Labour Party Conference 2022 - Sunday Morning

Following the London reception yesterday evening I had a (non keto) pizza with UNISON colleagues then a relatively early night. Up for a early morning run along the Mersey, back for breakfast then UNISON delegation meeting at 9.30am.

Conference started with a tribute to the late Queen, followed by a minutes silence and the singing of National Anthem . A first in my experience at a Labour Conference but I understood that the predecessor union of UNISON - NALGO,  used to finish their conferences with a rendition of the Anthem.

First agenda item was a "Welcome to Liverpool" by MP for Wallasey, Angela Eagle. Next was a short introduction by Chair, Alice Perry, followed by Conference Arrangement Committee report and questions; Obituaries and classic barn storming speech by deputy leader Angela Rayner MP. Great to hear the commitment to insourcing of public services. 

General Secretary, David Evans report included the welcome news that the party had no deficit or debts. Party Chair Anneliese Dodds MP gave the Women and Equalities report followed by debate on motions from Women's Conference; A healthy finance report by outgoing Treasurer Diana Holland; a wonderful Merit & Best Practice; Local Government report by the new Leader of Labour LGA Cllr Shaun Davies & last speaker, Joe Fortune, General Secretary of the Co-operative Party. 

We then adjourned late (and missed the lunch time fringes). 

I hope to make a number of posts on conference as and when. 

Local Government Pension Scheme - Investment Governance: Colin Meech, TUC Pension Trustee Conference 2013

This workshop was led by Colin Meech, the notoriously shy and retiring UNISON National officer for Capital Stewardship. UNISON has by far the highest number of members in the £150 billion Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).

The LGPS is undertaking fundamental reform next year. Not only is it changing to a career average from a final salary scheme but the accountability of the LGPS is changing radically and for the first time beneficiaries will make up 50% of the new Pension Boards. Who arguably will jointly run the the LGPS with employers in the future.

The government is also consulting on merging the 89 different LGPS funds in England. Which drew the first question to Colin from someone in the workshop who has a private sector pension background and asked "Why do you have 89 different pension funds for one set of standards?" Which of course was music to Colin's ears. 

Colin started with an introduction on the history of the LGPS. It can trace it roots to pensions for Council "Poor Law" officials in the 19th Century.  In 1922  NALGO a predecessor union of UNISON was formed to help set up the LGPS.

At the moment there is a new Shadow National Pension advisory board with 6 employer representatives and 6 Union.  There are 4.5 million members of the LGPS and 1.3 active. Most schemes have delayed auto-enrolment until 2017 (not my Tower Hamlets)  The smallest scheme is the Isle of Wright at £300m while the largest Metropolitan Schemes are worth £10-12 billion each.  There are 79 LGPS run by local authority committees while 8 are run by by senior Council managers officers called Section 151 officers who run their schemes themselves. 

The LGPS is subject to the Superannuation Act 1972 and Local Government Act 1972.  As well as local authorities there are 6700 private employers in the LGPS. A 1/3rd of members are now in the private sector.

In LGPS 2014 there is a cap on contributions of 19.5% of salary. 13% for employers and 6.5% for employees. If the employer cap is breached then employees face either a rise in contributions or a reduction in future benefits. 

89% of LGPS asserts are currently managed by 785 external fund managers. 5 of whom manage £64 billion between them.

Colin finished the session by asking the workshop to suggest how the LGPS should be governed in the future. There was a stunned silence to his proposal. I said to Colin that this is because we were use to be told what to think by you not to be asked our opinions!

:)

Is Miliband following UNISON or Stanley Baldwin over Union funding?

UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis sent out an email yesterday to the union explaining that our funding of the Labour Party has been on the basis of individual members choosing whether to pay an affiliate fee or not (they can "opt in" or "opt out").  UNISON has also never paid the Party membership fees for new members.

He also questioned whether in the face of the Tory onslaught on working people in this country this is the right time for the Party and the unions to be having such a public row on funding?

When UNISON was formed in 1993 the predecessor unions NUPE and COHSE were affiliated to the Labour Party while NALGO was not. It was agreed that there would be two political funds in UNISON and members can choose to opt into a fund supporting the Labour Party (now called "Labour Link") or a General Political fund not linked to any Party (or they can opt out of any political fund).

This to me has always seemed a pretty sensible and pragmatic compromise for UNISON and I think due to our history - for us it works .

