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Workers of England Union

Ahmad (00:00.51)
Right, Stephen, I was just saying we’re mates in a pub, right? We’re in a, we’re just having a chat. We’re having chit chat. So here’s my little badge. See, I’ve got my badge. There you go.

Stephen Morris (00:09.046)
Yeah, I like to see people wearing our badges.

Ahmad (00:11.358)
Yeah, even though people accuse you of being racist, which is ridiculous because it’s just the English flag. Yeah, what the hell, man? It’s a bit mental, isn’t it? So I was asking you about, just a second ago, I was asking you about unions, and you’re gonna start telling me about how you formed. And I was saying, when did the first union start? Do you trade unions? You didn’t know, you don’t know your history, that’s fine. I don’t know my history either. But aren’t there enough trade?

Stephen Morris (00:15.915)
Just because we have a flag on it, don’t we?

Stephen Morris (00:21.671)
You know

Stephen Morris (00:38.95)
No, because I was never into unions to be fair. That was the thing. I only got into it by chance when I worked at my pharma company and the branch secretary stood down and they needed somebody to take it on. So because it affected me, I said, oh, go on, I’ll do it. And that got me, that was 2003. That got me into…

Ahmad (00:43.553)
Right.

Stephen Morris (01:05.402)
just represented people. I wasn’t bothered about the history. I was only bothered about the here and now and where we go. And I just, and fortunately that was Unite, which was, I think that was the biggest eye opener with what I saw with Unite of really how bad they were on the way they treated people. So.

Ahmad (01:12.094)
Yeah. What you knew was that.

Ahmad (01:27.054)
What you mean?

Stephen Morris (01:33.822)
And the backdoor deals, that’s why eventually when this union was set up in 2009, I left Unite and joined these because I was fed up with the backdoor deals.

Ahmad (01:44.086)
No, no, hold on. Hold on, hold on one second. Unions are meant to protect people and workers from bad bosses and corporations and employers. What do you mean they’re treating people badly? That’s their job to treat people nicely.

Stephen Morris (01:57.944)
Oh yeah.

Stephen Morris (02:01.314)
It is, yes. But who protects the employees from the bad unions?

Ahmad (02:10.354)
Are there many? Are there many bad unions?

Stephen Morris (02:10.426)
That’s the question. Yeah, and that’s where we came in. I got fed up, like I say, with the backdoor deals. I’d be gone, we used to have a meeting in the September for Unite to look at what we were going in for, for pay talks, submit the pay talks, but then when we started the pay talks in the January, we were finding out the full-time officer had already done various deals with the managing directors, and it was so frustrating.

So yeah, I got very disillusioned with them. And at that time it was T&J.

Ahmad (02:44.24)
So, no, hold on a second. So hold on a second, what kind of deals were they doing?

Stephen Morris (02:51.534)
Well, we’d be going in for say a certain pay rise, either terms and conditions or percentage pay rises. And they’ve already done the deal of what they would agree to. You know, they’ve already said, no, this is what we, this is a percentage we’re going to go for. And it’s like, well, that’s not what we’ve come off the shop floor with. I’ve got to go back to my members. There was me and the principal shop stewards. We then have to go to our members and tell them this is what’s being put forward. And we’re now having to recommend.

acceptance and we were always pulling our hair out. I think I lost most of it when I was with Unite.

So, yeah.

Ahmad (03:30.195)
And do you think the union leaders were getting anything? Do you think they were benefiting in any way from making these deals?

Stephen Morris (03:36.642)
I don’t know if there was getting anything. I think they, I really don’t know on that one. I wouldn’t like to say, but I always felt that they were too close to the MDs. There were two pallies going for meals. Now, if they’d have gone for a meal with the MD and they’d had a chat about the deal, if the full-time officer had come back and said, look, just to let you know, I had a meal with the MD. We discussed various stuff.

And I said, fine, fair enough, you know, we all have chats with managers about various things. But then they weren’t raising this until we go to the pay talks and then it suddenly, oh, this is the kind of deal that we’re already looking at. You know, we’ve already agreed. But hang on, we didn’t even know you’d gone for a meal with this MD. So what are you doing going to a meal with MD and not letting the branch know? And that went on for quite a while. In the end, that’s got.

sick of it and just left Unite. I felt they weren’t properly representing people in England.

Ahmad (04:45.282)
So tell me, how many unions are there in the country?

Stephen Morris (04:51.19)
It’s well, it used to be just over 160 trade unions and staff associations in the UK. It’s now down to around 124, 25 ish. I think a lot of them got filtered out when the certification office last year became a fully fledged regulator. And so you had to comply with a lot more criteria. There’s only 48 of them affiliate to the TUC, the British TUC.

We don’t affiliate to them because obviously we’re politically neutral. They’ve affiliated the Labour Party, the majority of them. So there’s around 124 now in the UK. And like I say, there’s 48 we’re dipped in.

Ahmad (05:30.83)
It’s still quite a lot. So the ones that, the people that are listening that don’t know what the TUC is, that’s the Trade Union Congress here in the United Kingdom. Is that right?

Stephen Morris (05:42.89)
Yeah, well, there’s the British TUC, then you’ve got Scottish TUC, the Welsh TUC, and the Northern Irish is actually in with the Irish TUC, so they’re in with the island of Ireland for the TUC. There was no English TUC. We set that company up, we set up the English TUC company to try and fill that gap, because again, they don’t seem to have

England centric trade unions. That was one of the reasons we were set up for the workers of England Union, quite specifically for England. And there was quite a few things that really justified our setting up. From the main trade unions, the late Bob Crow was the only one who mentioned it when shipbuilding was shut down in Portsmouth prior to the Scottish referendum and shipbuilding was sent up to Glasgow.

It seemed like a bit of a bribe to keep them in the Union. Now, at the time, we could have kept it open because there were two ships being authorized to be built in South Korea, and they were supply ships. But as the late Bob Crow pointed out from the RMT on question time, he said, if you put two guns on the front, then it’s classed as a military supply vessel, and then it bypasses EU law at the time and could be built in the UK. Therefore, we could have kept all the jobs.

But none of the other trade unions stood up for it. And only, like I said, like Bob Crow from the RMT said it, the RMT has gone completely the other way now that we’re their leader. So there was these things, these discrepancies, where England didn’t have its own dedicated trade union because the other trade unions didn’t bother them. Whether they’ve got members in Portsmouth or Glasgow, they’ve still got the members, they weren’t minding it. And then there was no English TUC. And one of the things that…

Your viewers may not be aware, there’s different laws in the UK, you know, to do with employment. There’s the laws of England and Wales, and then there’s the laws of Scotland and the laws of Northern Ireland, and they are slightly different. Specifically, the tribunal processes are certainly different. And we do represent, although given our name, we do represent people in Wales as well. We’ve always done that because it’s the same law. So, yeah, there was a lot of things.

Ahmad (08:09.186)
So Workers of England Union kind of got its name during the COVID years, but it was actually formed before, wasn’t it? So when was it actually formed?

Stephen Morris (08:21.658)
Well, we started forming it in 2009, and we became a limited company then. And then in 2012, we got our proper certification from the certification office to be a regulated, to be a trade union. And one of the things you can’t be, you can’t be a limited company and a certified trade union. You can only be one or the other. So anybody who goes on Companies House and sees that we were dissolved in 2012, that’s the reason.

