Thursday, January 28, 2010

Dear Branch Secretary...nomination request for Community SGE

Dear Branch Secretary

I am writing to ask your branch to consider nominating me for the General Seat on the new Community Service Group Executive.

I am a lifelong trade unionist and have been a member of UNISON for nearly 17 years. I am a member of the UNISON Housing Associations Branch where I am a steward, Health & Safety Officer and Labour Link Officer.

My first paid job was as a welfare rights advisor in an inner city community centre. I am now employed as a Housing Officer for a large Housing Association after being TUPE’d from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

Members working in the community and voluntary sector know all too well about job insecurity and instability. More often than not jobs are reliant on public funding and are only renewed if and when funding has been secured. Most members in our sector have had to deal with numerous reorganisations and being TUPE’d time and time again due to cuts in funding.

Across the sector there are a wide range of employers from the very small employing just 1 or 2 staff to the very large. Some of the smaller employers are inexperienced and whilst they want to do the right thing for social justice – this doesn’t always apply to how they treat and manage their staff. We need to support our members that feel isolated at work and ensure that they know that UNISON can support them and how they can access this support.

I believe we must build better organisation for our members and stewards. We need to build stewards’ networks so that they can support each other and share knowledge, ideas and experiences. I would like to see more training introduced on issues that are of particular concern to UNISON members in the Community Service Group – like funding cuts, re-structuring, and dealing with poor management.

I hope your branch will consider nominating me to represent your members in this sector. I am committed to listening to their views, making their voices heard and ensuring they get better support and the resources they deserve.

If you would like to discuss this statement please give me a ring or contact me on john.m.grayATntlworldDOTcom.

Yours faithfully

John Gray

Community is the brand new “Service Group” in UNISON for those of us who work in the community and voluntary sector. It will be the third biggest “Service Group” in UNISON with already over 60,000 members.

4 comments:

Dave said...

Good Luck.

Dave Draycott

John Gray said...

Cheers Dave!

Anonymous said...

John ,

Good luck. I have allready seen 'flyers' by Mary Powell (Gt London General Seat)
Sonya Howard (Gt London womens seat -Dis - United Left)
Charlie Hore ( Gt london general Seat -Dis United Left)
John Mc Gloughlin -Dis United Left )
Terry Conway (Gt London womens seat - Dis United left)
Irene Stacey (Gt london - reserved seat - Dis United left ? )

Lets hope our members see through the bile when they vote for our new representatives ,

Graham

John Gray said...

Hi Modernity
Good post – I’ve copied it here http://grayee.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-am-seismic-shock.html

Hi Graham
Sonya, John Mac and Irene (not sure she is disunited left since I think they are running someone against her) are standing for the Local Government London Seats.