail the council’s failure to negotiate settlements with Catalyst, and consequent trips to arbitration.

They also appear to be useless. The council admits in its 6 December cabinet resources committee report that Catalyst remains unable to perform within budget, and that attempt to mitigate losses by cutting staff wages through a “high profile change” has fairly yielded thin results.

My attempts to find out more about Fremantle and Catalyst and their love-in with Barnet Council have been about as rewarding to date:

‘What’s Catalyst?’ the press officer I spoke to asked. I told her that I was looking at an archive of the council’s cabinet resources committee reports, and explained Catalyst appeared to be a special player in the Fremantle circus.

‘Fremantle?’ the press officer said. ‘Who is Fremantle?’

May God help us all, I thought to myself. This council spent much of last year mired in of one of the nastier industrial relations disputes that outsourcing has delivered and its press office doesn’t know about it. Now, we have Catalyst - an outfit that looks very much like it tried and failed to improve its financial position by fragging careworkers’ pay and conditions, and that also appears about to cast a bunch of frail grannies out of their place of residence, and the press office hasn’t even got an alternate line. Fab.

Anyway - the conversation with the press officer shambled on in this tenor for quite a bit, and ultimately, she asked me to put my problem into an email, so that she could work out what I was talking about. I indicated that I wanted to talk to someone who knew what I was talking about. She took my name and number and said she’d get someone to call me back. Alas, nobody rang back.

The time to jump a Barnet council worthy in person draws near.

Anyway - back to the careworkers
Jones took a pay cut when she was forced to sign Fremantle’s contract last year - she used to work some Sundays for the double-time payment which was available until April 2007. “Well… I’ve adjusted,” she says wryly when she explains how she’s managed. “The ones who have a real problem are the ones [careworkers] who worked for that [enhanced] weekend pay, and now they haven’t had that for a year.” Fremantle told staff who relied on that enhanced weekend pay that they could make up the lost money by working extra shifts.

Then, there are the effects of the cut to Fremantle careworkers’ sick leave allowance. Under the Fremantle contract, careworkers are not paid at all for the first three days of sick leave. Jones says the upshot of this is careworkers crawl into work with flus, colds - you name it - because they can’t afford to miss a day’s pay.

‘I came into work when I had a viral infection,’ Jones says. ‘I was really sick, too. I felt really terrible, but I had to come in, because I did not want to miss that day of my pay.’

‘I thought it could be that winter virus,’ says Pat Ward. Ward is a domestic worker who has worked in Barnet carehomes for more than 20 years.

It doesn’t take much to figure that all of this is why life for elderly people in carehomes is often garbage. Take a look at last year’s report on conditions in carehomes by the parliament’s joint committee on human rights for more on today’s care standards.

Both Jones and Ward say it’s hard to know where to go from here: they could strike again, but they are clearly wondering about the point of that. The shop meetings haven’t been much of a picnic over winter - staff are not permitted to hold shop meetings in their Fremantle workplaces, so they hold them outside, or in their cars.

Of course - what the careworkers really need is the rigorous support of Unison’s London regional office, and a bit more than the bugger-all they presently get out of Unison’s famed ’special relationship’ with the Labour party.

The careworkers say that unfortunately, support from Unison’s London regional office has been in short supply during the dispute with Fremantle. They think their local Unison branch officers are marvellous, but they’re buggered if they know where the union’s upper echelons are. My personal view is that the reason why Unison’s upper echelons aren’t visible to members in trouble is because they spend most of their week two-thirds the way up Gordon Brown’s butt.
“It’s taking away your civil rights,” Ward says. “It’s being bullied. You can’t allow yourself to be bullied.”

“I went into it [the industrial action and dispute with Fremantle] wholeheartedly,” Jones says. “As far as I’m concerned. I worked hard. I came here [to work in Barnet carehomes] all those years ago and I worked hard and then I got more leave and more wages. I’m 48 now. I don’t want that [money and leave] taken off me, to go back to how I was when I was 30… we’re not asking for a pay rise or anything like that. We’re just asking for what we had.”

I rang the office of Fremantle Trust chief executive Carole Sawyers about a fortnight ago to arrange an interview to discuss this and that. I explained to Sawyers’ PA that I’d been talking to Fremantle careworkers and that I’d like to put their concerns to her.

Her PA said that would be fine, and that Sawyers would call back later the same afternoon.

Probably ten minutes later, the PA called back. Things had changed since we’d spoken. She asked if I would see my way clear to submitting a list of questions by email. She said this would help Sawyers prepare for the interview. I can’t stand email interviews - they’re a lazy way to do journalism - but I agreed to email the PA a general guide to the sorts of questions I’d be asking when Cazz and I spoke on the phone. I told the PA that I still expected the phone interview, though.

‘Oh,’ the PA said.

I sent her this email:

Hi -,

Thanks for talking to me today.

Regarding the questions I’d like to ask Carole - as I said, I’ve been following the Fremantle careworkers’ strike action, and their concerns about their changed pay and conditions.

I’d like to have a discussion around the pay cuts and the cuts to annual and sick leave. I’m also interested in talking about the reasons why Fremantle took those actions, and Fremantle’s views on the status of the dispute.

My mobile number is -. I won’t be on email tomorrow and will be in meetings in the morning, but will have my phone with me and will certainly be available after about 12.30pm. The weekend is fine if that’s more convenient.

Thanks again,
Kate Belgrave.

Cazz wrote back:

Hello Kate,

I attach the press statement we prepared in June 2007 which gives the info you wanted. Since then there have been three further days of action – the last in November 2007. GMB withdrew their support for continuing industrial action in early October.

Carole Sawyers
Chief Executive
The Fremantle Trust
01296 619304

An eight-months-old press release. Interesting.

Next in the series - trade unions
Part one of this series.