Labour Party reportedly using ' gagging orders.

Andrew Marr questioned John McDonnell about this on his show yesterday. He said it is common practice to sign a contract which included a “privacy clause”

*Privacy clause'? like those Harvey Weinstein, various NHS hospitals, and footballers playing away used to keep private their misdemeanors. What excellent company the Labour Party keeps. Completely stymies them when they next want to make a fuss about government, government agencies or organisations like the BBC not revealing information.

The Labour party's capacity for double think never fails to amaze me. First they elect a leader who consistently voted against his own party 400 times plus before becoming leader then they threaten, and have deselected Labour MPs that do not toe a very narrow party line and now they are using the very gagging orders they have themselves complained about when used by NHS trusts.

They will soon be telling us that black is white, pigs fly and the world is flat and be deselecting MPs that disagree and making them sign gagging orders if they complain.

When it comes to hypocrisy and double thinking there is nothing to beat a good left winger.

Seems over 80% of the PLP declared that they had - and presumably still have - no confidence in Corbyn. But there is a plan to address that: purges at constituency level of all candidates who fail to demonstrate their ideological correctness and sign loyalty oaths to the Leader.

Which is presumably why Kate Hoey is standing down soon.

Corbyn will stop NDA’s, but not for his party, he is an honourable man, we are told

Well Labour MP Wes Streeting on Politics Live spoke for many re the use of NDA's and the handling of those staff members who have been reminded of their signing them.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45640548

Jeremy Corbyn: Labour will outlaw NDAs that prevent discrimination being revealed.

“Jeremy Corbyn will commit the next Labour government to:

Legislating to prevent making any contractual clauses (NDAs) which stop disclosure of future discrimination, harassment or victimisation”

That’s from a Labour party press release trailing a “package of workplace policies for hospitality workers” on 10 June 2018.

Shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, reiterated the commitment in a tweet that day. Mr Corbyn made the announcement himself in a speech to the Bakers’ Union Conference in Southport three days later
-

Is whistle blowing on antisemitism regarded as worthy of 'reminding' the whistle blower their Non Disclosure Agreement, it appears so.

As Streeting said ' Something is wrotten in the state of Denmark.

I truly despair, how a party can be so devious and am baffled
how it can be defended,

I watched the Panorama programme last night. The issue of NDA's is relevant to that, as the people who'd worked in the department investigating complaints had all signed NDA's.

I was shocked that such a high proportion of one staff group had experienced work related stress, anxiety, depression, to the extent they'd had to seek help from the doctor. Any employer with such high numbers of staff suffering diagnosable mental health problems as a result of work related stress, needs to be looking at its staff care policies. Why did these people become ill?

I watched this too Iam and found it quite shocking, the team leading the antisemitic complaints were constantly harrassed, bullied and lead ( when they should have kept out of it ) by Corbyn’s Office.
It seems that Milne and Co were only interested in damping
Down the complaints and not dealing with the perps.Not only that but actively interfering.
The responses from the Leaders Office reminded me of those politburo responses during the Chernobyl crisis !

Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA's) are widely used throughout almost all Companies and other organisations in the UK. They were brought in as a response to the introduction of the "Data Protection Act 1998" and protect all British citizens from organisations or individual personnel in those organisations from inappropriate use of data collected. The Conservative Party requires that their employees sign such documents which in their case are entitled "confidentiality agreements".

Since the introduction of the above act NDA's have gradually become more specific and strict over the years due to Amendments made to the
Data Protection Act and the foregoing being completely redrafted and brought forward to Parliament as a new act in 2018.

However, the above agreements do not restrict " whistleblowers" from disclosing information that would demonstrate that the organisation they work for is infringing Health & Safety legislation or any situation covered under the Equalities Act 2010 as that protection is contained within the Data Protection Act.

I have not been able to see the Panorama program on the Labour party, but if stress is occurring within the staff dealing with anti-semitism complaints, then to me that would indicate that better training of those dealing with that matter is required, and perhaps limiting the time that employees spend daily/weekly on that matter.