So we’ve been gradually growing ever since. Since 2009, we’ve been gradually growing. And it’s been going well. We really came to light during the COVID and lockdown years because of the way we operate because we don’t use workplace reps. So our reps are not influenced by the managers who pay their salaries. And we operate very much like a law firm. So a member comes to us and says, I have this issue at work. Can you represent us? And we go, yeah. We don’t.

put our own political view across or our own beliefs or anything like that, we just say what’s your issue, let’s represent you. And we have represented people with quite diverse views and opinions of which sometimes we’ve been criticised for but we still believe that every employee has a right to be represented, you know, regardless of their views and especially during the corrigers people would be…

victimised and harassed in the workplace like nothing we’ve ever seen before. And so we decided, yeah, we represent people. That’s what we’re here. That’s what trade unions are supposed to do, represent an employee who has an issue. You know, during the COVID, yeah.

Ahmad (10:03.778)
So.

Ahmad (10:07.402)
No, carry on, carry on.

Stephen Morris (10:12.794)
But yeah, so that’s where we came. And there was quite a few things that we did. And for my sins, I like watching zombie movies. And I referred people to one of the things that was in the World War Z comment, which was, they said like, if there’s a committee of 10 people and all of them are agreeing on one point, it’s the responsibility of the 10th person to think what if they’re all wrong.

And we always looked at that and said, well, what if they’re all wrong? And the other thing that put that in is from a personal experience, my father previously had a trial drug for chest infection, which gave him asthma, which he suffered with them, which asthma eventually killed him. So my family would never touch anything that was on a clinical trial. And that was one of the reasons we always advise people really be sure what you’re taking.

And we always used, we’ve been criticised, people have said, oh, you use conspiracy theories sites and all these kinds of stuff. No, all the sites we use were actually from the government’s own stuff. It was either the press releases, the other card report in the CQC. It was all their own stuff. So we became that group that actually said, what if they are all wrong? And in health and safety.

first rule is you’ve always got to err on the side of caution, you know, if in doubt you don’t do it. That’s the thing because you can’t go back. But it seemed to be that none of the other trade unions and all the employers, they were just all fixated in what the government was trying to push, you know, and as it’s coming out now, a lot of us who were saying, no, there’s issues with this, these problems, we’re all being kind of saying, well, we were right.

Ahmad (11:46.731)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (12:10.058)
They were all wrong.

So yeah, we really came to light during the Covid years and people have come to know us more of how we operate, which has been good. But a lot of the other unions clearly don’t like us because we’ve really taken away their agenda. They do have a political agenda. We don’t really have a political agenda. We don’t do that. We don’t have a political fund. We’re just here to represent.

And I suppose that comes down to my previous employment, which was more managerial anyway. Like I said, I got into trade unions by accident, but I always believe that employees should be treated right. I work on the theory that if you treat your employees right, you do good by them, they’ll do good by you. Yeah, there’s always the exception. We always accept this is an exception. But I always think you get a little bit more out of your employees if you do right by them.

Ahmad (13:00.62)
Yeah.

Ahmad (13:10.414)
I agree, I agree. So going back to those trade unions, they’re mainly working class, left, labor leaning. You’ve got a Tory government in place bringing in these draconian measures. Why were they all in lockstep agreeing with the government? You would think trade unions would be standing up for their workers and there’d be some kind of dissenting voices. Why the uniform?

obedience to what the government was saying and labor was just asking for more and harder. There was like no opposition, there was no dissent. What was that all about?

Stephen Morris (13:46.566)
D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d

Stephen Morris (13:50.494)
I think it’s the second part of your comment that’s the really telling part. It wasn’t that they were in cahoots with the government. They were following Labour and people forget that Labour wanted harder, longer lockdowns, more restrictions on people’s movement, more restrictions on what people can say and do. They were following Labour’s narrative, which was more draconian than the…

conservatives was doing. So it’s not that they were following the government and we know they were following the Labour one. We’ve had we had an email which we’ve still got hold of from Unison that they wouldn’t represent a member because it wasn’t Labour Party policy. You know, during the lockdowns and the mandating of vaccines because and bearing in mind we’ve got a Unison poster which said they were dishing this out to members saying the vaccine is safe.

Well, no union should be saying that, the vaccine is safe, because it was under trial, it was under clinical trial. So they were really following the labour narrative and that narrative was longer had. And people think we’re in a financial crisis. It’s a cost of lockdown crisis. We’ve got to put like, it’s not a cost of living crisis, it’s a cost of lockdown crisis.

And bearing in mind that Labour wanted a longer lockdown, had a lockdown, and to give more financial support to their businesses, that would have meant we’d have been in absolutely, whatever financial mess we’re in now, it would have been a lot worse under Labour because of what they wanted. So the unions are actually all working with Labour to try and overturn the Conservative government, because we saw the Conservative government in a complete and utter mess.

Boris Johnson wasn’t the great leader that everybody expected after Brexit. Liz Trust, some of her policies on trying to reinvigorate the UK economy, obviously. The civil servants didn’t like it. Now we’ve got another Prime Minister that’s unelected by anybody.

Ahmad (16:11.661)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (16:14.146)
We’ve had about a third or fourth unelected Prime Minister. We’ve had out of seven or eight of them lately So late no, so that there were there the unions and labor there to really Overturn the Conservatives and get themselves in government But anybody who believes that they are any better than the Tories really need to look at it and we’ve seen it with Sir Keir Starmer Use his proper title. I would have though he tends not to like it

Ahmad (16:22.811)
Mm.

Stephen Morris (16:43.718)
I don’t know why, because I saw him getting interviewed and he said he’s proud of his working class roots, working up. Well, if you’re a working class and you’ve worked yourself up and you’ve got a title, you should be proud to use it anyway. To say where I’ve come from and where I’ve achieved, but he seems to want to hide that. So no, I wouldn’t, I’d say to people, these parties are very much of the same.

Ahmad (17:01.767)
Hmm.

Stephen Morris (17:12.035)
And Keir Starmer’s shown that he switches his views each week.

Ahmad (17:13.049)
Steven.

I know, Stephen, I’ve said this many a time. We live in a country with a uni-party system and the illusion of democracy. But let’s go back to unions. After Margaret Thatcher decimated the unions, I kind of thought unions were on a back foot, memberships were declining, they didn’t really have any power or influence. Am I wrong? Or is our union still a force to be reckoned with?

Stephen Morris (17:45.89)
I don’t think they were as strong as they used to be. Yeah, Margaret Thatcher did do a lot of damage to the trade union movement. However, I will always point out that after John Major, we had 13 years of a Labour government that didn’t repeal anything.

Stephen Morris (18:06.314)
They didn’t roll back any trade union laws, they didn’t give any more power to the trade union movement. So, it’s quite easy for Labour and Labour supporters to always refer back to Margaret Thatcher and getting rid of trade union rights or restricting them. But then I always refer them back to actually, well, what happened during the 13 years of Blair and Brown, nothing changed then, did it?

