UNISON NDC – Wreckers at Work

United Left did what they do best and the card vote on the implementation of the structural amendments already agreed was lost. This was by about 550,000 votes to 500,000.

I appreciate that some delegates did have genuine doubts and concerns about the proposed changes and wanted (yet) more time to consider. But others still seem to think that THE REVOLUTION will only happen if there is an united front of all local government and health workers being led by some chosen vanguard.

Dream on comrades.

The leaflets put out by UL on this vote were completely misleading and scaremongering (IMO),

This decision will mean that some CVS activists will accuse branches of only wanting CVS subscriptions without willing to offer them effective representation. Which I think on the whole is not fair to most branches but such perverse decisions do mean that accusations will be made by CVS activists who are desperate to organise their sectors properly.

Well, two steps forward and one step backwards I suppose. Onwards and forwards to next year.

I was “bumped off” from speaking by a point of order so I will post next the speech I would have made.

(BTW to make sense of this - see previous 2 posts)

UNISON Local Government Conference Sunday 14 June

First full day of LG conference. Forced myself to get up early but soon feeling very smug as I went for a run along the Brighton beach about 7.15am. Lovely glorious warm sunshine. There were still many revellers from the “night before” wandering around. Mostly drinking coffee although I saw one hardy soul still swigging enthusiastically from a bottle of wine.

On the beach itself it is hard going to run due to the pebbles and there was a number of revellers who were fast asleep on the beach surrounded by beer cans while others with metal detectors sweep around their corpses.

There was people swimming next to the Pier while everwhere Brighton Council workers (hopefully UNISON members) were clearing up the beaches and streets.

Our morning branch delegation meeting over breakfast didn't quite work out to plan but we all met up at 9.10 to walk down to the conference centre were we had a team photo outside (see pic). All the other 3 delegates from my branch were here for the first time and were quite rightly asking me loads of questions.

The morning session went okay. There was a bit of a row over the standing orders report. Then after the Local Government Service Group Executive report, there was a another report on “Community and Voluntary Sector (CSV) forum” followed by the first item of business which was about funding in the Community and Voluntary Sector (CVS).

This should have gone ahead without any nonsense but my old branch in fact had I'm afraid put in a crass and pretty badly written amendment which upset many delegates in the CVS. It reaffirmed conference policy to oppose transfer of public services which was fair enough but had at the end “we do not believe that the private or voluntary sector can deliver welfare provision better than the public sector”. Which rattled my cage somewhat. Bob Woods from Barnardo's branch tore into this while I also spoke about being a treated as a “second class” unison member. I'll post what I said later. The rest of the morning business went quite smoothly.

UNISON Community & Voluntary Sector Pension Survey

UNISON's Pensions Unit is carrying out a short on-line survey (click on link) on pension provision currently being offered to our community and voluntary sector (CVS) members.

This is part of UNISON’s ongoing campaign to try to ensure good quality pension provision for members.

So if you are a UNISON member in this sector then give it a go. It only takes a few minutes.

If you are unsure about what pension scheme is offered you may have to talk to your scheme administrators. They are usually very helpful.

Since a company pension (if offered) is an important part of your pay you should have some idea of what is on offer.

(BTW - Here is a dig I had last year at some organisations who have pulled out of Final Salary schemes).