Within our own business staff can suffer stress when dealing with persons who have incurred severe injury in their workplace, or those that are in the process of receiving disciplinary action from their employers for infringement of Health & Safety regulations. In the above situations, the careful selection and monitoring of staff is essential, and to rotate employees dealing with such cases is at times required.

However, in Britain at the present time, there is often a severe shortage of Qualified persons to deal with such matters as the above, and therefore recruitment can be a major problem

In the case of the Labour Party I feel that recruiting persons well versed in handling matters encompassed within the Equalities Act would be essential in dealing with anti-semitism cases, and finding people within that limited group who would have the "right mental attitude" for such work is I would believe quite frankly "a nightmare".

It cannot help when people such as Margret Hodge (her of the covert recording fame) forwards over two hundred unchecked anti-semitism allegations to central office for them to check out and investigate.

So the fault lies with Margaret Hodge not those who assure the country they were dealing with the complaints

Blame the abused not the abusers !

Goodness grandad, your response is reminiscent of those who blame police and social workers investigating child sexual exploitation for being over emotional if they find the work stressful.
It’s also putting responsibility on the complainants, again similar to cse complaints. Employers have a duty of care.

There is something amiss in the LP. We can all speculate about the causes. I’ve said previously, I accept much of MSM is right wing and will exploit any perceived weakness in the left. This is more than a perceived weakness or right wing conspiracy and the leadership seems unable to deal with it.

The leadership are responsible for it

Iam64, in response to your post @ 10:18 today (11/07/19), can respectfully point out out that I did not place "blame* or "responsibility" on anyone for any situation in the Labour Party as you will see if you read my post @09:45 today thoroughly.

I did in that post outline the employers duty of care in situations of stress on employees and the action my own company undertakes in such matters.

I did also state in regard to Margret Hodge that "It cannot help when people such as her forward over two hundred unchecked anti-semitism allegations to central office for them to check out and investigate."

The above is not to place blame on her for the stress on staff or in connection with any other matter. It is purely a statement of media reports in regard to what she has carried out.

For anyone to forward over two hundred unchecked and unvalidated anti-semitism allegations to Central Office obviously will not help the smooth running of that office.

Should the team set up to investigate claims of anti semetism not be able to cope with the number of complaints?

Grandad

' Previous' to the BBC programme there have been several interviews over the use of NDA's by Labour and the issuing of letters by Labour Lawyers Carter-Ruck , some see the letter from Carter Ruck as threatening, a position I am not accusing them of but interested to hear others make the point.

As John McDonnell said to Marr after Marr started the conversation with:-

Am "Is it still your intention to scrap NDA's?

JM " Yes"

Further down the line :-

JM “What we’re trying to do is remind them of their confidentiality agreement.”

“I’ve always campaigned against NDAs where they’re trying to prevent whistleblowing particularly around harassment and victimisation.”

" What’s happened is the Labour party has reminded them of their confidentiality agreement because you can’t have people particularly when you’re dealing with individual cases, individual information about individual members, that can’t be right.

“What we will be saying we’re going to reform the law so that whistleblowers will be protected, NDAs will not be used against them when they are using whistleblowers.”
----

Labour has said in the past :-

Jeremy Corbyn:-

Jeremy Corbyn will commit the next Labour government to:
"Legislating to prevent making any contractual clauses (NDAs) which stop disclosure of future discrimination, harassment or victimisation”

Labour Shadow Equalities Minister Dawn Butler:-

" Labour welcomes the EHRC’s recommendations to protect employees from sexual harassment at work. Its call for the Government to prevent employers from using non-disclosure agreements is essential to ensuring greater transparency and access to justice”
--

Labour Lord Falconer says:-

“You can’t pick and choose. If somebody within your organisation is saying something wrong is going on, you can’t use an NDA to say you can’t say anything except things that we agree with, which is what the Labour Party is saying at the moment.