Stephen Morris (18:34.454)
If you think that the trade unions movement is going to get any more power after Stammer comes in, then no, it’s just all rhetoric. Trade union movement, trade union membership has generally been falling and that’s why you have a lot of merged trade unions now. And like I said, when I started in 2003, you had the transport and general workers. They merged with Amicus and

was another one lined up to merge but I think they backed out and that became Unite the Union. So trade union membership in the traditional trade unions as they see themselves has been declining and people have been looking around for other trade unions. People like myself I do remember the late 70s early 80s on the strikes. I do remember that because my father was self-employed so he was badly affected by a lot of the strikes.

And I remember the power cuts. I remember sitting in my front room with my mum and dad with candles on because there was no heating or anything. So the newer generation, the younger generation don’t remember all that. Even the millennials, a lot of them won’t remember. They get told about the Thatcherite years, but they don’t get told about the Blair Brown years.

Ahmad (19:59.619)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (20:00.882)
It seems to be quite selective in what they’re targeting on trade union movements. So then you come across the latest strikes that we’ve had. Where the which was done completely wrong. If anybody was organizing the strike tactics, you just wouldn’t have gone the way they’ve gone. You know, like the RMT, you’ve got to drive. So. Yeah, you know. Well.

Ahmad (20:20.129)
Explain.

Ahmad (20:24.002)
Explain that, what do you mean by that?

Stephen Morris (20:28.194)
First of all, they came out with which was the RMT were coming out wanting massive pay rise for the train drivers. It was just after lockdown. People weren’t traveling. More people are working at home. And then they find drivers are on anything from 70 to 100k. People are going, and they want what? He’s like, no way. And they knew this wasn’t working. That’s why it’s gone on for so long. So then they started to target other areas. Tried to start it all. We’ll target the NHS.

Ahmad (20:36.33)
Mm.

Ahmad (20:51.54)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (20:58.03)
But people remember, hang on, we’re in a lockdown financial crisis because it was to protect the NHS. And now the NHS are asking for 20% pay rise, you know, when people are losing the jobs or cost of living skyrocketing. So people weren’t as sympathetic to the NHS as they used to be because of what’s gone on. So then they tried to target and make it so it directly affected the individual. And what did they do? They went for the schools then. Let’s bring the teachers out.

Ahmad (21:19.648)
Mm.

Stephen Morris (21:28.238)
That means then we’re directly affecting the individual. They have to then can’t work because of childcare issues and various things, so it’s directly affecting. So they went that way. And to me, this is why a lot of them are the trade unions, a lot of the membership and a lot of support for them trade unions is dissipating because they don’t see what people in the normal workplace, in normal job blogs is doing. They’re struggling, they were struggling day by day.

to either put food on the table or the heating bills, which was there to, it’s all occurred because the cost of living, this is why they changed it to a cost of living crisis where it was actually a cost of lockdown. But when you look at the lockdown, it was all due to protect the public services. So yeah, I think a lot of sympathy disappeared.

Ahmad (22:17.822)
Stephen, that, that was a big, big lie though. The whole thing, you know, clap for the NHS, save the NHS lockdowns to save the NHS. Actually it destroyed and crippled the NHS even further. It’s the longest waiting list on the longest waiting list on record. People dying on weight on the waiting list. Access to care has been restricted. You know, it’s not helped the NHS at all. It’s done the exact opposite. Every, everything they said.

Stephen Morris (22:32.378)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stephen Morris (22:43.438)
No smell.

Ahmad (22:45.818)
was going to be beneficial for was a lie. It’s an inverted world that we live in. You know, it’s all, it’s all BS. Now, why I want to ask you is that there’s a medical union, I’m not going to name it, but they’ve got a fancy big building in central London. They’ve got a lot of staff and admin. They all get paid big salaries and they have nice meals. And I used to pay membership to that union years ago. And I gave up. I thought, for all this money, what do I actually get?

Stephen Morris (22:52.548)
What?

Ahmad (23:15.926)
When I have problems at work, when I have bullying at work, what do they do? When do they ever say to me, oh, you know what? We’re here to help you and support you. It was a pathetic kind of union. I mean, are other unions like this? Do they have big fancy central HQ offices in London and big paid salaries? Or was this just an outlier, this medical one?

Stephen Morris (23:37.047)
Yeah.

No, a lot of unions do have big offices all the way around. People like Unite have offices in each region. I know they did shut the one down at South of Caius, which used to be the one I used to go to, but you’ve got offices in like the Northwest, you’ve got one in Liverpool, so you’ve got the big ones in each region. And all the other ones are the same, like Unison are the same. They have even smaller branches, like shop-sized branches as well all over. And this is where all the money goes.

and it goes into these big salaries. We, as a trade union, have always kept our prices low. And the reason we do that is we was actually, we was internet-based before it became more popular. So we only have one office for administration purposes. And it used to be in Colchester, but now it’s in Bury, North Manchester, where I am. So we keep our operations low. Our reps are based all around the country and they go from their home. Because…

One of the things we have to do is trying to keep the costs low because of people who are on low pay or people who are struggling. That’s always been our priority. People on a minimum wage, if you’re on a minimum wage and you’re telling somebody, OK, you’ve got to pay 15, 16 quid a month to have membership, that’s like an hour and a half for them to be working. But we say, OK, our membership has…

price has only just gone up and it’s the first time it’s gone up since we started. So it’s gone up from £9.95 to £10.95 and the part time is £6.35 and that’s the first time and that’s just because we’ve got other costs to cover on this. My salary, it’s all declared on the trade union regulators website. I’m happy to sell my salary, I only get 30k a year, that’s my salary.

Stephen Morris (25:35.038)
standard nest pension. I don’t get any kind of other salaries pension and the only other thing I get paid is my mileage costs. That’s it, I pay for my own car because we appreciate what it is out there for people. You’ve got general secretaries on 100k plus and some will say oh I’m only getting say 80 or 90 grand. That’s a lot of money to some people.

Ahmad (25:58.613)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (26:04.89)
But then when you look at the other packages that they get, oh, they might have a separate company pension scheme that’s worth absolute fortune, or the services that they get, and it all mounts up. But this all comes out of the members’ fees. So we don’t do that. We always make sure that if questioned, we can say, look, I won my case against my former company. I’m actually on less money now.

Ahmad (26:05.237)
Mmm.

Ahmad (26:13.571)
Mmm.

Ahmad (26:20.878)
100%

Stephen Morris (26:34.906)
than I was, again, when I worked for my former company, we took to court, and that was going back to 2015 when I left them. So, I’m happy with my salary, and I’m happy with what we do. And we can quite clearly just get.

Ahmad (26:51.15)
So.

So I think that is very humble, like costings that you’re describing, it’s not extravagant. And for example, I think there’s a similar thing to be said about charities. You raise all this money, how much of it actually goes to the end user? How much of it actually goes to that kid in Africa? And how much of it is spent on that fancy headquarters in London and…

big salaries and you know, all the fundraising and all the wining and dining, you know, it just, I had imagined it’s actually a very small amount that actually goes to the end user. But anyway, going back to like your, your union, the workers of England union, how many members do you have now?

Stephen Morris (27:41.402)
We have just around 8,500, which is good. Previously we’ve been steadily growing around to 250 a year. If we’d been growing about that for quite a number of years, then obviously we had a massive influx in the COVID years. And when people found out about us, our membership topped to 10,500 at the peak of the vaccine mandates with care homes and NHS.

