UNISON's First Community Conference - 2nd Nov 2010

I got this email today encouraging branches of the new UNISON Service Group "Community" to register as visitors to our first ever conference. 

"On Tuesday 2nd November, in Telford, UNISON will hold our first conference focused on members in the Community service group – members workers for charities, housing associations, social enterprises, and other community and voluntary organisations.

The deadline for registering delegates has now passed, but there is still plenty of time to register to attend as a visitor.

The conference has a wide-ranging agenda, looking at issues including personalisation of social care, safeguarding, volunteering, two-tier workforces, housing policy, TUPE, equalities, pensions, pay and reward, trade union organising, and facility time. There will also be a lunchtime fringe meeting, open to visitors, on personalisation.

To view the Conference Bulletin, including all the forms you need and lots more information, please click here: http://www.unison.org.uk/conference/community.asp

So please come along and take part!"

LG Conference: Sunday Afternoon

I missed the lunch time Social Care fringe but heard it was well attended and that there was a good debate. The International Speaker was Dulce Maria Iglesias from SNTAP (Cuba).

Things went quite smoothly and I later spoke about Composite F “Local Government NJC Pay Dispute 2008 and Future Pay Strategy” which I thought it was a well thought out, practical and do-able organising plan to improve our bargaining position and reverse last years failure. I'll post my comments next.

We soon ran out of time for the rest of business. I was also trying to speak on defending the LGPS. These motions will be heard after the business of Monday has been finished (if there is time). Conference finished at 5pm.

In the evening our delegation all went out for a meal together to chat and gossip about the days business and plot about tomorrow.

Picture is from the inside of a video cubicle “Add Your Voice” in the UNIZONE (exhibitions and stalls). I gave a 2 minute “interview” on my job and my views about public service. I hope as many UNISON members as possible also visit th ebooth during conference and add their voice as well.

Naked Bike Ride

I did see a flyer mentioning a “Naked Bike Ride” in Brighton but I didn't pay that much attention.

To my astonishment yesterday while getting a breath of fresh air outside the conference hall at least 1000 cyclists in various states of undress rode past along the sea front. I believe it was a protest about traffic and climate change.

There were Police cyclists (in full uniform of course) escorting them.

Since it was warm and very sunny I hope they slapped plenty of sun cream on!

UNISON Conference 2009

A little late as usual but soon I will very soon be off to Brighton as a branch delegate to first UNISON Local Government and then our National Delegate Conference(s).

Conference is the sovereign decision making body of the union. There will be a London regional delegation meeting tonight at 6pm. Then business will quick off first thing Sunday morning.

I’m going to try and blog “live” this year on the fun and games on the conference floor and fringe events. There will be some really important constitutional rule changes debated on Thursday which I feel are really vital for the future of UNISON. Especially for Housing association members.

Anyway watch this space!

Friday: UNISON Conference – last day

I have already reported on the main bun fight of the week, the debate on motion 63, so I’ll just quickly fill in the rest of Friday. Firstly, we had Trevor Phillips, chair of the Equality & Human Rights commission as guest speaker. I have never seen Trevor make a speech before and I thought he was very good. He is determined to take the government on over 42 days detention.

Next was composite G on “Gun and Knife Crime”. Deputy London convenor, Conroy Lawrence, spoke very movingly about the death of his stepson, Justin, who was shot in South London during 2004. The death devastated the whole family. Yet it also turned them into local campaigners against gun crime and first hand practical supporters of families who have suffered in a similar way since.

Public sector Pension funds and a “Responsible Contractor Investment Policy (see previous post) was passed. Then big debate on organising, basic state pension, lunch, European Union Treaty (very anti) then motion 63.

The closing session is a “thank you and goodbye” to the President for her year of office, with plenty of embarrassing photos of the President when she was younger, displayed on the very large screens.

So – until next year in Brighton.

(Picture is of a bottle of Unison red wine that I won in a competition in the UNIZONE at the Migrant Workers stall. I failed the sample exam paper from the British government “Citizen test” quite spectacularly).

Motion 20: Public Sector Pension Funds – Responsible Contractor Investment Policy

This is another recycled speech that I was not able to give on Friday. I thought this was a really important motion. Obviously other people didn’t since after only one speaker from the hall, a “point of order that the question be put” was moved. Norma did say “sorry John”!

(Picture right is of the early UNISON London region pension reps - looking after their members money).

"President, Conference – John Gray, Housing Association branch, London region speaking in favour of motion 20.

Conference, I hope to add my bit on why I think good governance practices in the public sector pension funds (also known as capital stewardship) should be used to help protect and defend our members and our public services.

