UNISON National Delegate Conference 2015 - opens

UNISON President Lucia McKeever has just opened our National Delegate Conference which this year takes place in Glasgow.

This is our Union's AGM and "Parliament" which decides rules, finances and policy for the forthcoming year.

There are around 2,000 delegates and visitors from all over the United Kingdom and a number of international guests.

I am here as the UNISON National Executive Committee member for Community (members who work for Housing Associations or the voluntary sector).

As usual I will try and post on as many speeches, fringes and events as possible. Sometimes these posts may not be in strict date or time order.

Personal opinion as always.

UNISON LGPS Seminar 2014 - Time to govern YOUR money!

This was my welcome speech to the 120 UNISON representatives who attended our National Local Government Pension Scheme seminar.

I chaired the meeting but stole most of this intro from the speech that our President, Lucia McKeever, was due to deliver. Lucia was unwell today and could not attend. I will post further on what turned out to be an excellent seminar.

"Good morning everyone

And welcome to UNISON centre – my name is John Gray and I will be chairing this seminar today. I am a member nominated representative on the Local Government Pension scheme and a UNISON NEC employer trustee on our staff pension scheme.

I know some of you have travelled a long way today

We appreciate your commitment – wherever you have come from and whatever branch or service group you represent

There is a lot to get through today – so I will be brief

One of the outstanding achievements of the trade union movement are the negotiation and creation of pension schemes and pension funds.....to live a decent life after retirement is what we all deserve

As a long standing LGPS rep I understand our own scheme and as a trustee of the UNISON staff pension fund I have a good grounding and understanding of the importance of good governance, good investment returns and effective management of the assets we hold in trust for our employees

I believe the role of a pension board member is challenging and exciting – it is one of the most important jobs a trade unionist can take up – looking after the savings of others

It is natural ground for us – to be inquisitive, to question, to probe and find out – to ensure the members get the deal they expect and hopefully more

Today this seminar is about preparing you for the role of LGPS board members – to take you through the key issues your officers and NEC members have been negotiating on your behalf

It has been a long journey to gain the right for you to sit on the LGPS board decision making process – back in 2003 local government conference motion requested the union campaign for your rights to govern your money – I am proud to say we are nearly there

We have had to strike and negotiate to win this opportunity – let’s not throw it away

By April 2015 every LGPS fund in the UK must have a board – with equal numbers of scheme member and scheme employer reps

We have put in place the resources to help you achieve that – every region has a project plan that is co-ordinated at the centre – we have training and in the New Year we will launch web based resources for you all

The key message I bring to you today is this – it cannot happen unless you and your branch and your region are prepared – after today we need to step up our efforts to ensure that every board has UNISON representatives – to ensure that scheme members are for the first time – represented at the table.....

This is an historic opportunity – there is £200 billion worth of assets to oversee – there are millions of scheme members and pensioners that need your skills and judgement to represent them....

I can do it - You can do it – we can do it together.....

Make sure you ask questions and participate – this day is for you...enjoy it"

Keeping our Voice! Winning the Political Fund Ballot fringe #uNDC14

"...don't be confused. The ballot is a vote about having a political voice and not on affiliation"

This fringe took place yesterday lunchtime (Wednesday). Chaired by Vice President Lucia McKeever. Assistant General Secretary Liz Snape was also present.

Eleanor Smith, the Chair of UNISON National Link political fund spoke first. She made it clear that our political funds are our union's voice. That is why the Tories hate them. 

Every 10 years we now have to ballot all members about whether or not to keep our political funds. Eleanor listed the successful campaigns that the funds had run in recent years and this is why we need that voice.

The Labour Link fund is a key voice for union. It means we can take up the big issues of pay and resources and other specific issues such as social care and privatisation. The recent Labour victory in the West Midlands saw the collapse of biggest ever Police staff privatisation programme. Never forget that gay marriage was delivered by Labour MP's. The ballot is not about the relationship with the Labour Party, it is about being able to campaign and speak out.

James Anthony, the General Political Fund (GPF) Chair spoke next. UNISON has a unique political fund structure but other unions may adopt our model soon.

The recent Government "Lobbying Bill" was intended to target UNISON. The law is in place but we are waiting for guidance from the election commission. We can communicate with our members outside the Bill. It is important to have the GPF since many of our members members do not support Labour and vote for the Tories or don't vote at all. 

Nearly all conferences motions need to have a political voice. It would be pointless to try and campaign without this . It works best when the GPF campaigns in tandem with Labour Link. Without a political fund we would not be able to promote causes such as equality, self organised groups, Pride, Durham Miners Gala. The fund also help us make the best arguments by funding research.

Without the political fund we would not be able to ask voters not to vote for racist parties. Remember how we helped defeat the BNP fascist. Pay is a huge issue. We need to take forward a political message. We will only win strike action if we win the support of the public as well as our members.

If the political funds were not so successful, the Tories would have not tried so hard to get rid of them.

Jean Geldart from "Hope Not Hate" spoke last. Jean is of course a retired UNISON activist and former NEC member.  She reminded us that in 1993 the first ever BNP Councillor was elected in Tower Hamlets in a by election. The GPF gave £30k and bank rolled the campaign to get rid him.  Which 9 months later we did at the full Council election. You can only campaign against a political party if you have a political fund.