We knew we would expect a drop back because people who’ve just joined to get a quick representation on the vaccine or mask and it dropped back. But we’ve been pretty steady now at around 8,500. It’s still trickling in now. People who’ve become more aware of us just spoke to one today who was recommended to us. So it’s getting that message out there because obviously we’re not really in the mainstream.

media, they don’t like to talk to us because we, the fact by our name and the fact that we only represent people in England and possibly Wales, they try and go on this UK brand, the government as you know, they’ve recently changed now, you don’t have a GB stick on your car when you go abroad, it’s a UK stick, they’re trying to do the UK brand and they don’t like to tell people that the UK is actually four nations made up.

One of the things that when we’re representing people and they’re not aware of, especially a lot of people from abroad, when we tell them, they say, look, no, there’s different laws. And they’re like, oh right. So when you go in and say, we’ve only ever been on the BBC once, which was BBC Surrey recently, that was a couple of years ago during the lockdowns. And we mentioned about the care homes, we were representing people in the care homes and about not having the vaccine.

kind of got attacked saying, well, what are that, then people that are gonna go in and possibly kill these elderly and all this lot. And we said there was a bigger question to ask them why they, people were being dumped in the care homes without testing. And then obviously afterwards it came out that again, like a lot of us thought it was wrong, it wasn’t right, and it was found to be unlawful. So a lot of them don’t like to speak to us because like yourself.

Stephen Morris (30:09.122)
when they mentioned anything to do with COVID lockdowns and that, we say, well, this is what we were saying. It’s now come out as the truth. What you were saying has now come out as being false. And the mainstream media don’t like being told that they were wrong. And they’ve been told many a time. We had a case that we were trying to take, but because we was only small and still building at the time, when Matt Hancock put

the Greater Manchester into lockdown. He actually said, if you go out, you’re gonna get either fined, you’re gonna get put in jail. And we tried to take that to court and the judge, because the judges are not favorable, because we said, actually, there was no such law. It didn’t exist for another week. So what Matt Hancock was saying on TV was false. And the judge actually said, well, our claim is without merit.

It’s not in the public interest. But we come forward at the time, at that time, to take it further. But it’s now come out that Matt Hancock was basically nearly enough to say we were lying on everything he were doing. But the law wasn’t in place. You know, all the things we were pointing out was country.

Ahmad (31:27.286)
But even that, it’s just ridiculous that the judge goes, is not in the public interest. What, locking down a whole city is not in the public interest? If that’s not in the public interest, what the bloody hell is? That’s madness.

Stephen Morris (31:34.884)
Yeah.

Stephen Morris (31:39.586)
Yeah, but the thing with the lockdown is they were only looking at three specific areas of Greater Manchester, right, to put the entire area in lockdown. So they looked at Rushall, they looked at Cheetham Hill and they looked at Gladwick area of Oldham. And they had a house, according to their testing, which we know was seriously flawed, there was a house spike. So therefore, oh, we’ll lock down the entire Greater Manchester. But people up on the moors…

in Oldham or people up in the boundaries of Wigan and that, they were nowhere near it, they weren’t affected but they were all put in. There was a situation in Liverpool where Liverpool had a spike and they actually locked down the actual street and a couple of streets around it, which you’d think would be more the appropriate way, but Greater Manchester, no it went absolutely ballistic, but again I think there was quite a bit of a political move on that because Andy

Stephen Morris (32:38.126)
businesses. So I think there was more of a route to get money out of the government into Greater Manchester than there was really a justified lockdown.

Ahmad (32:44.013)
Yeah.

Ahmad (32:48.71)
I don’t think there’s anything that justifies lockdown, even one street, just for clarification. Right, Stephen, moving on, like talk about your cases. Like yeah.

Stephen Morris (32:55.234)
Well, yeah, so… Sorry, I was just going to say on the lockdown, the Public Health Act didn’t allow them to lock down the country internally, only allowed them to lock down the ports and airports of people coming in, which they never did. They did the reverse.

Ahmad (33:10.35)
So who’s holding the government to account for that?

Stephen Morris (33:15.31)
There’s nobody been accounted for that, is it? People were still coming in out of the country via the airports and ports, but under the Public Health Act, you could lock down the ports and airports, but the internal workings was, you don’t lock it down. And obviously one of the classic ones was, that I used to say, was whether you was, whether you believed the COVID narrative or not, or the mass narrative or not, since when did people start believing the government?

that was the biggest issue. Nobody ever believes the government, you know, and Boris Johnson, who only has authority over health in England, was actually quoting Welsh law by saying you can only go out once a day for exercise and you can only go out within five mile of your promises. That was Welsh law, it didn’t apply to England. So, and as it’s now come out, I think in the past week, there’s more reports of saying how chaotic the cabinet was in.

It’s thought process and decision-making, you know, but people like ourselves are just being proved right every single day of what’s gone on.

Ahmad (34:23.262)
Yeah. Steven, would you ever trust a terrorist organisation?

Ahmad (34:32.214)
So why the hell do people trust the government?

Stephen Morris (34:32.962)
No.

Stephen Morris (34:36.822)
Exactly. You should never trust the government. All the government does, and this is what people forget, and I was told this a long, long time ago, all the government is doing is what they need to do to win the next election. That’s to keep them in power. And this thing is, Keir Starmer was saying it again, when we’re in power, when we’re in power. No, power should belong to the people, you know.

Ahmad (34:47.691)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (35:05.038)
You’re only custodians, you’re there to just run the country, right, of what the people decide. No, the governments are terrorist organisations by what they did. Quite clearly during Covid, that was terrorism at its worst, because they actually frightened, threatened.

Ahmad (35:07.33)
Ahem.

Stephen Morris (35:30.85)
just normal lower body people, you don’t take that job, you’re gonna lose your entire livelihood, right? It’s quite collusion, people keep saying, well, no, they had a choice, they had a choice whether they took it or not. No, they didn’t. If you’re threatened with losing your entire livelihood and not being able to work in that area again, that’s terrorism, they’re terrifying people. And then the lockdowns, you go out, we’re gonna lock you down.

Ahmad (35:52.482)
So by that definition, that is terrorism. So by that definition, I’m being terrorized right now. So anyway, can’t go into it much, but I’ve been suspended from my main place of work. And there’s people out there, I’ve got evidence, people really, they don’t want me to be able to practice and work at all. I mean, if they’re not terrorists, what are they?

Stephen Morris (36:07.043)
Yeah, I am aware. I do follow you. I am aware of that.

Ahmad (36:22.146)
They’re terrorizing me and my family, my ability to treat my patients and my 25 year career. But this is where we are. We’re in a world now of cancel culture, of censorship, you can’t, an inversion. So if you speak the truth and do the right thing, you get punished. But if you don’t and you do the wrong thing and turn a blind eye and you’re part of this criminal cabal, you get rewarded. But it’s fine because,

I haven’t changed a thing, Stephen. I think more people need to speak up and stand up to the BS that was going on. I mean, seriously, people need to say what the frack is going on in this world. And if they don’t do something soon.

Stephen Morris (36:58.093)
Oh yeah.

