The SElby SECRET
This Tells of the Treatment of the Piece Workers of Selby Area Internal Drainage Board from 1984 to the Present Date.
Numbered evidential material can be found at “The Selby Secret @ weebly.com. then at “More” and then at “The Wall of Silence IDB.”
The essence of all that I ask you to consider below is this. Over nineteen years the best workers of a public body were slowly pauperised, then sacked at two days’ notice, and then, after nine months out of work, re-instated without explanation or apology. The wage rates of these workers now remain based on those of the 1980s. All authorities in England know all of this, but do nothing. By all doing nothing together, they are able, amazingly, to prevent any of this coming to public attention. Truth is, really, stranger than fiction. I therefore ask you to consider the following.
I have worked for Selby Area Internal Drainage Board, as a piece worker, cleaning out dykes manually, for forty four years. Many of you will know me, or have seen me at work.
I am writing this to tell you of our treatment as piece workers over the past thirty four years, to let those who pay for the Board to exist to know what has been done in its name. This has only been necessary because no authority or authority figure, in England, will even refer to our treatment other than to say “This is not our business.” These same people also have the power to deny us any publicity, thus rendering us voiceless.
I can hear you saying now, “No, that can’t be possible, that couldn’t happen.” Until, perhaps, you read the following and begin to understand the need for such concerted inertia.
Dyke cleaning was always regarded as the most arduous of physical labour. Even when we forked sheaves at the stack side and carried sixteen stone bags up steps, the dyke cleaners were always held to have a “Hard job.” Such a job has always been incentivised by the offer of self employed piece work, whereby a good worker can be rewarded for work done, rather than hours “Clocked up.” Although such employment denies a man holiday, “Sick” pay and pension contributions, causes him to incur travelling time and transport costs, and obliges him to work in all weathers, it formerly gave him the opportunity to gross up to three times the weekly paid wage.
At the present time, however, although the Board still employs men on piece work, any incentive to hard work has now been completely removed, as may be seen by the fact that a weekly paid man who spends his week opening gates for a machine driver, and then watching that driver at work, is now paid more than a piece worker who uses that same week to clean out half a mile of dyke.
Such a disproportionate awards procedure has come about only because the piece workers were denied any cost of living wage award between 1984 and 2003. Prior to 84 the piece workers received the same annual “Staff” cost of living pay award as did all other workers, this being agreed annually with the Board’s Foreman. In 1984 this fair procedure was abandoned and, between 84 and 03 the piece workers were allowed just five miserable wage increases, paid at randomised intervals. Re this, we were told “To take it or leave it,” this whilst management and weekly paid workers continued to enjoy the annual cost of living pay award.
By 2003 our financial situation had become so parlous that I raised the matter of our nineteen years of “Wage freeze.” In a matter of weeks all piece workers were put from their work at just two days’ notice. After nine months out of work we were allowed to return, but no explanation or apology was ever given. Some men never worked again, as per the Board’s hardest worker, who found himself better off financially in taking pension credits rather than to have to try to live on the piece work wage. His treatment, after over thirty years of extreme hard labour, defies belief.
I ask you to understand that, when things such as these happen to you that are needlessly harmful, ridiculous even beyond belief, it is only human to demand to know who has authorised such things. It is only when no one at the Board, nor any other authority in England refuses to explain why these things have happened to you, that you begin to realise that something very wrong is being “Covered up” here.
The only way that the above harmful treatment can have been properly authorised is for the full Board to have voted for it to happen. Hence I ask: did Board members vote, fourteen years out of nineteen, to deny their hardest workers any cost of living pay rise? Here we must consult the Board’s minutes, which is the legal record of the Board’s doings. All decisions should be recorded accurately and concisely, together with business discussed and decisions agreed. Especially relevant here is that when any business decisions are made which may be considered unusual, the basic reason behind the decision should be recorded.
Rather than this, however, the Board’s Clerk tells the District Auditor, in writing, as at (1) that the Board’s minutes, for the years 1982 to 2003, show complete omission of any piece worker treatment. Thus when we, as piece workers, were being denied a contract and being systematically pauperised year on year, not a word of this was recorded in the Board’s statutory record. This, again, defies belief, and must be explained.
Re all of this, I ask the following questions, under the Freedom of Information Act. I ask that all Board members, on consideration of the above, ask that these questions be debated and answered by the Board in full and open session. I ask that all lay people support my request, even if only by knowing that I am making it. I ask all to appreciate that I only need to act in this way because I am denied any proper explanation, or media coverage. “Cover up” is too modest a description for what is going on here.
I therefore ask: why was the actuality of piece worker treatment omitted from the Board’s minutes 82 to 03? Will the full Board, in open session, consider and decide the reason for these omissions?
Prior to 1984 all in the pay of the Board enjoyed the annual “Staff” cost of living wage award. The piece workers agreed and accepted this wage award with the Board’s Foreman. This constituted a verbal contract. In 84 this contract was broken in that the piece workers began to be denied any cost of living wage award whatsoever, this whilst weekly paid workers and management continued to enjoy the yearly cost of living wage award. Will the full Board in open session, consider and decide what party authorised this discriminatory treatment, and where any decision is recorded?
In the years following 84 the piece workers were allowed just five meagre, randomised, wage awards, the damaging effect of which may be easily evidenced by mathematical calculation only. Such a procedure could not be reduced to any contract form for the Board to consider or decide. As no contract could therefore exist for the Board to consider or decide, how then could the piece workers’ employer, the Board, as a legal entity, know of the workers’ treatment from 84 to 03? Given all the above, will the Board, in full and open session, consider and decide the extent of the Board’s knowledge of its contractual relationship with the piece workers 84 to 03?
