UNISON National Labour Link Forum 2025: Day 1 & 2

UNISON Labour Link is the part of our union that is made up of members who decide to affiliate to the Labour Party and the Forum is our annual meeting, which this year took place in Glasgow. 

I attended as an elected London delegate but came early as member of the National Labour Link committee for a pre forum planning meeting. In the morning I went for a run along the Clyde which took longer than expected due to getting just a little lost.

Forum started in that evening with delegation meetings and then a reception addressed by my former UNISON NEC colleague and now MP, Katrina Murray. Afterwards the London delegates had a meal in an Italian restaurant in Argyle Street. 

Forum started and finished the next day with a mixture of reports, motions, keynote speakers and panel debates. 

Former UNISON national officer (and London lay activist) Deirdre Costigan gave a well received speech to forum on the 1st year of a Labour Government and gave an honest and considered response to sometimes robust questions in the Q&A. 

The highlight to me, was the panel debate on "Tackling the rise of Reform" with guest speaker Nick Lowles from "Hope not Hate", who gave a fascinating account of recent research on who supports Reform, why they support such a right wing, anti worker Party and what we should all be thinking of doing to win back disillusioned voters. I asked the panel about the importance of social economic class inequality in this debate, which pretty much all the panel agreed was a key issue. 

Forum finished on time, with all the annual reports agreed and all the tabled motions debated. Looking forward to next year's Forum. 

Greater London UNISON Regional Council AGM 2025

 

Picture collage from last weeks Regional AGM. I gave the the Finance report and thanked Council for being re-elected unopposed together with the rest of the Regional Council officer team Yvonne, Conroy, Clara and Katie. 

The key note speaker was former London UNISON activist and now MP, Deirdre Costigan. 

I moved a motion on Grenfell which the Branch Chair of UNISON Kensington & Chelsea, Sonya Howard, also spoke in favour. The motion was passed unanimously and I hope will the sent to UNSION National conference. 

Another very important motion passed was on our Regional campaign to end exploitation of migrant workers in public services. 

Sonya, Clara, Eddie Brand and Abiola Kusoro, who all spoke in various debates are standing to be elected as London UNISON NEC reps in the forthcoming elections. 

During the meeting the Regional Secretary, Jo Galloway announced that she will be starting her maternity leave the following week. She will be hugely missed but we all wished her well.  

UNISON GLR LGBT+ Reception marking World Aids Day

Last Tuesday evening I was invited by the UNISON Greater London Regional LGBT+ Committee to their annual reception in Parliament. This was sponsored by GLR Labour Link and hosted by new Labour MP, Deirdre Costigan (former UNISON National Officer). 

The theme was was to mark World Aids Day with the launch of the new UNISON Model-policy-to-support-workers-living-with-HIV.pdf to tackle HIV stigma at work, with speeches from the National Aids and Terrance Higgins Trust.

London Labour Conference - Day 2 West Ham CLP & UNISON

Day 2 of conference started for me with a UNISON delegation meeting at 9.30 which was confusing since we did not know the order of business for the day.  So we agreed to meet up again at lunchtime by which we expected that any controversial matter to be explained so we could make a collective decision.

Then we found out that that the proposed rule changes were to be heard first thing that morning. So it was all rather confusing and messy.

Both UNISON and West Ham CLP had a good day I think with a number of us making speeches in conference debates and contributions during fringes.

I moved the Housing motion on the private rental sector on behalf of UNISON and Joshu moved the motion on Youth Safety on behalf of West Ham CLP. Both were passed unanimously.

During the merit awards retired former UNISON Regional Secretary Linda Perks (and Labour Councillor candidate 2018) was given a lifelong service award.

Dawn Butler MP closed conference with a lovely personal but powerful political speech about overcoming and rising above racism and sexism.

While the conference was a little grumpy and even bad tempered at times I thought it was on the whole a success and that we were united about the importance of winning both the next General Election and local elections in London 2018.

I was really pleased to end the day with singing (however badly) "The Red Flag" and posing with UNISON comrades for the traditional delegation conference picture.  

Branch Labour Link News: Leadership; London GLA & National Committee elections

NEWS

To APF payers in Greater London Housing Associations Branch

With so much going on I thought this would be a useful time to update APF payers in the branch on recent Labour Link activity.

·         LABOUR LEADER & DEPUTY LEADER ELECTION

The National UNISON Labour Link Committee met on Wednesday and decided to nominate Jeremy Corbyn for Leader of the Labour Party, with Yvette Cooper as second choice.    For Deputy Leader UNISON will nominate Angela Eagle with Stella Creasy as second choice.

This was after consultation with all regions.  In London APF payers were sent an electronic survey and encouraged to give their views on their preferred candidate for both Leader and Deputy Leader (as did the branch survey). 

In the past all UNISON APF payers would have received a vote in the ballot to elect the Leader and Deputy but following the Collins Review this has changed.  Now only members that have signed up to become a UNISON Affiliated Supporter will be eligible to vote alongside Labour Party members.