Stephen Morris (37:03.098)
Well, it’s like the mask thing, you know, you’ve got the mask, right? We’ve still got issues with the NHS trying to implement the mask again. And we keep telling them, hang on. Yeah, yeah, we’ve still got them. We’re dishing out letters now to NHS Trust because they’re trying to bring the mask in. And we’re saying the masks do not stop the virus. Oh, who’s telling you that? Well, actually the health and safety executive website is telling us that, you know, and as well as other things. And the…

Ahmad (37:06.111)
Yeah.

Ahmad (37:12.356)
Still.

Stephen Morris (37:33.398)
If it wasn’t so serious, the funniest one I had, I was representing somebody in the ambulance service to do with mask wearing and I had the department manager, on the other side of my member, I had the head of infection control there in front of this director and the head of the department said, no she needs to wear this mask because it protects against the virus. I went, right okay, so when it was my turn I said to the infection control.

Do you believe it stops against the virus? She went, yes, it does. So in the meantime, because I do everything on laptop, I turned my laptop around and said, health and safety website, the mass do not stop airborne aerosols, i.e. the virus, it doesn’t stop them. I said, so it comes back to your question. Yeah, you are being targeted for your views and opinions, but hang on, you’ve got people who are doing stuff to people that has no medical benefit. In fact, it has.

detrimental benefits to their health, wearing a mask, this infection control woman should never be in that job ever again. And what about all the nurses who jabbed people without telling them the possible effects, they should never be in that role ever again, you know. And any health professional who, because all you get from the NHS staff at the moment is it’s policy, it’s policy. And we say, well.

Ahmad (38:50.862)
100%

Stephen Morris (39:00.898)
Hang on, these are the health and safety regulations you must comply with. And they’ll come back and say, oh, it’s policy. And we say, well, no, because what we do now, we target that individual because we said under health and safety, you can be directly liable. And it’s a criminal offense if you do not comply with health safety regulations. We’ve told you so we are looking at you. You may be the lowest level on the ladder, but you are now liable. Because they’ve got to be brought to account every single one of them. And.

If you talk about criminal actions, you know, following orders has never been an excuse since World War II trials, since November. It’s never no longer been an excuse that I was only following orders, you know? And they need to be brought to account.

Ahmad (39:49.55)
I just feel like the whole history lessons, everything has been a complete waste of time because no one’s remembered anything. Like what the hell was the point of all of it? Because we’re all making the exact same mistakes all over again. Going back a bit, you touched upon the unions being quite disconnected from their members and cozying up to the MDs, the managing directors. Do you know, I think part of the problem that we’re seeing

on every facet of life, every layer of society is the fact there’s too much centralization. There’s too much concentration of power in few hands. And it’s in the healthcare system. Healthcare is now centralized. Politics is centralized. The media is centralized. Our monetary system is centralized. Everything is centralized. If you guys grow,

How are you going to protect yourselves from that danger where you become super centralized?

Stephen Morris (40:53.326)
No, we’re not, I obviously can’t predict the future. All I know is that the way that everybody who works for us thinks and believes is that we operate in the right way. And that is to make sure that we’re disconnected, as in not using workplace reps. We have one branch in an NHS trust, but we’ve had to set that up quite.

differently to how we normally operate. So if there’s an issue there, we make sure, because of the size of the place, that if there’s an issue, it’s moved over to somebody in a different department, or it’s dealt with by a small committee to decide who’s best to deal with it. Because that was the first thing that we had where we said, well, hang on, we’ve got this trust, we’ve got a specific branch, we don’t want it to be controlled by the organization, so therefore we took it to a committee.

kind of stage and at any stage the member can come to us and say I want somebody outside of the place so they don’t have to use them but the way as long as we keep operating on that basis that we are not using reps who are directly paid by the company and we stay politically neutral as in we’re not interested in what’s going on we only follow employment law we only follow the legislations I think we’ll be perfectly fine and we’ll go on that.

One of the things that the conservatives and Labour want is they still want the two-party state. And we know that the government has now done away with the alternative vote and the second preference voted to do with mail elections. So like in Greater Manchester where I am now, it’s no longer a case of they’ve got to get over 50 percent otherwise it goes to the second round.

it’s if they get 40% they win. That’s not democracy when say 60% of the people may vote for somebody else. That’s not, I personally prefer proportional representation myself as that kind of way. I know these flaws in our systems but I think it’s a little bit better than what we’ve got at the minute. And previously we did a campaign with the Tories to try and get them to get rid of the…

Stephen Morris (43:17.11)
recognition agreements, the way they’re operating with companies. So if a company’s got a recognition agreement with a trade union, then only that trade union can negotiate on everything in old pay and terms and conditions, because it was basically still like a closed shop. We said, what they should have done was have it that a member can be a member of any trade union, but then this should be a committee of them trade unions who then take it as one block.

Ahmad (43:32.878)
Mmm.

Ahmad (43:37.528)
Yeah.

Stephen Morris (43:45.754)
to the management. So the manager’s not dealing with say 10 or 15 different trade unions on pay talks. So you then go to a committee, you then decide on what you’re doing and then take that as one block to them. But as it is, it seems to be like a closed shop and the Tories weren’t for it at all. It was very much, well, no, we want it as they want. Tories for business, labour for workers, they still want this two party system and it’s a play on them and us all the time.

Going back to what you’re saying about trade union reforms, yeah, there should be trade union reforms to make it far better and far democratic. It’s also a restriction on who you can go to. Normally they’ll say, oh, you’ve got a choice. You can go wherever you want. You can buy whatever you want. If you don’t like this product, you can go to a different store. If you don’t like this company, you can go to a different company. But if the company has a recognized trade union, then you can’t get another trade union involved.

And we have this with my former company, the drivers were coming to me afterwards saying, Steve, you know, our agreement’s rubbish. And I’m saying, well, you gave this up. I spent seven years fighting not to lose it. But the branch secretary was actually going through interviews for the manager’s job. At the time they were going through all this pay structure. They then did the pay structure. You got the manager’s job.

Ahmad (45:09.139)
Oh my goodness.

Stephen Morris (45:12.962)
And now all the drivers are complaining because they’ve got all these extra hours and everything. And I’m like, but you gave up your parameters. The parameters was like sacrosanct. Should never have been given up. So there is still going on, but I still think they do need trade union reforms. Stama won’t do it because the trade unions won’t do it. And the conservatives have come back and said, no, they’re not going to do it because it’s still them. But it would have broken up a monopoly within the workplace of the major trade unions.

Yeah, there’s been no close shop agreements, or technically no close shop agreements for decades, but they are there in practice, they are still there.

Ahmad (45:49.806)
Do you know, I had a conversation with someone called Dr. Bob Gill, who’s a GP, and he was talking about NHS corruption and privatisation. And he highlighted that the last doctor strike, you know, several years ago, it just fizzled out. And I remember that. It just fizzled out. Nothing happened. It was like, you know, we were up against Jeremy Hunt. We’re trying to get a pay deal. And there’s all this movement. There was protests. My wife is out in the streets, you know, all this kind of stuff. There’s, you know, a lot of

The mood was there to fight, you know, demand, you know, decent pay. All fizzled away, Stephen. And no, hear me out. It all fizzled. No, no, hear me out. Hear me out. So let me just tell you, so Bob told me.

Stephen Morris (46:23.118)
Well, I… Yeah, I know. Well, I… My wife works in the NHS.