Why, when the Inland Revenue was “Brought in” in 2003, were they not told that the piece workers had no contractual relationship whatsoever with the Board at that time, or for any of the previous nineteen years?
I asked the above questions from 2003 to 2013, but during this time I received not one word in reply. However, in 2013, a newly appointed Board member, a hospital surgeon, raised these same matters with all authorities. Amazingly, his intervention resulted in the Board’s management asking me to make a “Claim” of the Board. Suddenly we had gone from ten years of refusal to answer anything, to the point where some party was actually deciding the amount of money to which I was entitled. The only proper way for any such “Claim” offer to come about is that the Board in full and open session considers and decides the case in question, but no explanation of any such Board authorisation was forthcoming. Indeed, I can still know no more than that some party, which wishes to remain anonymous, wants to offer me the Board’s money, for no stated reason whatsoever. Baffled, I have to wonder just what kind of financial arrangement I have been offered, this by two Board members, acting for the Board’s Clerk and by “Decision of the Board” respectively. All I can do is to ask, once again, that the full Board, in open session, considers and decides: “What party authorised this “Claim,” to what does it refer, and does it apply to all other workers also?” Please see (2) and (7).
Despite the fact that Board members themselves asked to have these questions answered, no reply has ever been given, and, lest you fail to see the seriousness of all of this, just ask yourselves “Why would anyone ask you to “Claim” without being able to reveal just why such a request was made?” Why does no one even dare to speak of this?
I refer to the letters at (9) and (13). Bearing in mind that matters re persons’ rights cannot be delegated, but must be considered and decided before the full Board, I ask that the Board in full and open session considers and decides: what decision of the Board authorised the Board’s solicitor to advise Board members not to contact me, and to tell me not to contact Board members, on pain of legal action? What decision of the Board authorised the solicitor to invite me to a meeting to discuss an unspecified matter, and, that if I did not comply in this, then any further contact would be forbidden? What decision of the Board authorised the solicitor to contact me in the first instance? Have my concerns ever even been the subject of open consideration and decision by the full Board? If they have been so considered and decided, what was the date, what was the decision, and where is this recorded?
I also refer you to the submission made by Clr Price, as at (8) at the above reference, in which he asked for all of the above matters to be considered by the full Board, to the end that restitution should be made to the piece workers for damage suffered. Why was this submission not put before the full Board, and what party placed this “In the hands of the Board’s solicitor,” where it presumably remains to this day?
As aforesaid, between 84 and 03 the piece workers were allowed only five meagre wage awards at randomised intervals. The District Auditor at (4) describes this treatment as being that the Finance Committee considered “Requests for increases by contractors and piece workers when they were made.” This describes the actuality of our situation as workers, in that we actually had to beg for any wage increase when times became really hard. Here the District Auditor describes the treatment of serfs, rather than free men. I therefore ask that the Board, in full and open session, considers and decides: “What attribution of employment status is given to a serf?” And, as follows “What act of consideration and decision of the full Board attributed what employment status to the Board’s piece workers 84 to 03?” The piece workers’ randomised treatment here can be also evidenced by the workers themselves and the Board’s present Foreman.
Given the treatment of the piece workers as described above, how could the Board, as a legal entity, either agree a contract with or attribute any employment status to these workers between 84 and 03? Will the full Board, in open session, consider and decide as to what should have been the proper attribution of employment status to the piece workers 84 to 03?
During the past fifteen years I have been told, constantly, that all these questions can only be answered by my “Employer.” My employer, however, is a legal person, the Board as a legal entity. This entity may only be informed of any matter by the consideration and decision of the full Board in open session. Rather than this, however, the obfuscation which has damned my efforts to contact this entity over all of this time, is well illustrated by the following.
As long ago as 2004 all of the questions as above, which relate to piece worker treatment, were sent to the Board’s Clerk by the District Auditor, this as at (14). These questions have never been answered. According to the Auditor, these questions were distributed to all Board members. On my speaking to Board members and the Board’s Foreman, however, no one seems to know anything of this. I therefore ask, were these questions, which ran to three pages, sent to every Board member? If these questions were not sent to every Board member, what was the reason for this? I myself made many further attempts to contact my employer during these fifteen years, many via Nigel Adams MP. Just as with the District Auditor’s questions, none were ever answered. Why were these questions not placed before the full Board for consideration, decision and answer?
As may be seen on the “What Do They Know” FOI website, every authority in the country with a duty to uphold Board probity tells me that my concerns here are not their business because they are “Civil matters between you and your employer alone.” This, however, is only true if my employer, the Board as a legal entity, has authorised, and therefore knows of all of our treatment as piece workers, but the extent of the Board’s knowledge is a matter which every authority prefers to not even mention. It is this cavalier attitude to the truth, therefore, which obliges me to ask to be assured that all past decisions taken concerning the Board’s piece workers have been considered and decided by the Board in full session, and I ask to see proof of this Board authorisation. To this end I ask for all of these questions, as above listed, to be asked of and considered by the Board in full and open session, for any answers to come as a result of Board decisions, and for these to be recorded on the Board’s website. I am also asking that these questions be placed and answered on the open forum of the “What Do They Know” website at “The Wall Of Silence RE: The Affairs of Selby Area Internal Drainage Board.” My earlier questions to all other authorities may be found here.
Please remember that all households pay for the Board to exist via their Council tax payments, as do landowners and tenants via rates imposed, and that the affairs of every public body must be able to be subject to the utmost scrutiny. This, as above, is the business of everyone, which is being rendered the business of no one. Even if you cannot help me, I ask you to understand this.
Yours Sincerely
W P Crooks