There used to be 2 BNP European Members of Parliament and 57 Councillors with 12 in Stoke and 12 in Barking and Dagenham where they formed the opposition. We didn't listen to those who said "ignore them they will go away". HNH paid for organisers to work in Barking & Dagenham.  The BNP is now finished. They have only 2 Cllrs left. This was due substantially due to funded campaigning.

We now have UKIP. Again, some people are saying "ignore them and they will go away". The UNISON campaign in North West region against the BNP & UKIP involved over a million bits of paper. Only 6 UKIP Cllrs were elected in that region. Which is far less than other similar parts of the country.

This country would be going in a different direction if not for the GPF which embodies Union values.

In Q&A I asked Jean (I use to be the assistant branch secretary of Tower Hamlets Local Government branch when she was branch secretary) What impact the lobbying bill will have on Hope Not Hate?
She said not as much as on the GPF since their total income is relatively small but the biggest problem is the 10k limit per Parliamentary Constituency. That means for example that UKIP will out spend us in their target seats since you just don't just pay for the paper in leaflets but also the pay of staff who design it.

Liz Snape concluded that this ballot is not about a particular party but about the funds. We want a big yes vote."... don't be confused. The ballot is a vote about having a political voice and not on affiliation"

There was a good question from a delegate that Labour Link should be doing more to point out its successes since he was fed up with the extreme left whinging about the Labour Party during every opportunity at conference.

Lucia reminded us about the threat that UKIP poses.  In her home in the north of Ireland she had lived through 40 years of racism and sectarianism. This has got to stop. There are now 3 UKIP Councillors in Northern Ireland who had all left unionist parties due to their extremist views.

My NEC report to UNISON Community Service Group Executive

In June I was re-elected unopposed as the Community General Seat representative on Unison National Executive Committee (NEC). Isobel (Izzy) McVicar the other Community NEC member was replaced by Janet Byran.

Izzy was the first ever female NEC Community member and had done a fantastic job on the NEC for our members and the union. I have no doubt that she will soon be back soon in a national position.

The first meeting of the 2013-2015 NEC was immediately after the end of our National Delegate Conference in Liverpool. This meeting was to elect our lay President and vice Presidents for the following year. I was really pleased that Maureen Le Marinel has been elected president of UNISON for the next 12 months. Maureen is branch secretary of the Lancashire police branch and is the union's first openly gay president.

Lucia McKeever, a nursing assistant is the new senior vice-president. Lucia is the first woman from Northern Ireland to hold this position. Maureen and Lucia are joined by North Yorkshire County Council branch secretary Wendy Nichols, as junior vice-president - making this the union's first ever all woman presidential team.

The first business meeting of the NEC was on July 3rd at the UNISON Centre building (our national headquarters) in Euston Road, London. At this meeting our general secretary Dave Prentis told us that mobilising for the NHS Rally on 29 September at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester - must be a priority for the union. It is also an event to defend the welfare state and public services. Which are key issues for Community members, both as workers and citizens.

Pay and the casualisation (such as Bank staff or zero hours contracts) of the workforce are the other campaigning issues for the whole union. Community Care and Support members have suffered from direct cuts in their wages while most of us have had “hidden” pay cuts due to years of below inflation pay awards (if any). Many of our members are also still on poverty minimum wage rates.

Assistant general secretary Bronwyn McKenna reported on a recent equal pay victory members in Scotland which will hopefully stop employers using ridiculous arguments to avoid equal pay justice.

The NEC has a number of sub-committees. I had been re-appointed by the lay Presidential team to be a member of Policy and Development sub-committee, an employer trustee on the £600 million UNISON staff pension fund and as a delegate to the TUC Congress. There is a great UNISON motion going to Congress on Fair Pay (not a minimum wage, not a “living” wage but fair wages including terms and conditions such as sickness benefits and pensions) which I will report further about soon. I was re-elected by NEC Link levy payers to the National Labour Link Committee.

Next was a series of elections by NEC members of Committee Chairs and vice chairs. During which I spent an hour stuck in a lift with 12 other NEC members. Which was not a particularly pleasant experience but as a Housing management officer gives me more empathy with my residents when they complain about lift breakdowns! (see picture above from inside trapped lift)

I am planning to make regular reports to Community members on NEC and sub-committees I sit on. The next NEC meeting will be in October. Please circulate this report to any Community members in your branch and let me know of any issues or campaigns that I should be aware of or can offer assistance.

John Gray

NEC Community General seat Member (and Secretary of Greater London Housing Association Branch). If any Community branches or members want to contact me please ring 07432 150 530 or email john.gray2012ATBtinternetDOTcom (personal blog "John’s Labour blog" http://grayee.blogspot.co.uk/ and Twitter @grayee)

UNISON NDC 12: End of Conference

At 3.45pm on Friday the UNISON National Delegate conference begins to wind down with the traditional motion of thanks for our  President. Who this year was Eleanor Smith, a

NHS theatre nurse from Birmingham (see photo left).

The general idea is to gently tease the President with embarrassing reminisces and photographs from childhood.

Eleanor was in tears when her two daughter's spoke to conference about their Mum and how proud they are that she had been UNISON's first black President.

At the NEC meeting on Friday Morning Chris Tansley, a child care social worker, from Nottingham who did such a great job as Chair of the Local Government Conference debate on pensions, has been elected as the new president of UNISON together with Maureen le Marinel and Lucia McKeever as our vice presidents.

I don't think that you can really understand UNISON if you haven't witnessed the end of national conference. Anyway, roll on NDC 2013 which will take place I understand for the first time next June at the fair City of Liverpool!