My wife works in the NHS, so, and this, one of the things we pointed out, she had an issue way back in 2018, and we went in, and for one, they weren’t allowing us to represent her first off, so we challenged that, and the senior HR business partner wrote to the NHS solicitor saying that I’m looking to represent her, and the solicitor wrote back and said, yeah, Mr. Morris is right, you can represent her. Now we know,

The daft thing is they copied us into the email, but I’ve got a senior HR business partner just asking the basic questions on representation for the grievance. That’s number one on your list, yeah, you’re entitled. But when we went in, we said, do you understand why my wife wanted me in to represent her? And they’re like, why? I said, because we have just shown that you’ve got 64 documents and policies that break employment law.

The 17 recognised trade unions within that trust, including the HR director for the trust, all signed them up as being legit. I said, and we’ve just shown you that they were legal and you’ve got to change them. And the HR business partner turned to his manager and said, have you got any comments? And she went, no, we’re just going to have to change them. That’s it. So, well, again, what we’re highlighting, even as a small union, we try and we…

All our reps have, we issue them an employment law, but we always say we don’t know everything, because no one knows everything, but you’ve got to be able to go and find out where stuff is. And we find this with a lot of HR companies and some of the NHS trusts, they don’t know basics employment. They really don’t know the basics. And this is what might be one of the problems, as in why did it fizzle out with previous doctors?

Ahmad (48:30.07)
No, no, no

Stephen Morris (48:30.146)
It might have just been tactics.

Yeah.

Stephen Morris (48:48.59)
or bought off in the first year.

Ahmad (48:57.826)
with no real clinical experience suddenly up there on these big boards and big gongs. And it’s like, he was like, I think they’ve been bought out. He’s not naming anyone because what else could it have been? The whole leadership suddenly got all these rewards and it’s very, very sad. It’s very sad.

Stephen Morris (49:14.03)
Well…

Stephen Morris (49:20.21)
There’s usually two ways they always say, don’t they, within a company, if you’re a trade union, you either get promoted up, so you have to give up your role, or you get booted out, you know, because you cause too much problems. Unfortunately, I was on the receiving end of the vlata, when I was dismissed by my former company for raising a grievance on behalf of the members after a restructure was shown to be unfair. My job was safe. However, we then

I won my case at the Court of Appeal, three judges to nil in 2018. But the issue is, yeah, they either promote you out of your position or they will try and kick you out of the company full stop. But one of the things we’ve pointed out…

Ahmad (50:01.77)
Yeah. Steven.

Ahmad (50:07.658)
Yeah, sorry. I just, I’ve got.

Stephen Morris (50:08.982)
I was going to say one of the things we pointed out to the farmer company is that they should have kept me within the company because then I was under their rules and I didn’t have to have kept my gob shut. Once they kicked me out, it was free rein.

Ahmad (50:25.802)
I’ve got a few questions to ask you. So first of all, if someone’s having a dispute at work, how important is it that they take someone with them to that dispute, a representative? Why is that? And is it their right? Is it their right?

Stephen Morris (50:39.846)
extremely, extremely important. Yeah, because…

It’s their right on a grievance, it’s their right on a disciplinary. Any meeting that may lead to the termination of their employment, like sickness, absence, redundancy, they’re entitled to. Don’t fall for the, it’s just an informal meeting, like it’s just an informal chat, don’t fall for that one. Don’t sign any minutes as being accurate, especially if you’re on your own. Because you’re too busy, you’re in a stressful situation, you’re too busy answering questions.

What the reps are looking for is they’re looking for certain phrases or certain things that the company may put in the letter. As an example, an invite to a disciplinary, supposed to have about 10 items in it, that’s supposed to be in it. They’re going to tell you what the proper allegation is, what the possible outcomes are. But the reps during the meeting, they’re looking for certain things and certain phrases that the other side may say and we may not pull them up at that point.

maybe a case of we’re gonna use it in an appeal against them for whether they’ve been biased or something. So we do look for certain things in it. And so that’s why it’s quite important. And sometimes members can get quite emotional in the meeting and they might say the wrong thing and then the manager will pick up on, like we’re picking up on what the manager might say, HR and the manager might be picking up on something that the member might say. And…

A lot of times when I’m in with people and I’m briefing them, I’ll say, look, you sit to my left because I do everything on my laptop. So if I touch your arm, it means shut the hell up. Right. And we’ll do stuff. I said, but if you get an emotional, sometimes I’ll let you carry on being emotional because sometimes I want to pull the emotional tag with the employer. Right. And I’ve had employers say,

Stephen Morris (52:44.97)
should you take a break with your member and all that and go, I’ll just go, no, they’re fine at the minute because I’m trying to get the emotional tag. We will use whatever means we will use to try and make sure that we get the best result for our member. And if that means unfortunately, allowing them to get a bit upset in that meeting, but it pulls the emotional tag and that works for us, then we will use that. But we can’t tend to warn them beforehand. But we were looking for specific things, you know, specific questions.

We don’t look for yes no questions, right? I was going through this yesterday with somebody, I said, if you’re alleged to say, okay, you knocked over that cup of tea on the desk, didn’t you? Is it a straight yes or no? You’re gonna answer yes, okay, I’m gonna do you for damaging company equipment because you knocked the cup over. Hang on. It should be a case of, did you knock the cup over and what was the reasons around it?

Oh, I knocked the cup over because Joe Bloggs was trying to get past me and knocked me and he knocked me into the desk and knocked the cup over. Like straight away, it’s no longer a straight yes and no. It’s different mitigating circumstances. So that’s these are the slight things we look for. They don’t managers will try and like and get a yes or no answer. They shouldn’t be asking yes or no answers. A good manager will go in on a grievance, especially some on a grievance will say, this is your grievance bullet points. Can you tell me each of your bullet points?

but they’re being very restrictive. A good manager will say, okay, you’ve got a grievance. And I’ve seen some of them do it where they say, I’m putting that letter to one side, tell me what everything, well, bother you, tell me everything that concerns you, and we’ll go through it, right? You know, that would be a good manager because they don’t want to be restricted. Others will tie you down to the significant bullet point, and that’s bad because that means that they don’t want to take it into other areas. And we’ve had that recently with a…

Ahmad (54:15.935)
Mmm.

Ahmad (54:22.614)
Mm.

Ahmad (54:26.766)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (54:43.846)
HR grievance where they’re bringing stuff up from last year and straight away it’s like, hang on, why are you bringing this up from last year? Our members got an outstanding grievance since December you’ve not dealt with. Is the manager who’s now bringing this up the same manager that our member raised a grievance against last year that you’ve not dealt with? And they say we’re not looking into that, we’re just looking into this particular action. No, are they the same person? They wouldn’t answer it.

So the fact that they won’t answer it says to me that it’s the same person. Our members already got an outstanding grievance. So yeah, always important. Sometimes members don’t want to take people in because they may think it may aggravate the other side. Sometimes that can happen, but sometimes our presence just puts the managers on alert and they then become very, they either go one way or the other, they either come very fair and because they don’t want to upset no one, there’s a union involved.

or some they’ll go very defensive. But if they go very defensive, sometimes that opens them up to letting slip what they don’t wanna let slip. We always say to people, if you’ve got an issue at work, pick up the phone, drop us an email. Before you go into that meeting, just have a chat with us, if you’re uncertain. The last thing you want to be going into is a meeting, not knowing what may happen.