“No organisation like the Labour Party, which used over years, quite legitimately, whistleblowers to reveal what’s wrong in society, should be using them in this way.”
---

For a party that has railed against the use of NDA's, campaigned to ' do away with NDA' s, says it is a our policy to stop the use of NDA's it is understandable the cry of hypocrisy is shouted.

I suppose this is another case of those who dislike and believe the likes of Margaret Hodge, Ruth Smeeth, Wes Streeting are conspiracy theorists to get rid of Corbyn will hold one view.

Others will take the view there has now been years of anti_semetic related issues and reports since Corbyn became Leader and the intake of ' some' new/returned members who hold his far left opinions , that makes it impossible to believe in anything other than there is an inherant problem.

POGS your post on NDA's reflects the one I'd been planning to post. Thanks for that.

The duty of care for staff issue is a real one. It seems undeniable to me that the complaints team were overwhelmed and unsupported, in fact they seem to have been under pressure not to take the allegations seriously. (as suggested by the young woman who was so influenced by her trip to Berlin, to the extent she felt she had to speak out)

The criticism of Margaret Hodge for forwarding 200 unchecked allegations of ant semitism to central office for them to check out and investigate is a stunner. Is the suggestion that an MP should assume responsibility for that, reject allegations a single MP decides don't warrant investigation? I do hope not.

Grandad
I have not been able to see the Panorama program on the Labour party
I do not think that you will like it as Jenny Formby is mentioned in a negative way.

I did miss the end of it due to a malfunction of the recorder but what I did see was very disturbing.

Anyone in the investigations eam who raised worrying issues about interference has been dismissed as a 'disaffected ex-employee' by McDonnell.

team - sorry

I have never trusted Jennie Formby, she shot to position of
General secretary from regional secretary of UNITE and one time lover of McClusky, they have a son .

Iam64, an Employers Duty of Care is encompassed under the Equalities Act 2010. Under that act, an employer must have available to all employees a grievance procedure that includes an investigation into an employees grievance, a formal hearing if it is found that the employee has a case to be answered, and an appeal process hearing should the previous steps have ruled against the employee. All the foregoing stages of ant grievance procedure must be overseen and ruled on by a person who is not part of the employee's direct line management.

As stated in an earlier posting in this thread I have not seen the BBC Panorama program on anti-semitism in the Labour Party, but from online media reports it would seem that none of the "former employees" had taken up the above grievance procedure in regard to the stress and interference they alleged to have been placed under.

Perhaps greater respect and credence could be placed in what those former employees stated had they enacted the above grievance procedure prior to ending their employment.

In regards to Margret Hodge (her of covert recording fame) she has forwarded those more than two hundred alleged anti-semitism claims in the Labour Party without even checking if they actually were submitted to her by current members of the party or even affiliated members. In that action, I believe that Hodge has demonstrated her interest in causing maximum disruption in Central Office as a way of undermining Jeremy Corbyns leadership, which she among others have never accepted.

Up until this point, I have not believed that the planned " constituency party trigger ballots" would be necessary to bring about comparative unity in the Parliamentary Labour Party. However, I now feel that the foregoing procedure is now inevitable to see the back of the remaining Blairites who will not accept the overwhelming democratic election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader.

You’re doing it again, blaming the victim, grandad. Your suggestion that proper procedures weren’t followed is exactly what was said to the Health worker who tried to get action taken to protect children in the Rochdale cse scandal.

Processes, procedures are essential but blaming people who are suffering work related health problems is a cop out. I’m familiar with the long description you give of duty of care/equalities act.
I find your comment about “seeing the back of the remaining Blairites.....” chilling. The Labour Party once prided itself on being a Broad Church. Now it seems is Jeremy’s way or get out.

See the back of the remaining Blairites ? This means getting rid of the centre left. There are more centre left MP’s than
far left Marxist MP’s

If Blair had got rid of the far left Marxists we would still have
a Labour Party to be proud of and led by a leader not a
puppet with McClusky and Seusmas Milne pulling his
strings
And it would still be a broad Church

Well said, Anniebach and Iam64

And, if the Labour Party was still a broad church, representative of the centre left as well, it could stand a chance of winning a GE.