While other trade unions affiliate all or part of their membership to the Party.  I think it is important to remember that this decision to affiliate is taken via the internal democratic processes of that Union. So there is accountability. In the same way that my UNISON branch may vote to affiliate to organisations at our AGM that I did not support but I accept that this affiliation had been democratically decided upon and part of my subs is being used to fund it.  Of course members can simply choose to opt out of paying any political affiliation if they so choose.

The real immediate risk is that if the Party goes ahead and decides to introduce "opting in" only - is that a year or so before a General Election there may be a drastic reduction of union money when we will need every penny we can get to defeat the Tories. We should be doing nothing that gets in that way. UNISONActive reminds us that in 1927 Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin introduced a similar measure which resulted in a 50% drop in affiliation fees for the Labour Party.

The real solution in my view is not about whether trade union members opt "in" or "out" it is about getting ordinary rank and file members actively involved in the Party. To do this there is a shared responsibility. The Party has got to make it attractive for people to attend local Ward and CLP meetings. This is not only just about making them less boring and more inclusive (please) but giving them more power and a greater say in the Party.

The Unions have also got to raise their game and realise that they cannot exercise influence in the Party by simply waving cheques. This just doesn't work - the only way to make the Party more accountable to the needs and wishes of ordinary working people is to encourage and support our members to join and become active.

The only alternative to the Labour Party in this country is the Tories. The Labour Movement family need to get their act together and remember first and foremost our enemy is the Tories and not the unions and not even Progress.  We must get as many members actively involved and raise as much money as possible in order to defeat them in 2015. Everything else comes a very poor second to this.

UNISON International Seminar 2012

The seminar is taking place in York. It actually started Friday evening which I missed due to work commitments. This morning the first presentation was by  local Labour MP Hugh Bayley (former junior minister) on "International Development and the UK Parliament". Isobel McVicar, Community NEC and member of the UNISON international Committee chaired.

Hugh reminded everyone that York itself use to be an Italian and Danish Colony. While he in a former life was a NALGO district and national officer and can remember the "incredibility" he use to face (I suspect he is being polite) when he first tried to get NALGO to take international trade union solidiarity seriously, especially with regard to the staff pension fund and a boycott of investments in Apartite South Africa. Nowadays it is also widely accepted that the purpose of international aid is to eliminate poverty not promote trade. This is a victory for progressives. He remembers the howls of protest by the Tories in the Commons when he first suggested this. It is also a victory that the Tories have agreed to honour the Labour Commitment to 0.7% of GNP to international aid (even if they have cut this with a £1.2 billion delay). You can be cynical that they are just pretending not to be "the nasty party" anymore but there has been a sea change in views. The same with Gay rights.

Hugh sees himself and the Labour Party as very much the "political wing of the wider Labour movement".  Which may I suppose be the reason why he was sacked as Pension minster by Tony Blair!

Why the 4th July is special to the Labour Movement

Trying to find a training room at the UNISON Centre recently I came across a historical display on the 3rd floor. In a cabinet there is this flyer celebrating the the election on Monday 4 July 1892 of Keir Hardie for South West Ham as the first Independent Labour MP. 

Click on picture to bring up details.

West Ham Labour Party is planning to mark the event (see post)

I didn't realise that a performance called "A Better Day" about this event had been performed in the local Stratford Theatre Royal to mark the NALGO (one of the unions that joined to form UNISON) Presidency of Rita Donaghy in 1989/90.

When it is finalised on how we will be marking the event I will post further.

Farewell to Crouch End UNISON Office (and former Victorian Railway station)

On Saturday morning I went with other volunteers to help our Branch staff move office.  UNISON Housing Association Branch (before UNISON it was NALGO) has been based at 83 Crouch End Hill,

Haringay, N8 for about 20 years.

It's now time to move out of our Victorian former railway station (we believe) to a more modern and accessible office right next to an open
London railway station.

The branch originally was part of the Greater London Council (GLC) NALGO branch. Moira, the current branch manager (2nd left in photo) was first employed by the branch as a part time worker when we only had 500 members and shared the Crouch End premises with Voluntary Organisations branch (VOB). The Housing Association branch (HAB) now has around 3500 members in 180 different employers mostly in Greater London.

The "Arts and crafts" fair flyer to the left is based on an original post card of Crouch End Station

viewed from Horney Lane.