Ahmad (56:10.053)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (56:10.658)
And again, don’t sign the minutes. That’s a no-no, especially if you’re on your own.

Ahmad (56:15.902)
So recap, know what the agenda is, know what the issues are, and you’re entitled to that before the meeting. You’re entitled to take with you a representative, and you’re entitled not to sign the minutes immediately there and then, but go and back and review them and make sure they’re correct.

Stephen Morris (56:33.242)
Yeah, sorry, if it’s an investigation, there’s no legal right to have a rep at an investigation unless your company policy says it. And this is the crux for a lot of people where they may let slip various things during an investigation. So we always say, give us a call, tell us what the, if you know the issue, let us know. Some companies will tell you what the investigation is about beforehand. Some won’t. Like I say, the one I was just recently in.

they wouldn’t tell the lady what the allegation was. So when we went in, we just said, okay, what’s the allegation? They told us what the allegation is. We said, okay, can you give us the questions? We’ll go away and we’ll answer them. That, well, no, we’ve got a meeting, but no, actually under your policy and under the invite letter, it says we’re allowed to present a statement. Because you wouldn’t tell us what the allegation is, we can’t prepare a statement. So now we know what it is, we’ll go away and we’ll do it. But if they’re not allowed to rep in an investigation, it’s definitely the need to give us a call.

Ahmad (57:20.267)
Mmm.

Ahmad (57:24.768)
Mm.

Stephen Morris (57:33.454)
and have a chat about it and not sign the minutes. All the other stuff, they’re entitled to reps, grievances, disciplineries, redundancies, sickness, absence, all that kind of thing.

Ahmad (57:35.222)
So.

Ahmad (57:44.334)
I think most people are good people and have never really gotten into any trouble. And when they do get into trouble, they don’t know what to do because they’ve never been in that situation before. But can I just map out what I think are three scenarios? One, someone is innocent and is being harshly treated at work for whatever reason. Two, someone is being investigated purely for incompetence. There’s nothing nefarious or, you know, there’s no mal intent. It’s just incompetence.

Third, someone actually does deserve being investigated because actually they’ve done something wrong and they deserve to be there and being investigated. Is that roughly correct?

Stephen Morris (58:26.146)
It is roughly, yeah. You’ve got to remember that the company has a responsibility to investigate. If a complaint comes in or an allegation is made, they have a responsibility to investigate. And if you was on the other side and you’d raise the complaint, you’d expect them to go and investigate. So you’ve got to look at the flip side. And yeah, it’s how they then conduct the investigation. Really.

opens it up whether they’re looking to get you or not. And some people deserve to be investigated and deserve to be dismissed, you know, we can’t defend the indefensible. And some, it’s like clear vindictiveness, they’re going after them for something. But one thing you viewers need to be cautious of when going in, and we’ve had members previously say this is

There’s nothing been proven, nothing proven. In employment law, it’s not the same as criminal law. In a criminal case, they have to prove beyond reasonable doubt. In employment, they only need reasonable belief. It’s a very low threshold. It’s reasonable belief based on the information the manager had at that time. And that’s a whole different ballgame. So.

That’s why it’s important to make sure you’ve got your rep in and don’t think, well, the evidence is rather scarce. There’s no actual proof there. Well, they don’t need actual proof. They just need to say, look, read it and say, well, I reasonably believe this occurred and therefore you’re guilty. You know, and that’s why it’s very, there’s too many criminal case programs on telly where they go on about absolute proof.

Ahmad (01:00:01.346)
Mmm.

Ahmad (01:00:04.758)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (01:00:20.238)
and people watch too many of them and still think it’s the same in employment. And we really need to tell people it’s not, you’ve got to make sure you’ve got your rep involved and we make sure that we argue the case of whether we’ve got to get rid of that reasonable belief. That’s all. That no reasonable person would reasonably believe that. That’s the root.

Ahmad (01:00:40.366)
Okay, so how successful have you guys been in helping members with regards to things like mask mandates and whatnot?

Stephen Morris (01:00:51.542)
Well it’s been about 50-50 I suppose. We’ve had quite a number of cases, a lot of the tribunal cases are still ongoing. We’ve had a lot of early case settlements. They mainly are due to business case reasons. A company will look at the cost of running the case on the hearing. We’ve had some cases where we’ve won. Obviously we had the Lord of Convery case, one of the early ones in the mask wearing issues.

A lot of the vaccine ones are still ongoing. A lot of them was delayed because of the courts were just backlogged. You know, they were bringing in people. We have got one that’s just gone through the SIFT system and he’s going to the appeals tribunal. That was one of the very early ones that was against Manchester that we took. And it was three people case where it’s all to do with the vaccine.

and we lost the initial case at the tribunal, but we knew there was a very strong case. So we’ve took it to appeal and it goes through a sifting process and the senior judges looked at it and has allowed our case to proceed to appeal and they’ve agreed that all seven points that we previously raised are arguable in law and that’s a case that we’re really keeping an eye on because that’s going to be early next year. Obviously that’s 2024.

getting a couple of years down the line. And we’ve got quite a lot of cases like that. We’ve had some where, unfortunately the members have not been very good in being able to put across either their philosophical belief or religious belief. The three involved in the Manchester case have really got very good at it. We had a couple who, we’ve had, this is why it’s a bit 50-50 on the cases. We had one person when we was going through the preliminary hearing.

claiming religious belief why not to have the vaccine. However, they were Catholic. But when the judge asked him, what’s the Pope’s name, he babbled and all that, saying, well, I don’t really know who’s the Pope’s name, this, that, and the other. And he’s like, so it fell. But he wasn’t Roman Catholic. He was from Eastern European Catholic, I’m not sure which version. So he should have just said, well, I’m not Roman Catholic.

Stephen Morris (01:03:15.43)
But he didn’t. But we’ve had two other ladies, one a Sikh and one a Catholic, who properly put forward their belief, it’s God’s blood, it’s purity of blood, and their cases are proceeding. It’s two separate cases, one Catholic, one Sikh. And then obviously we’ve got the Manchester one, which is slightly different, because that’s also contesting whether the legislation was valid or not on the forms of consent, you know, whether it was actually a legitimate.

Ahmad (01:03:16.886)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (01:03:45.398)
where it breached human rights acts. So there’s a slightly different angle to that one as well. So there is still a lot of these cases ongoing and like I say some have fell by the side that there weren’t strong cases, some have been settled early on and some have been won and some are proceeding. But what you’ll always find is like the media

Ahmad (01:04:07.586)
So it sounds like there’s a…

Sorry.

Stephen Morris (01:04:13.864)
So like the mainstream media, they’ll only highlight any that are lost. They won’t highlight anything that’s wrong with it.

Ahmad (01:04:22.378)
Yeah, agreed. So what about, it sounds like you need to know a lot of your law, your employment law. How much legal support do you have and where do you get all your training from?

