Clean Sweep: Centre Left Victory in London UNISON elections

This is a picture of myself, Monica, Gloria and Conroy after the London Regional Council AGM.

Emma and Lynn had to leave straight after the meeting.

Our Sensible Left slate won all the Regional Council Officer posts (Executive) for the 6th year running.  I don't know yet what the margin was this year but I suspect it is as good or even better than in the past.  Local government branches are coming on side as they realise that sloganeering and grandstanding is not going to achieve anything. 

The AGM went off very smoothly and guest speakers UNISON President Angela Lynes and Deputy GS of the PSC Hugh Lanning were well received. 

I had to answer a few questions during my presentation on the financial report.  The debates over number of regional council meetings and quorum were actually pretty good and people listened to the arguments.  There was little hostile heckling and no attempts to shout down speakers that the Ultra left (some of them not all) didn't happen to agree with.  Which I think is very positive.  It was agreed to cut the number of meetings to 3 per year (at last) and keep the quorum at 1/3rd (thankfully).  It was a pity that there wasn't time to debate my branch Housing motion and the others since we ran out of time. 

I hope (and expect) now that the Region will unite around Gloria and Conroy as we oppose the cuts while defending our members.

There was tremendous support shown for the TUC March 26th and I am sure that UNISON London region will play a major part in mobilising for it and making it a great success.

Emma Rolland for Regional Young Members Convenor

Check out here about AGM

"I am currently the Regional Young Members Convenor and also a member of the Regional Young Members Forum.

Young members have been particularly affected by the current economic climate and this gives the union the opportunity to recruit, organise and engage young workers to give them protection and support but also to build and strengthen the union for the future. I believe this should be a priority for the coming year.

If re-elected I would work with the Regional Young Members Forum to build and improve the young members organisation in London by:

• Ensuring that all branches elect a Branch Young Members Officer (less than 10% of our branches have one now)

• Increasing the number of members that join and participate in the Regional Forum to give young members a voice in London

• Encouraging branches to make recruiting young members part of their branch recruitment strategy and looking at resources they need to do this

• Encouraging young members to participate both in national campaigns such as Minimum Wage Campaign, as well as regional campaigns such as the sexual health awareness campaign.

In my experience trade unions can sometimes be considered by young people to be out of date and not relevant, I would like to continue to work with the YM forum and the Regional Council Officers to look at how we communicate with members and non members under 27 to change this perspective and demonstrate that trade unions are as relevant today as ever before - all too often young people are treated unfairly purely because of their age and face harassment, bullying and discrimination in addition to the issues that all public sector workers face such as attacks on terms and conditions, below inflation pay rises and privatisation. Trade unions are the key to protecting our members and challenging the issues we face at work.

Unfortunately no regional young members have taken place this year due to low attendance and I want to speak to young members to find out why they aren’t engaging at local level and how we can resolve this situation and build the Regional Young Members Forum in 2010.

We are the future of the union and recruiting young members is vital. Without encouraging more young people to join and then to become active at branch, regional and national levels the future of the union will suffer".

UNISON Greater London Regional Council AGM 2010

This Wednesday (3rd February) the UNISON Greater London Regional Council AGM takes place. Around 250 delegates will be present representing 130,000 UNISON members. This is arguably the most important annual trade union meeting in London.

UNISON President Gerry Gallagher, Leader of the Labour Group on the Greater London Authority (GLA), Len Duvall and Kirsten Hearn who is an independent member of the MPA will be keynote speakers.

The Annual report will be tabled and I will also be presenting the Finance Report (and doing my best not to send everyone to sleep). Then there will be NEC reports emergency motions, rule amendments, ordinary motions and committee reports. The most importance business will be the election by secret ballot of Regional Council officers (the lay executive for London UNISON), the main Regional committee and sub-committees.

I am standing for re-election as Finance Convenor alongside the other “dream team” (as described by the opposition!) candidates: -

Gloria Hanson - Regional Convenor

Conroy Lawrence - Deputy Regional Convenor

John Gray - Regional Finance Convenor

Monica Hirst - Regional Equalities Convenor

Lynn Bentley - Regional Publicity Officer

Emma Rolland - Regional Young Members Convenor

There is usually a bit of a bun fight with disunited left during reports and motions but hopefully we can all have a good old debate and it is a successful AGM (by that I mean of course - we win).

I will post our “Slate” election statements next starting with Gloria. 

Still time to nominate the forces of light and reason in London UNISON.

In our London UNISON world the first big election test of 2010 is of course, next year’s UNISON London Regional Council AGM.

The 130,000 UNISON members in our region can send delegates via their branches to elect by secret ballot the Regional lay leadership - Regional Council Officers for the coming year.

There is also a number of other important regional committee members elected as well. Nominations close on 15 December 2009.

Rank and file delegates were able to wrestle control of the regional lay leadership away from the SWP/SPEW dominated Ultra Left 4 years ago and we have regained control at each AGM with increased majorities. The dream ticket for next February (IMO) is:-

Regional Convenor – Gloria Hanson (bottom right)

Deputy Convenor – Conroy Lawrence (bottom left)

Finance Convenor – John Gray (middle top)

Equalities Convenor – Monica Hirst (not showing)

Publicity Convenor – Lynn Bentley (top left)

Young Persons Convenor – Emma Rolland (top right)

Monica takes over from Gill Brown (top 3rd from left - who is a new NEC member) as our Equalities Convenor Candidate.

So why re-elect a Centre Left “sensible slate”?

Since the Region was brought back into members control Gloria and her team has helped increase membership; developed and trained more activists; organised effective regional campaigns on pay, equal pay, pensions and against privatisation; campaigned for equalities and against discrimination; and intensified work with members working for private companies and in the voluntary sector. The region is now built on solid foundations.

The coming year could present UNISON with many challenges. However, the Greater London Region is more than capable of organising to defend our members from future attacks but we need a solid leadership to do this. We need a team who:

- continue to return control of the union to its members

- strengthen support for branches and activists in undertaking the difficult task of supporting members at work

- put members first, keeping ultra left politics out of the union

- celebrate diversity, promote unity

- on real issues for real members, keep the union relevant

Please support Gloria and her team in carrying on with the work they started

The Ultra Left slate has been publicised widely by the usual suspects. However it seems some of their slate are now protesting that they are “independents” and they want nothing to do with those extremists. While at the same time I understand some of the true believers are horrified at the prospect of some of their “slate” and their “politics” (or lack of). Especially one of them who boasts of their very close relationship with full time officers? (personally I think that all activists should have good relationships with their full time officers?).

Murky waters indeed!

A close UL mole has even suggested to me that some of their slate are only standing for some sort of “a laugh”. Whatever that means?

I do look forward to next year’s Regional Council AGM which I always enjoy but I hope for the sake of the union that we will not again have the ultra left minority indulging in their usual aggressive, bullying and threatening behaviour while trying to shout down anyone who opposes them.

Of course such conduct wins us loads of votes but we would always rather have a dignified and reasoned debate. But I doubt very much this will happen. Never mind - roll on next Feb!

UNISON London Regional Council Officers 2009

This picture is from our recent first meeting as elected RCO’s following the Regional AGM in March. Front (L-R) Conroy Lawrence (Deputy Regional Convenor); Gloria Hanson (Regional Convenor), Back (L-R) Lynn Bentley (Regional Publicity Convenor), me (Regional Finance Convenor) Gill Brown (Regional Equalities Convenor) and Emma Rolland (Regional Young Persons Convenor). Emma is the new member of our team taking over from Sarah Lewis.