Anyone who supports Labour's aims and values is entitled to sign up.  You don’t need to be a Labour Party member it’s free, quick and easy to do.  To register and find out more go to http://support.labour.org.uk/.   The deadline to register is 12 noon on Friday 12 August. 

UNISON’s decision to nominate Jeremy and Angela is a recommendation and members are of course free to cast their vote as to who they think should lead the Labour Party.

·         LONDON MAYOR & GLA CANDIDATES

UNISON Affiliated Supporters who register will also get a vote in deciding Labour’s London Mayoral Candidate and Greater London Assembly members. UNISON London Labour Link decided to make no recommendation for London Mayor but there are three UNISON members standing who will make excellent candidates and I would urge registered affiliated members to consider supporting either Tessa Jowell, Sadiq Khan or David Lammy. 

UNISON have nominated GLA candidates Murad Qureshi for City and East and Ivana Bartoletti for Havering & Redbridge who have been nominated and will be on the ballot paper. Members eligible to vote in may wish to consider supporting these UNISON candidates.

·         NATIONAL LABOUR LINK COMMITTEE ELECTIONS

The London region has one representative on UNISON’s National Labour Link Committee.  A process is currently underway to elect the London rep for the next two years. 

Our branch nominated Deirdre Costigan to represent the views of APF payers across London.

Within the next day or so you will receive a ballot paper to your home address.  I would encourage you to use your vote and return it without delay in the pre-paid envelope.  The ballot will close on Friday 25 September. 

If for any reason you do not receive a ballot paper by 18 August you should contact the ballot helpline at UNISON Direct on 0800 0 857 857.

·         GETTING MORE INVOLVED IN LABOUR LINK

You are receiving this email as an APF payer in the branch.  If you’d like to find out more about getting more involved in UNISON Labour Link or representing the branch at your CLP (if you are a Labour Party member) please get in contact.

·         JOIN THE LABOUR PARTY

Finally, if you are interested in joining the Labour Party you can do this for a reduced trade union rate of just £1.96 per month by going to https://join.labour.org.uk/

If anyone wants to clarify any please email me or ring.

Regards

John Gray

Branch Labour Link Officer

UNISON London LGBT "Equality at Work" Labour Link event at House of Commons

This great picture is from last weeks London UNISON LGBT "Equality at Work" mobilisation event at Portcullis House. I chaired the meeting on behalf of London Labour Link. Margret Hodge MP and Stephen Twigg MP were the guest speakers and reminded us that the Labour Party was the first political party to take LGBT equality at all seriously. While LGBT Chair, Deirdre Costigan, (next to Margaret) gave a fantastic speech about how no one should take these rights for granted if there is a future right wing government.

We are going to arrange for UNISON London LGBT activists to join West Ham CLP canvassing sessions for Labour in Ilford North. 2pm on the 2nd Saturday and 4th Saturday at Fairlop Underground station entrance. If you can let me know you are coming do so or just turn up at this time and place.

UNISON Labour Link LGBT Mobilisation Event House of Commons

Guest post by Gerard McGrath Unison London Region LGBT Committee rep on London Region Labour Link Committee

"To the blast of heavenly trumpets, the long awaited London Region LGBT Committees finally had its event in the Jubilee Room of The House of Commons last Wednesday 14th of May.

We had over 90 people register which also included members from PCS and Unite but it was mostly Unison members in attendance. This event was aimed at encouraging all LGBT Unison/Labour people to get out and help us on the doorstep in local wards or help out in key wards around London and get the Labour message out and challenge the nonsense being peddled by UKIP in particular.

We were all extremely encouraged by Sadiq Khan MP who kindly hosted this event for us and gave a very encouraging speech reminding us to help out as much as possible. We were also very fortunate to have Amy Lame as a speaker who talked about, in particular, the lack of Lesbians in public office reminding us that there are only two out Lesbians returned at the last election. We all wish Amy the best of luck in her efforts to find a parliamentary seat and of course we will all do our best to ensure her success.

Deirdre Costigan, co-chair of Unison National LGBT Committee was the final speaker and urged people to sign up to commit in helping Labour win as many seats as possible in the local government elections and also ensuring that Labour continues to have strong representation in Europe. Deirdre continued to remind us all of the potential damage UKIP could inflict on the country with any gains and also of their many well documented racism and homophobia incidents by their candidates.

Sadiq Khan is indeed a great example of how key muslim leaders are encouraging and facilitating LGBT visibility in public office which dismisses the right wing Islamaphobic propaganda that all Muslims are homophobes, Sadiq is certainly not homophobic.

 I want to thank Karen Westwood, who is one of Unison regional officers and John Gray, chair of the London Region Labour Link committee for helping us in finally getting this up and running.

Given the success of this event we will want to repeat this, hopefully next year as we approach the general election". Gerard McGrath (picture left)