Oh Well, Win Some Lose Some

I have just got the results about the UNISON London Local Government Service Group Executive Election. I was well beaten by incumbent David Eggmore who got 2,882 votes. Second was Glenn Kelly who got a surprising (to me anyway) 2,528. I came third with 1,430 and Oreleo DuCran came 4th with 677. See previous post.

Congratulations to David!

The good news is that Irene Stacey (see next post) won the London female seat 3586 to 3532. Narrowing defeating Sonya Howard. Interesting to speculate about what this actually means?

Bad news I fear also about Rachel Voller and Bill Beekoo in the London Health SGE elections. I am sure that this is just a blip!

Nationally the centre left seemed to have done better.

I enjoyed the campaign and have a number of ideas on how to possibly get a better result in any future elections.

Turnout was as always very poor. 79,507 members balloted, total number of valid votes counted only 7,517. There was an incredible 677 invalid votes cast in my election and 1076 for the female seat? Scotland who balloted 102,282 members only had 61 invalid votes? (Only one seat up for election in that region).

The low turnout meant that in London you only needed just fewer than 3% of the membership vote to win.

Would better publicity, raising the profile of the SGE, internet voting, voting via mobile phones make any difference?

Anyway, such is life, I am now settling down to a nice cup of tea. (still using skimmed milk)

London UNISON Labour Link – Boris, Barnbrook and winning next time.

By co-incidence this morning was the quarterly regional meeting of London UNISON Labour Link Committee (or APF - the voluntary political levy that many UNISON members pay that promotes members views and UNISON policies within the Labour Party).

It was a good opportunity to meet up with comrades from across London and different parts of UNISON to discuss the recent campaign and election results. I think that everyone was “disappointed” (to say the least) with Ken losing the mayoralty and the BNP gaining a seat. Despite the current circumstances it was a very positive, thoughtful and forward thinking meeting. An extra Labour seat was won and we did increase the Labour vote in London

This was the first meeting since the re-election of the committee; the first item was election of officers. Louise Couling and Bill Beekoo were elected Co- Chair’s while Gloria Hanson and I were elected Co-Vice Chairs.

The Greater London Assembly report was by newly re-elected Assembly member for Enfield and Haringey, Joanne McCarthy (see picture).

Joanne is a UNISON member and has been a regular visitor to London Labour Link meetings. The committee congratulated Joanne on winning her seat. It had been a key Tory target. She gave a short verbal report then answered questions.

Joanne started off by admitting that the loss of Ken had been a disaster not only for London but also for the Unions. Ken had an “open door” to the unions which Boris is not expected to follow. She thanked UNISON and the other affiliated trade unions for their work in the election. If the unions had not rallied around Labour in London in the way they did then the results could have been far worse.

There is a problem that since the Tories now control more than 8 seats in the Assembly, then Boris’s budget proposals cannot be blocked. But, since the Assembly Chairs of Committees are decided by a simple majority of members, then it is likely (not confirmed until the Assembly AGM) that a coalition of the minority Parties may be able to control the all important committees. These “Scrutiny committees should be able to monitor what Boris is up to and try to stop him from damaging London too much. Boris can also be held to account to a degree by formal “questions” to the Mayor.

Labour Link had tabled a special report analysing the overall BNP vote in the 2008 elections. We discussed this and Joanne reassured committee members that the BNP will not get the GLA money and resources that some have claimed following the election of Barnbrook. To be recognised as a “Party” in the GLA you need at least 2 seats. So it is likely that he will only get enough to employ one paid member of staff (too many). There was as we say a "wide ranging discussion" on means to combat the BNP while ensuring that GLA staff are protected. We need to careful, since Barnbrook will be using his position as a platform for the European elections next year and will thrive on confrontation and publicly. Apparently, if he does something stupid (as elected BNP councillors are prone to do) and is kicked out, then the BNP can replace him with another list candidate.

If in London we could have raised the turnout from 45.3% to 49% then the BNP would have not been elected. They only increased their total vote by just over 0.5% from 2004.

After Joanne left there was a general debate about the election, lessons learnt and planning ahead for the European elections in 2009, Council elections in 2010 and of course at some time in the next few years there will be a general election. The Tories clearly mobilised their supporters to come out and vote better than Labour. National political sentiments did not help Labour in London. However, a capable and experienced progressive candidate on the left of the Labour Party was clearly defeated by a centre right wing Tory.

There was widespread agreement by committee members over the desperate need to defeat the Tories and the vital role that trade unions can play in the coming battles. We need to remind our members of what happens when Conservatives are in power, locally and nationally.

We need to organise between now and next time to win.

UNISON Health Service Group Executive Elections (London region)

As well as the GLA and other Council elections taking place across the land, there are also some fairly important UNISON internal elections taking place.

UNISON is divided into 7 Service Groups. These elections are to elect regional members of each National Service Group Executive (SGE).

In London Region there are only two contested elections for regional delegates. For Health and Local Government service groups. Here is the election statement for the Health centre left slate that I am supporting. I will post next the Local Government slate (guess who is standing in that election!).

If you are a member of UNISON in London, please copy these statements and email or photocopy to any other members you know. UNISON branch funds and distribution lists should not be used for such purposes. Ballot papers are due to be sent out tomorrow to members home addresses. Enjoy!

"United Left" SWP and SP Trotskyite candidates are standing against them. Nuf said?


LAYLA RUMBLE, BILL BEEKOO AND RACHEL VOLLER
ALL HERE FOR YOU ON THE HEALTH SERVICE GROUP EXECUTIVE

Dear Colleague,

As you will be aware we are currently in the nomination period for the Service Group Executive (SGE) elections. We are writing to you to seek your branch’s nomination for the three positions available to represent the Greater London Region.

