Welfare at Work Week is back! 29 Sept to 3 Oct
UNISON branches are highlighting the support available from UNISON's charity - There for You - including grants, debt advice, and budgeting tools.
Contact your branch or organise your own event
unsn.uk/4lUBWeR
There was also a minutes silence to remember Party members who have died during the past year. A list of names was shown on the main screens to music, which included the name of Newham Councillor, Neil Wilson.
There was also number of good speakers including a passionate speech on the new Hillsborough Law followed by a choir singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.
There was also international speaker, Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who gave a very thoughtful speech on how the Labour movement’s in both our countries had chosen Parliamentary democracy rather than protest to benefit working people.
After Conference I went to be part of a panel for a fringe with Michael Shanks MP (Minister for Energy, Security & Net Zero), Bill Esterson MP (Chair of Energy, Security & Net Zero) and Tessa Khan (Uplift). The panel was chaired by Sue Ferns (Prospect). I was there in my role as Vice Chair of Local Authority Pension Fund Forum. I will post later on this event. For some reason the photographs were all red!
Afterwards I joined friends and colleagues at the best social of conference, the Labour Friends of Bangladesh event and had a fantastic meal with one or two speeches.
Conference starts officially at 11am on the Sunday. We had a delegation pre meeting at 9am, so a fairly sensible night, but I did go the the London Labour Party reception, were there was a number of excellent speakers and took this picture of my Newham and CWU colleague Bashar, with the very pleasant spouse of a certain well known Labour politician!
There for You – UNISON’s charity – is here to help
Seasonal Food Fund 2025 opens soon! Keep the date
unsn.uk/4noavvh
Opens 12 noon, Tue 30 Sept – 24hrs only
£30 voucher per eligible household member
For those on low income/in financial difficulty
The launch was in the Wanstead Tap and had been organised via Newham Bookshop (were you can order the book https://www.newhambooks.co.uk/). I have come across Pete professionally, a number of tomes over the years.
Below is a quote from Pete about his book
“I was born into a city where housing was affordable. But I've grown up into one where it was not. What has gone wrong in London over the last 35 years? And where is it going in the future?
My new book, Homesick, tells that story. Out Sept 25 amazon.co.uk/Homesick-How-H…”
Pete read extracts from his book then answered questions from the audience. My question was whether to solve the housing affordability crisis there needs once again to be sufficient public subsidy of social rents and mortgages? Pete thought that the public would not accept the increases of taxation necessary to pay for this. He instead thought housing taxation could help solve the crisis.
I brought the book and got Pete to sign it and he also offered some written supportive advice about my employer :-)
By coincidence, later that night I joined colleagues to take part in the bimonthly Newham Rough Sleeping count.
Check out https://www.blood.co.uk/ and a long time comedy favourite (nothing like my experience giving blood) Hancock's Half Hour in HD Colour - The Blood Donor
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Excellent improvised music and singing.
This is probably the most closely fought by election in recent years. Many residents are disillusioned with national politics, some local issues and the ongoing cost of living crisis. The turnout also appears to be low. It was interesting that the Tories and Reform were out campaigning and appeared to be more concerned with each other rather than competing with Labour.
It was also great to go campaigning with our Newham Labour Mayoral Candidate for 2026, Forhad Hussain.
UPDATE: Sadly Ash did not win on this occasion. He is probably the hardest working candidate I have ever worked with. Politics can be cruel at times. The national and local issues mentioned above overwhelmed us yesterday. He and Labour will be back.
Brilliant result!
Neil had been a Labour Party and Councillor colleague of mine for many years. He was also at the time of his death the Cabinet Lead for Health & Adult Social Care.
The service was very well attended and many thanks to his family and the Church for a lovely service and the refreshments afterwards.
The Church itself was magnificent with a wonderful Choir. Neil had been an active member of the Church for many years and used to assist with the services, which I knew, he was very proud of this.
Rest in Peace Neil.
Congress started as usual at 9.30am beginning with the the latest "Union wins video", then a powerful debate on Composite motion "The Crisis in Palestine", which was followed by an address from the International Speaker – Shaher Saed from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.
