This Saturday 3 September, members of the TPA team will be joining Liam BIllington, our coordinator in Tameside, Greater Manchester, for an action day. We will be meeting in the Market Place, Ashton-under-Lyne, at noon for a couple of hours of campaigning. We will be handing out TPA recruitment cards, and collecting signatures for a petition against the taxpayer funding of unions in Tameside.
To back-up our paper petition, today we have also launched an on-line petition. Please sign it, and pass the link to your family, friends, and colleagues. We want to continue to send a message to Tameside Council and the government that it is unacceptable for our money to be spent funding trade union activities. In Tameside alone, trade unions cost council taxpayers almost £337,000 a year. This is money that could - and should - be spent on front-line services.
Liam is doing some great work in Tameside. Not only has he helped expose a 48% increase in taxpayer funding of unions in the last financial year, he has also exposed crazy schemes such as Tameside Council spending £5K of our money setting-up walking routes for staff, and thousands of pounds wasted on an iPhone app hardly anyone uses.
If you can join us on Saturday, please let me know, so I can look out for you. It will be great to see you, and you are more than welcome to join us later for lunch, and some liquid refreshment!