We think the postcard dates from the Victorian or Edwardian era and the old branch office can be just seen to the left of the main (now long demolished) station building (double click to bring up detail).

Newham Council, its Logo and my blog

This morning I received this email from Ian Tompkins, Head of Newham Council Communications Unit about the use of the Council logo in this post about the sacking of Newham UNISON Chair Michael Gavan. This is what he sent.

Dear Mr Gray

We've noticed on your blog site there is a reproduction of our council logo (the Newham "ribbon" logo). I cannot trace any request from you for permission to use this so would ask that you remove it immediately.

Thank you.
Ian Tompkins, Head of Communications, London Borough of Newham, Town Hall, Barking Road, London E6 2RP
Being the courteous and polite fellow that I am this is how I responded.

Dear Mr Tompkins

Thank you for your email. I must admit to be somewhat surprised that senior managers spend their time scouring the blogsphere on the look out for errant Newham council logos. I am not sure that this is a good use of my Council tax? Mind you, I suppose this is a better use of senior manager’s time than victimising and sacking trade unionists. I have replaced the offending logo with a photo taken from a public place. I assume that this is OK? If not please let me know.

Formally, please can I ask for permission to use the logo since what with the future industrial action over Michael Gavan’s dismissal, the internal appeal and employment tribunal applications (all sort of hearings) there will be lots and lots to blog about in the future.

Cheers
John
I thought I might as well post some pictures of past Newham trade union and Labour Party leaders who will no doubt be spinning in their graves at what is going on over Michael’s dismissal.

Newham is arguably the birthplace of the Labour Party and modern day trade unions. Left is Keir Hardie, the first ever Labour MP who was elected for West Ham in 1892 ; Herbert Blaine who is credited in 1905 with forming NALGO which eventually became part of UNISON, while working for West Ham Council (ironically like Michael he was not a Labour Party supporter and was in fact a lifelong Tory!) and finally Will Thorne, West Ham Labour MP 100 years ago and founder of the GMB (Beckton gas works).

UPDATE: 25 minutes after I sent this email at 18:07 today I got this two word reply from Mr Tompkins - "Thank you". A bit brief for a Head of Communications I suppose. What exactly does this mean? can I use the Newham logo? I suppose it does. As suggested on this post's "comments" should I put in a FOI request?

Celebrating the Life of John Kelly-Chandler

After the Fremantle rally yesterday I went to a “Celebration” of the life of trade unionist John Kelly-Chandler (known widely as JKC) at Conway Hall in Red Lion Square. John (who was also known by employers as “that bearded grumpy bastard from the region” died last month from lung cancer age 59.

He was a UNISON regional organiser in Greater London region since 1991 covering health and local government branches. Recently he had been responsible for South East Region Health branches.

John had planned the celebration before he died. “No black ties or sombre clothes, no hymns or religion, no mourning but a celebration". He requested “Intermezzo” – Cavaleria Rusticana, “Across the Universe” (Beatles); “Imagine” (John Lennon) and “All you need is love” (Beatle) be played.

Readings were by colleagues and friends including the beautiful “Death is nothing at all”. UNISON health branch secretary Raz Dowdall read “Remember...” and acting UNISON Regional convenor Gloria Hanson read “If”.

Prior to working for UNISON, John was a leading lay activist in NALGO’s electricity section, a Shop Steward at West Ham Power Station. He rose to become the secretary of the CEGB Headquarters branch and took a leading role in the FUSE campaign against the privatisation of the electricity industry. He was elected to NALGO’s National Electricity Committee, eventually becoming its Chair and was also a member of NALGO’s NEC.

There were employees of UNISON (including our General Secretary Dave Prentis), their families and elected lay activists present.

Long time friend of John, Chris Remington, finished the tribute by reminding everyone that (I paraphrase) “John's politics was very simple, unsophisticated and non-sectarian... Members first.. build the union...always recognise that the future belongs to the next generation - so don't get in the way ....build gateways not obstacles...no false labels of left and right... at the close of each day be clear that an advance has occurred in the ideas of progress, of collective strength, of humanity, of unity".

Finally, if you would like to make a donation in memory of John, monies are being collected for the Cuba Appeal and will be used to refurbish the Havana Emergency Control Room. Please make cheques payable to UNISON care of Chris at UNISON Greater London Region.