UNISON members up and down the country pay into the funded public sector pension funds. My own relatively small pension scheme with Tower Hamlets Council on which I have been the UNISON rep for some 12 years has £600 million of investments. It is always worth repeating that these investments belong to us. They are the direct result of contributions by workers and employers that our taken out of our pay.

But of course, what many members do not realise is that these pension schemes not only invest our money in big businesses, home and abroad, but also they invest in companies that now employ other UNISON members.

Not only in hospital and school PFI schemes but also they own shares directly in the many companies and contractors that now run privatised public services. My own pension scheme owns shares in nearly the usual suspects.

So what this means Conference, is that Tower Hamlet UNISON members are the part owners of companies that make profits from cutting the wages and conditions of another set of UNISON members.

We own companies that employ highly paid solicitors to find ways of breaking TUPE contracts, or as we heard in detail about yesterday, refuse to comply with the code on a two-tier workforce, they even refuse to recognise trade unions. They also try to duck out of any responsibly for the equality duties legislation.
Conference, I think it is important to avoid any doubt that it is a given that we are opposed as a union to privatisation and PFI. Also that regardless of any action we take over our pensions and our ownership of these companies that profiteer from public services it can never totally replace our campaigning against the privatisation.

However, what we have now is an opportunity to support those UNISON members who work for these companies firstly drawing up a “Responsible Contractor Policy” and then campaign to make all public sector pension schemes adopt and in force it. Not only would this support our members who are being treated appallingly, but also if we are able to ensure that public sector contractors and subcontractors pay fair wages and benefits then I would expect more contracts to return back to in house since contractors only make money in public services by cutting staff terms and conditions.

Conference, I have been a member of the UNISON working group on Capital Stewardship. Where we have discussed how the good governance of our pension money can best serve all our members. This policy is a great example of what we can and should be doing with our pension investments.

Finally conference, This policy will not be a panacea for all our problems but as trade unionists we need to use all the weapons in our armoury to protect our members and this it is an opportunity not to be missed.

Conference – please support this motion"

“Tackling Violence & Aggression at Work”

During conference lunch break on the Thursday, there was the official health & safety fringe. The extremely well attended meeting was chaired by Nick Green, who is the chair of UNISON lay health & safety committee. There were two speakers, Robert Baughan (left), national UNISON officer and David Tucker QC (right), a criminal barrister with the Crown Prosecution Service.

Robert used the occasion to launch the new UNISON guide on tackling work related violence called “Its Not Part of the Job”. This booklet is a step by step guide for safety reps on how to deal with this major occupational hazard. The emphasis is on getting the issue recognised, developing a policy and PREVENTION. There are some pretty useful case studies across the public sector to refer to. One thing that set me thinking is that Robert made a convincing case for any sick leave resulting from violence should be treated different under the company sickness absence policy? I have never argued this before.

David Tucker is not what you imagine a typical senior government barrister to be. He started off with a joke about a suspect who was being interviewed by Police and asked “had you stolen these pigs?” “No, they are Kosher” he replied (allegedly). The jokes didn’t get that better, but I did enjoy his introduction to the audience of the CPS complaints procedure booklet, which he dramatically threw over his shoulder to the back of the hall saying “you don’t need that do you”.

More seriously he explained in detail the “points to prove” if the CPS are to successfully prosecute someone for assaulting a hospital worker or other anyone else at work. There is a new offence of “causing a nuisance or disturbance on NHS premises” (section 119-121) which frankly had so many separate points to prove that he thought it unlikely that it would be used that often. But is does include a power to remove someone who is causing a nuisance or disturbance by approved and trained staff.

Often assailants who have mental health problems are not prosecuted because Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that everyone must “understand” what is happening to them if they are to be charged. There is no general immunity for those with mental health issues. David did think that some sort of action is necessary in these circumstances, not least to set “boundaries” for patients or clients.

The CPS does not operate a “zero tolerance” policy; rather they “evaluate the need to prosecute”. Which is actually at odds with the new UNISON guide which states that our members expect a “zero tolerance” approach (page 5)?

At the rather rushed Q&A at the end, David had a very hard time from a Police civilian station officer (UNISON organises amongst Police civilian staff outside London) who was desperately upset and angry with the whole criminal justice system, which she believes does not protect workers or properly punishes violent criminals. I did manage to ask him a question about whether organisations which obstruct or even prevents staff that has been assaulted from reporting these crimes to the Police, should be prosecuted themselves? But I don’t think he had time to answer it.

It was really nice to see UNSION National Health & Safety officer, Hope Daily at the fringe. Quite a few years ago now, both of us completed the year long TUC Certificate in Occupational Health & Safety with the WEA. On the course was also a fellow “Buckley mug” and mustard keen GMB safety rep, Idwal, who was an ex-RSM with the Welsh Guards, a Falklands veteran and a serving Beefeater at the Tower of London! Not your average trade union safety rep!