As your existing SGE representatives we have worked hard together as a team to speak up for our members. Sometimes speaking up is not easy but we have always aimed to put UNISON members first and not political agendas as some representatives are known to do. We have consistently fought to use UNISON budgets in the best interests of our membership, to serve all of our members not just the more vocal, and have particularly spoken up on behalf of our low paid members.

Bill Beekoo (General seat)
Bill works for Havering PCT and has been an SGE representative for 6 years bringing with him a vast amount of experience in negotiating and organising. He is a firm believer that NHS workers should be well rewarded for the hard work that they do. He has contributed to debates on pay, pensions and privatisation and if re-elected would be particularly interested in making sure low paid contract workers received Agenda for Change in ALL Trusts in London.

Layla Rumble (Low paid seat)
Layla works as a Maternity Health Care Assistant and is also training to be a midwife. She is passionate about representing our lower paid workers as they are integral to the smooth functioning of the NHS. Layla is also keen to see more opportunities for our members to increase their skills and prospects through the Knowledge and Skills framework and if re-elected would make this a priority.

Rachel Voller (Women’s seat)
Rachel works as a midwife at UCLH. She has served on the SGE for 4 years and has fought hard for recognition by the government of the high standards of work provided by our NHS workers. Rachel is keen to see an end to privatisation and outsourcing of services within the NHS and if re-elected would make it a priority to address ways in which Trusts can be supported to bring their facilities back in house.

We hope that you will re-nominate us so that we can continue with the work we have been doing and ensure that the voices of London members are heard at the highest levels. There is important work to be done especially with changes afoot under the Darzi report and we feel that with our experience and motives for standing we are the best placed to serve you.

Bill, Layla and Rachel.

UNISON Labour Link Forum – Manchester 2007

Busy couple of days, we firstly had apologies from Gordon Brown for not being able to attend (we let him off, he had a baptism of fire with international terrorists and floods), had a new minister of local government, Hazel Blears, as guest speaker, key note speech by our General Secretary, Dave Prentis, Q&A with Labour MEPs and then MPs, workshop on implementing national delegate conference decisions, annual report, debate on Labour Leadership election and motions. There was of course the obligatory UNISON social on the Friday evening where “a good time was had by all”. My red eyes and shaky voice the following morning was down to a horrible common cold and no other possible reason.

The Forum is the annual meeting of elected UNISON Labour Link representatives and was held in the Midland Hotel Manchester city centre. The hotel is actually built on or about the site of the Peterloo Massacre. There was about 150 members present from all over the UK. I haven’t been to Manchester since I was in my 20s, and I was most impressed. I will definitely be coming back for a weekend soon.

Hazel was her usual very impressive self – the four “C’s”, combative, confident, certain and proper working "class". She appears to have shrugged off her defeat in the Deputy Leadership, probably thinks “it’s their loss”. I liked her story about how after she became a young Councillor at Salford (fictional setting for Coronation Street); the Town Clerk (who in those days still used to wear a wig and gown at Council meetings) approached her and said he had a “really important job for her”. She was really excited and thought it would be some significant committee position. However, he then told her “we are refurbishing the member’s room and we would like you to choose the curtains”. She said she was so shocked that she agreed. She pointed out the danger Cameron and the Tories poised at the next election as just being “different”. Regardless of policies there will be a “momentum of change” at the next election which will favour the Tories. Labour has got to be different, not in values but in policies.

I was able to ask her my usual question to new ministers about the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) “governance” issues i.e. why is it that staff are excluded from being represented on their pension schemes. Hazel (as Malcolm Wicks, Stephen Timms and Phil Woolas have responded in the past) admitted that this issue was something that she had not been briefed upon beforehand but suggested that involving staff in their pensions was obviously “a good idea”. We need to speak to her further before she gets nobbled by her civil servants. There is a draft Code of Practice on governance issues out at the moment.

Dave Prentis obviously felt at home at the forum. He was amongst friends. He started off by attacking the BNP, he also had a bit of a dig at the “revolutionary groups” who feed off and take for granted the hard work done by Labour Link in trying to influence MPs. He praised Alan Johnson, for wanting talks to take place over NHS pay within 5 days of him taking over as health secretary, when just 2 weeks ago Brown had told Dave himself that there was no more negotiations over pay. Alan Johnson, even thought we won’t agree with everything he does is someone UNISON can deal with.

Dave went off his speech to respond to Hazel and have a go at the awful governance of many (not all) LGPS schemes. Despite a clear European Union directive that we should have the legal right to 50% representation on these schemes we have none. He pointed out that huge amounts of money in the LGPS is used to provide cheap loans to local authorities instead of being invested for the long term. We will probably need to recruit some 800 UNISON pension reps in the near future to sit on pension schemes.

Dave pointed out that UNISON Labour Link is an integral part of the Union and that as General Secretary he will do everything in his power to promote it.

I spoke on the London motion on the Living Wage, the problems with Co-op and the 4th choice for Housing.

Labour Link is obviously as Dave mentioned a “broad church”. However, despite occasional problems, I felt that pretty much everyone present was genuinely united about promoting the wider Labour movement. All of us have shared values and aspirations and we feel the best way forward to pursue these ideals is via the Labour Party and our affiliated trade union UNISON. Watch this space.

Picture above is of London Delegation - Left to right me, Rachel Voller, Louise Couling, Norma Stephenson (UNISON President), John Gough, Bill Beekoo and Ian Horrigan.

Pictures below of London UNISON members in action Bill, Rachel (left), John Gough and Khi Rafe.