Turning Point Strike Lobby & Rally: Manchester and London

Picture collage from demo and rally by "Turning Point" Unison members in Manchester and London during last Friday's strike. 

The national "Charity" Turning Point is trying to slash and burn its staff terms and conditions without even bothering to talk to UNISON.

All of the 2600 Turning Point staff face dismissal notices while their senior management team pay themselves huge and obscene amounts of public money.

It does make you wonder what on earth is going on in this organisation?

In the collage we see amongst many others Isobel McVicar, the UNISON Community National Executive Committee (NEC) member, National UNISON officer Simon Watson and West Midlands Community branch secretary Chris Durnall.

I love the Turning Point UNISON members with their banners on the merry-go-round!

UNISON Community Conference 2013: Day 1

This is the seminar and conference for UNISON Community members who work in the Voluntary and Housing Association Sector which opened Friday afternoon in Manchester and finished (early) 5pm Saturday.

The first speaker was Karen Jennings, UNISON Assistant General Secretary seen in picture with the Service Group Executive Chair, Kevin Jackson and National Officer Simon Watson.

Karen describes herself as an unusual trade unionist since she is softly spoken. Her message however was pretty forthright and direct. The next few years are going to be tough and we are going to have to fight to protect members but if we cannot improve our union density then we will have no voice and no strength.

Next speaker was James Meadway, from the New Economics Foundation on "The Financial Crisis". James started off by hoping he would not depress us too much. I thought that he didn't and actually he raised hopes by pretty much abolishing the Tory led Government case for austerity and gave delegates the ammunition for arguing that there is a different way of running our economy. The last thing you should in a recession when there is no demand is cut government spending. What should be done instead is reverse austerity; redistribution of income; import less and democratise finance (break up banks).

After this we had a presentation by West Midlands Community branch about the highs and lows of setting up a regional wide branch.  That is a single branch for all UNISON members in the region who work in our sector (Voluntary organisations and housing associations).  Hats off to regional activists and staff who have obviously worked their socks off to get the branch up and running and to the National union for being prepared to seed fund it. It is still early days but it is a leading model of branch organisation and every other branch with community members can learn from it.

Finally there were separate regional meetings of delegates to welcome everybody and explain about conference business (speaking on motions, picking up voting cards, split votes etc) and a chance for branch representatives to decide what motions to support and to plan who will speak on what).  The London meeting also had a far ranging debate about putting our Community world to rights.

Despite the rain, a Friday night in Manchester City centre is always a good night out and I ended up with my Wexford born Branch Chair in a St Patrick's Day (or rather week) beer tent outside the Town Hall listening to live Irish music and drinking Guinness. Not sure it was the best preparation for my pension’s speech the following day...

Update: see UNISONactive take

UNISON Eastern Region Community Service Group AGM & Seminar 2013

Last weekend I was in Bury St Edmunds for the Regional SGE Annual General Meeting and Seminar.

UNISON nationally is divided into 13 different regions. Eastern Region comprises the big English Counties of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk.

The Community Service Group is the part of UNISON for the voluntary sector and Housing Associations. Community is the newest but third biggest Service Group in UNISON.

There were 16 Community branch delegates from all over the region. I work in London Region but my employer has offices in 4 different UNISON regions and we had three Eastern region delegates present at this meeting.

First there was the business AGM. Their excellent Chair, Henry Meiklejohn, went through minutes, accounts, elections, work plan, constitutional amendments and motions. Afterwards I was their guest speaker. I spoke on the current state of our sector, which is pretty disastrous, due to cuts in Supporting People budgets, welfare reforms and certain rogue employers leading and cheering this Governments race to the bottom; what we can do about it now to defend members and provide quality services but also where we should be aiming for in the long term to transform our sector.

I will post an edited account of my speech soon.

There was a wide ranging and constructive Q&A afterwards then we broke up for a meal which was followed by even more debate in the hotel lounge and later in the Bury St Edmunds Corn Exchange (which is now by a complete coincidence a Weatherspoons bar)

The following morning the seminar began with a presentation by Simon Watson, who is a UNISON National Officer for Community. He gave a comprehensive overview of our Service Group history, structure and plans for the future. One delegate made a point that he had heard Simon 2 years give a similar presentation on Community but since then a lot of the obvious gaps highlighted have since been filled.

There was a fascinating talk on the history of politics and trade unions by Community SGE member, Peter Todd. He made it clear that trade unions must grow up and stop talking about the past but find new ways of doing things.

UNISON Local organiser in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, Catherine Ward, led a workshop on strategic campaigning. Analyise, identify issues, plan, set targets but most of important to stop, think and evaluate. Be prepared to develop new tactics to fit new strategies.

Next Regional organiser (and Head of Community in Eastern Region), Nalin Cooke, talked about organising and recruitment in our sector. He referred to the key techniques that the Barack Obama campaign used to motivate supporters: Use “Anger, Hope and then Action” to galvanise support.

We then had a role play where we had to interview each other and act a meeting with a non union member and try to persuade them to join using the Obama principles. Afterwards each group had to demonstrate what we had discussed in the role play.

One Group (mention no names) played out this role play:-

Union rep: did you know that your employer is planning to kill your first born son? 

(ANGER)

Non member: NO!!!! OMG what can I do about it? 

Union rep: don’t worry; together we can stop this 

(HOPE)

Non Member: Fantastic, but how? 

Union rep: Here is an AK47 and the home address of your CEO. 

