Unions blast at Chinese junket

WORKERS braced for up to 850 redundancies have been sent a three-page blog celebrating a £14,000 trip to China by five senior Oldham Council representatives.

Details of the nine-day visit by council-leader Howard Sykes, Paul White and June Smith from the regeneration department, and Danny Price from Sports Development, were written up by sports development manager Neil Consterdine.

He describes formal banquets, police escorted tours of cities, a 13-course breakfast, and a presentation and demonstration by Danny Price to show how Oldham uses sport and dance to help young people build self-esteem and health.

The trip, which took place from October 24 to November 1, followed a memorandum of understanding between Oldham and the Xishan district of China which was signed in 2006.

But a council employee who read the blog on the intranet council communications system said: “Can you believe Oldham Council is supposed to be £17.3 million in debt?

“Talk about insensitive. Five staff jet off to China — for what and who paid?

“It is an absolute disgrace and an insult not only to the employees who are at risk of redundancy but to the council-tax payers of Oldham.”

Councillor Sykes said the trip was important in the current economic climate adding: “China is the only economy in the world surviving, thriving and growing.

“We are developing friendship, business and educational links.

“While we were there, we got the opportunity to go to Wuxi with representatives of other cities from all over the world.

“At the two-day event I was talking to people like the deputy mayor of Dallas, Texas, along with people from Korea, Japan and other places.

“Whether anything will come of this I don’t know, but we have signed a formal educational link with Xishan. Teachers are exchanging places, graduates want to come and work here, their economy is booming, and there may be work opportunities.

“Since we have come back, teachers from China already in the UK want to see what education is like in Oldham.

“The Xishan area has China’s third-largest textile manufacturer — a huge operation — and there may be opportunities there. It is all about opening channels of communication.”

Councillor Sykes said he was aware of the blog, but declined to comment on it.

But Jim McDermott, the GMB union convenor for Oldham Council, said: “I don’t think a trip is appropriate at this time. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.”

Ann Mitchell, branch secretary of Unison, added: “If this has come from mainstream budgets, I am not impressed at all. I will be asking questions at the next budget consultation meeting with senior management.”