Stephen Morris (01:04:37.734)
I’ve just learnt it on the go and through reading my employment law book and reading the legislations that came out. We have Robin Toombook who’s the union solicitor and we have a team of very good barristers. So we have probably around seven or eight barristers that are dealing with a lot of our cases. They give us feedback on everything so when we get the feedback on it.

we pass it on to our reps. Classic example I suppose is like when the legislation came out to do with the vaccine um We we were dealing with judges and legal professionals on that and but all we did we just read the legislation and as you know, they’re all coming out saying you need a medical exemption you need medical exemption for this and that and I was in preliminary meeting preliminary hearing meetings with judges and the other side have said well

they didn’t provide a medical exemption. And the judge has said, okay, why didn’t you provide a medical exemption? And I just held up the legislation and gone, can you point where it says medical exemption in the legislation? Because them two words do not exist in the legislation, they never have done. What it says is for a clinical reason, if they don’t want to have it, then that’s it. I said, and then the judge is like, oh, right, okay.

Ahmad (01:05:53.083)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (01:06:04.066)
So even from a lay person, all I’ve done is just read the legislation and know that two words don’t exist. And that’s why we was pulling them up all the time on this medical exemption. As you will be aware, we started issuing the clinical reason letter to say why they didn’t want it for a clinical reason. The CQC then came out saying, yeah, it’s only for a clinical reason.

But then the government then came out wanting, you can only get a medical exemption via the NHS route. You know, when you go through the NHS route and you’ve got to go through there. But no one was getting exemptions because it was so tight and you had no right of appeal. They didn’t give you a right of appeal, which every time I go to my dentist, my dentist always reads out a script, which includes my right of a second opinion, you know.

And so we knew that the government were kind of on the back track with what we were concerned. We put out the letter, then they were trying to say, well, yeah, you can do for clinical reasons. But to me, the CQC kind of dropped the ball because they, with their actions, when they said, oh, if you put in a clinical reason, then you can work to, what was it, from September to the November. Then you had to the December 24th. Then you had to the March.

The CQC could only put that out if the legislation already allowed it because they could not overrule the legislation. So what they did in their actions in deferring that was basically say we was right in what we were doing by saying you give a self exemption, a self certificate, the reason is why you’re covered. So no, so we have a really good legal team that’s well established now.

Ahmad (01:07:37.502)
Mmm.

Stephen Morris (01:08:02.67)
and I can always pick up the phone and speak to our legal team Robin. Although you’re supposed to go through the solicitor to speak to the barristers, we do get a good rapport with a lot of the barristers now on a lot of the cases and they’ll give us a briefing and we brief it out so our reps know what to look for. But again, it’s not…

The size of the organisation is how efficient and how good it is. That always matters.

Ahmad (01:08:32.002)
Mm.

Ahmad (01:08:36.286)
Yep. So basically.

Stephen Morris (01:08:37.617)
Like I say, Unite, gone.

Ahmad (01:08:41.582)
So I was gonna say, basically, when it comes to, you know, these mandates and exemptions, I actually don’t believe in medical exemptions. I think it falls into their trap. Informed consent is an option of having no treatment, having one treatment, having a second treatment, maybe even a third or fourth treatment. But the key thing is having no treatment is one of the options. So to have informed consent,

I need to be able to say to you or the government or whoever, thanks but no thanks. I don’t need an exemption. I don’t need a medical exemption. That’s my right. I’m sovereign. I’m entitled to say, no, I don’t want that. Thank you very much. And you need to respect that. So I’m not into these exemptions. I think these are all traps to fall into, to be honest.

Stephen Morris (01:09:21.03)
Exactly.

Stephen Morris (01:09:35.658)
The government one was a definite trap to try and catch people because once you went down that route and your exemption was rejected, you’ve lost the argument like you’ve said, it’s just not to go down there. But you see, care homes operate day in, day out with vulnerable people, people with health conditions, serious health conditions. They already knew how to work and operate in these care homes.

before all this stuff came out. And then suddenly you’re saying, oh, wearing a mask and having an experimental job will make a difference. No, they weren’t, they were professionals dealing with the world, you know. And to me, they should have just been left to deal with it and say, okay, if we’re not allowing anymore people in this home, then that may be an option, but I think they went completely over.

Like you say, it goes back to what you were saying about the government being a terrorist organisation. They had to put fear and terror into people for them to comply with what they were being requested to do. A lot of them fell for it, but I don’t think they’ll fall for it then.

Ahmad (01:10:44.362)
Yeah. Right, Stephen.

Yeah, I hope they won’t fall for it. I think still a lot of people are sadly. Right, Stephen, last question. You’re 139, you’re on your deathbed, you’ve had a good long life, right? And you’re very comfortable, but it’s time to go and you’re gonna meet your maker. You’re surrounded by your family, your children, your great grandchildren, the whole shebang. What advice would you impart on them, health or otherwise, before you pass on?

Stephen Morris (01:11:20.98)
I always make sure you think for yourself and do your own research.

Ahmad (01:11:26.626)
There you go.

Stephen Morris (01:11:27.682)
I think that’s the only thing before you make your own decision.

Ahmad (01:11:33.678)
Great.

Stephen Morris (01:11:36.203)
because the other thing is probably you don’t trust any of them but I think if you tell them to think for yourself, do your own research, then before you make your own decision then that’s the only thing I could ever ask them to do. Other than that I don’t know, I don’t know what I’d say. They’ll probably be saying he’s good riddance he’s gone there you go.

He’s napped a lot of people off over the years. That might be my enemies more than my kids, I suppose.

Ahmad (01:12:07.814)
Right.

Ahmad (01:12:12.498)
Right. Do you have anything else you want to say before we wrap it up?

Stephen Morris (01:12:16.206)
No, no, the fight’s still ongoing, isn’t it? That’s the thing, the fight’s still ongoing. The education is still ongoing to educate people. It’s still ongoing, it will always be ongoing to make sure it never happens again. And we are still educating people. Mainstream media is a dead duck, really is now.

And that’s why people have to look at alternatives. I can’t stick with BBC and ITV and Sky and all them lot now.

Stephen Morris (01:12:55.034)
Especially Kay Burley asking politicians whether they comply with the law or not when she supposedly went out on her 60th Wernicke party.

Stephen Morris (01:13:06.982)
But yeah, just keep on, just keep to everybody who’s listening, just keep on at it really. Never give up hope. Just as an example, I’ve already mentioned against my previous company that I won three judges to nil. But at the appeals tribunal, which we lost because we knew straight away it was an anti-Trade Union judge, I was only given 2% chance of winning if I went to the Court of Appeal. That’s what she told me.

Ahmad (01:13:07.234)
Yeah.

Stephen Morris (01:13:34.662)
And I went to the Court of Appeal and I won three judges to nil and they criticised her as going outside of her authority. Right? So I always say, stay in there, keep going. You know. True to your belief.

Ahmad (01:13:49.21)
Excellent, excellent. Well, listen, thank you so much, Stephen, and carry on the good work. You’re all doing fantastic work. Everyone listening, you’ll find the links to the union on the website. Please keep listening, sharing my podcasts. We have to educate and inform everyone. Please support me. Less than 1% of people are paid subscribers at £3.50 a month. And as you know, I’m suspended.

You know, they really don’t want me speaking out. They don’t want me working. They don’t want me providing a livelihood for my family. So it’s all you guys. If you’re enjoying my show, please subscribe and help me out, cause I need it. Thanks everyone. Thank you, Steven. You’re a star.