(ACTION)

Now, will you join the union? 

(Joke, repeat Joke)

I really enjoyed speaking at the AGM and participating in this well organised and thoughtful Seminar. Our Community Service Group is finally finding its feet and establishing itself throughout the union.

(Thanks also to Theresa for all her hard work in organising this event). 

Picture credit to Ian Kalinowski

Jack Dromey MP speaking to UNISON Housing Association Branch

Picture from Tuesday's meeting at the Palace of Westminster. Labour Shadow Housing Minster, Jack Dromey MP, entertained and educated, Housing Association trade union members at a UNISON branch Labour Link meeting.

Jack started off by talking about his early days as a trade union activist in the famous 1970's Grunwick dispute. Ironically he has recently worked with as a shadow minister one of the Police officers who arrested him on that picket line.

He made a firm commitment that a future Labour Government will make housing central stage. Previous Labour governments did good things but they did not build enough homes. In the 1930's construction helped get the country out of recession. 2 million people in this country depend on this industry for their livelihood. There is an alternative economic strategy to that of the Tory coalition. He wants Councils and Housing Associations to both build more.

Housing Associations must keep their social care function and not end up like most mutual building societies did in the 1990's. Need to not only build homes but communities.

There was a lively Q&A and Jack overstayed his slot by 40 minutes.  There were members from nearly 20 different Housing Associations from all over London and East England.  My Question was about the poor governance in many (not all) Housing Associations such as Metropolitan which while  cutting front line staff wages, is making huge pay offs for failure to its senior managers while at the same time planning to recruit part time not full time staff so the state will top up their wages. Jack came back that there was good and bad associations as there are good and bad Councils. Good governance is a key issue.

He asked everyone not to judge the Labour Party so much on what they say now but on what they will do when they are in power.

National UNISON Community & Voluntary Sector officers Simon Watson and Ravinder Gill (right of Jack) also spoke as did Greater London Regional officer for our sector, Colin Inniss (on left).

Photo from HAB Dancing Queen, Sarah Kilby

Update: Check my tweets of event @grayee and photos on Facebook here.

UNISON wins recognition ballot at First Wessex - 80% in favour of voluntary recognition agreement

Good news and well done to South East Region and First Wessex UNISON reps Tara Imber, Vicky Higgins, Wendy Lamont and Stuart Mills (See photo with Wendy and Stuart). Check out report here.

"UNISON national officer for the community and voluntary sector Simon Watson commented: "In recent years, a number of housing associations have misguidedly stopped talking to trade unions.

"This result shows that, when staff get the chance to talk to UNISON reps, they realise we are essential for defending the interests of housing workers."

I would agree with Simon and frankly I am amazed that any Housing Association or Voluntary organisation chooses not to recognise trade unions.

Saying they allow union reps to represent their members at individual formal meetings is not enough. This is an anti-trade union attitude and practice.

Not only are unions good for staff but they are also good for good employers. Only bad employers who have something to hide don't welcome trade unions.

I know for a fact that many Councillors (not only Labour) will privately refuse to have anything to do with organisations that do not recognise trade unions. Either as preferred partners or commissioners.

 

If an organisation doesn't recognise trade unions and denies workers their basic human rights to bargain with their employer then there is something fundamentally wrong with that organisation.

Pensions: Wakey, Wakey Community and Voluntary sector!

This initial advice below was sent out yesterday by UNISON Community national officer, Simon Watson. We met up with the Pension Trust last week (with Unite and the UNISON pension officer
Alan Fox). 

"Pensions: Auto enrolment and scheme changes

UNISON is aware that many employers are reviewing their position in light of the forthcoming auto-enrolment of staff into pension schemes, and recent valuation of some pension schemes. Some employers are considering raising contribution rates, or even closing schemes.

UNISON believes that some employers are panicking unnecessarily, and the outcome of the LGPS negotiations shows that high quality defined benefit pension schemes remain a viable and realistic option for the community and voluntary sector.

We recently met with the Pensions Trust to discuss the schemes that they administer (including the Social Housing Pension Scheme) and we are preparing advice on both what to do if an employer proposes changes, and on “auto-enrolment” into pension schemes. Look out for these soon.

Employers are legally obliged to consult with current and prospective members of the pension scheme before making changes, under regulations from 2006 (www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/349/contents).

Please get in touch with UNISON if you hear of any changes to your pension scheme – email pensionsm@unison.co.uk."

UNISON Community SGE says goodbye to first Chair

This picture is from the UNISON Community Service Group Executive meeting earlier this month at the UNISON Centre. In the middle is  Stephen Brown, who was our first ever Chair of what is now  the 3rd biggest Service Group in UNISON. Stephen was our senior lay activist who did more than anyone to bring about our own sector specific internal organisation.

Stephen was a thoughtful and considerate Chair who always sought to bring about consensus and agreement whenever possible. However, as branch secretary of Quarriers UNISON branch he helped organised and fight his employer over proposed massive pay cuts which resulted in strike action.

Stephen was recently made redundant but was successful in an interview with UNISON and will start his new job soon. A result for the union I think.

Left to right in photo is our new National officer, Simon Watson (who took over from Mike Short); Kevin Jackson from Eastern region, who has taken over as Chair; Head of Community, Dave Johnson and finally but not least our top assistant national officer for Community, Jane Ellis. Who is also we understand planning to leave for a new job in Eastern Europe.