{"id":69,"date":"2018-01-25T13:47:45","date_gmt":"2018-01-25T13:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/?p=69"},"modified":"2018-01-25T13:48:15","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T13:48:15","slug":"counting-the-cost-of-private-finance-initiatives-pfi-for-public-services-and-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/?p=69","title":{"rendered":"Counting the cost of Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) for public services and workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Public meeting \u2013 All welcome!<\/strong><br \/>\nHosted by Waltham Forest Trades Council<br \/>\nThursday 8th February<br \/>\n10 Truro Rd, Walthamstow, E17 7BY<br \/>\n7.15pm Exhibition<br \/>\n<strong>The Private Finance Initiative\u2014 How come we\u2019re<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>still paying for this?<\/strong><br \/>\n8pm Speakers:<br \/>\n<em>John McDonnell<\/em> Labour Party Shadow Chancellor<br \/>\n<em>Helen Mercer<\/em>, People vs PFI<br \/>\n<em>Jim Fagan<\/em>, Waltham Forest Save our NHS<br \/>\n<em>Len Hockey<\/em>, Unite Barts Branch Secretary<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-70 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/pfi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"368\" srcset=\"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/pfi.jpg 640w, https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/pfi-300x173.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The collapse of Carillion has rightly put the spotlight on the role of Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) in running our public services, bearing out fears trade unions and campaigners have been expressing for years.<\/p>\n<p>PFI is about creaming off profits for private sector fat cats whilst our public services have to make cuts to service PFI debts. At the same time workers see their jobs outsourced on lower pay, and lesser terms and conditions.<\/p>\n<p>The People vs PFI campaign exhibition and booklet highlights why PFI is a \u201cbad thing\u201d, calling for an end to the PFI model for financing public services. PFI drains public finances of resources. But it\u2019s the public that picks up the bill when things go wrong. Barts Health Trust which includes Whipps Cross hospital has the largest PFI project in the country and putting the hospital into failure as it struggles to keep up with the PFI payments. Last year Unite members were victorious in taking sustained industrial action against the multi-billion pound outsourcing company Serco for a wage increase and to safeguard jobs.<\/p>\n<p>The National Audit Office say that annual charges on over 700 operational PFI deals will mean a total bill of \u00a3200 billion by the 2040\u2019s. Billions that could be spent on the NHS, our schools, providing social housing, and other public services.<br \/>\nCarillion has also been complicit in the construction industry of blacklisting trade unionists. This further begs the question how these companies are fit to be responsible for public national assets. The Labour Party want to bring PFI contracts back in-house to be run within the public sector by public sector employed workers, ending what Jeremy Corbyn has called the \u201coutsourcing racket\u201d.<br \/>\nSome say we cannot afford to bring PFI contracts into public ownership; if we want to keep our public services and protect workers we can\u2019t afford not to.<br \/>\nFurther details contact: wftradescouncil@gmail.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public meeting \u2013 All welcome! Hosted by Waltham Forest Trades Council Thursday 8th February 10 Truro Rd, Walthamstow, E17 7BY 7.15pm Exhibition The Private Finance Initiative\u2014 How come we\u2019re still&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaigns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community-languages.org.uk\/waltham-forest-trades-council\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}