Then controversial motions on Climate change and a "Just Transition" requirement amendment (carried) followed by "Reform of the TUC".
As with the "Wages not Weapons" motion previously, there was a clash between predominantly public sector unions and private sector unions on the Just Transition amendment.
While in the debate on the "Future of the TUC" seemed me more about the role of the TUC - should it act as the national UK trade union or its traditional role to facility a UK federation of independent unions? Again some great speeches, some not that comradely, on both sides of the argument. The motion was clearly lost.
There was also a number of important motions on disability issues followed by 6 Emergency motions.
Check out the programme for Congress business here https://www.tuc.org.uk/Congress2025/programme-business-congress-2025 and results here https://congress.tuc.org.uk/motion_type/all_motions/#sthash.RRkjFVlf.bgWohJM8.dpbs
Final business of Congress was the traditional vote of thanks and award of a Gold Badge (and Congress bell!) to the outgoing President, Mark Dickinson, who had been a marvellous Chair of Congress. Efficient, fair and supportive of first time speakers. By coincidence he reminded me of my former Branch Chair, Tony Power, in looks and temperament.
Next years President is the General Secretary of the Prison Officers union, Steve Gillan. Who Mick Lynch, from the RMT cheekily suggested would deal with any dissent in the TUC General Council by locking the door until they agreed a line.
After close of Congress there was a rush to the hotel to pick up luggage, then I walked to the station (no rain) and was able to get into the rear first class coach of the Thameslink train (no need for upgrade on this carriage only) with 2 other UNISON delegates from London for further debate (and gossip)
There was a number of important debates on Fire service, Zane’s Law, Prison safety, wealth tax, tackling the far right, tackling sexism and the probation service. There was a number of UNISON speakers.
The TUC General Secretary, Paul Nowak, gave a hard hitting address, attacking Reform MPs for voting against the Employment rights Bill and also for supporting US-style private health care.
During lunch I attended a fringe on “How should trade unions respond to the rise of Reform UK” with Hope Not Hate and addressed by UNISON assistant General Secretary Liz Snape. The lesson for me from this fringe is that we have to listen, understand and win over members who support Reform and not just condemn them.
Ellie Reeves MP, a former trade union lawyer now Solicitor General, gave a well received address to Congress as the Labour Party Sororal delegate.
In the evening I went to my second fringe of the day. “Worker-Centric Housing - how do we build 1.5 million homes for where workers want to live? By YIMBY Alliance with panel speaker Maggi Ferncombe from UNISON. I expressed my usual concern on this topic that we will not be able to build all these homes without more public subsidy.
Congress is chaired this year by the no nonsense, General Secretary of the Seafarer Union, Nautilus, Mark Dickinson’s. You can watch Congress live and read about the motions and speeches at www.tuc.org.uk/Congress2025.
I will post more on Congress later
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The inspection was done in conjunction with Facilities management who were very helpful and reactive to problems identified. We also discussed safety issues and violence at work with the estate housing officer present.
Our employer has 48 offices across England and we are planning to inspect all of them (eventually!).
After hearing the speeches of both candidates, I voted in favour of nominating Christina McAnea. The NEC voted overwhelming for Christina to be our nominee.
In the next few weeks UNISON branches, regional councils and service groups will be voting on who to nominate to this absolutely key position in the union. Please attend these nomination meetings and please support Christina. I will post further on why.
We did both sides of a very long street in the ward. It was threatening to rain but there was only a few occasional drops. I read out the briefing to all the teams at the beginning and Ash thanked everyone for giving up their time to support him. There was then the inevitable photo!
Another positive canvass. Some negativity but that is democracy for you. It was good to be involved with lots of enthusiastic activists from all ages, experience and backgrounds, coming together to fight the good fight.
By election is Thursday 18 September. Check out here if you can join us. https://events.labour.org.uk/
If you have not canvassed before do not worry, since your will be paired with an experienced activist until you feel comfortable to knock on a door by yourself.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/xMANfA1-TKSLFC5uk55y4w#/registration
(I have known Asma for a number of years and regret that I will have to miss this talk due to a clash)