Thursday: UNISON NDC – Amendments to Rule

Thursday morning is usually international time. Our first speaker was James Clancy, President of the Canadian trade union, National Union of Public and General Employees.

James is a superb public speaker who really grabbed the attention of Conference. Next we had motions on Palestine, Columbia, South Africa and Burma.

At lunch I went to the Health & Safety fringe (see next post).

In the afternoon, we debated union rule changes. I had thought things would be quite quiet this year, but the rule change to reduce the waiting period from 13 to 4 weeks for full representation was fiercely debated. I think that we have to recognise that times have changed and that many new employees do not understand the importance of joining a union as soon as they start work. So imposing a 3 month waiting period for membership is not helpful for organising.

Many speakers felt that it is important to have a long qualification period to stop people only joining the union when they get into trouble. While I am broadly sympathetic with this view I think that if you do not have an effective union organisation in the company then it is very harsh to refuse representation to anyone unless you can demonstrate that this person has been actually asked to join the union but refused.

Limited local representation for employees who have not refused membership is the way that we resolve this issue in our Group. This amendment "fell" again (not passed) anyway.

In the afternoon there was also the big debate on “Democracy in UNISON”.

UPDATE: Stand corrected, James has pointed out - the rule change was actually passed!

Motion 35: Affordable Housing

(Many delegatges thought that we would not need to prioritse the housing motions since they would be be debated before Friday afternoon. As it later turned out, this did not happen, so no housing motions were debated at NDC this year. Which is a shame, but such is life. Anyway, this is the speech I would given if I could).

President, Conference – John Gray; Housing Association Branch; Greater London Region speaking in favour of motion 35 and amendments.

Conference, I am sure that all of us welcome the Labour government’s commitment to increase the supply of new socially rented and low cost ownership homes.

I would like to pick up on 2 of the points made in the motion. The first is number 2, which is the call for a “clear definition of affordability”. I think this is a vital starting point.

While most people have some idea about what “Social housing” means, the term “affordable housing” is pretty meaningless. What is affordable” mean? and who is it meant to such housing? Does it refer to what someone who is on the salary of a NHS trust director or is it what a hospital cleaner is able to afford?

Recently there has been a lot of negative publicity about the high incomes that you need to have to be eligible for access to so-called “affordable” homes. Now, there are some excellent new housing schemes targeted at the genuinely low paid, however there was one “shared ownership” scheme in London recently you needed an income of £45k per year to be eligible. Which is of course ridiculous!

If we are serious about addressing the housing affordability crisis in this country then we must start off with a definition. In my view this definition would enable decent good quality affordable homes, rented or otherwise to be within the reach of all.

Secondly; point 6 touches on supporting members and organising in the housing sector. In my branches experience many housing associations (not all) do not practice what they preach when it comes to their own staff, especially with regard to equality.

TUPE protection needs to extended and we need powers to get rid once and for all of the 2-tier workforce.

With regard to recruitment, the National Housing Federation, estimate that there are 150,000 people employed in housing associations across the UK. I understand that we have as few as 20,000 members. The T&G Unite have maybe 10,000 members.

So there is possibly an overall trade union density level of only 20% so potentially there is a huge organising opportunity for UNISON. We have a similar ratio of stewards to members as other parts of the union. So one way forward is to ensure that existing reps are given the facilities and means to organise and recruit.

Conference, please support this motion.

Wednesday: UNISON NDC “Show Racism the Red Card”.

...and "Happy 60th Birthday NHS".

Once again, apologies for not posting sooner. The 2nd day of the conference started with a Closed/Private session on “Funding the Equal Pay challenge”. I spoke during the session but assume since it was “closed” for members only I suppose I’d better not report on it.

After this our guest speaker was the footballer, Leory Rosenior, who spoke for the Presidents choice of charity “Show Racism the Red Card”, which campaigns against racism in football and society. He is a brilliant speaker. He described the awful experience that black footballers of his generation had from racist supporters. Then important debates on opposing the far right and defending multiculturalism.

In the afternoon there was a big debate on Public services and celebrating the 60th Birthday of the NHS.

I’ll just have another little dig at delegates who will remain unnamed who “Grandstand”. This is when speakers come to the platform to supposedly speak on a motion or amendment. They barely mention the actual motion but use their time to rant and shout how awful the Labour Government is and how there should be revolution now etc. It is of course perfectly legitimate to attack the government if it is relevant to the motion. But given the same individuals the opportunity to go on and on, time after time, is just wrong.

I think it is off-putting to delegates and gives our enemies ammunition to attack us as dinosaurs and further marginalise us. The only positive thing is that the speakers themselves do not realise how foolish and outdated they look and how harmful it is to their cause.

I think we need to look at the rule book and see if this can be stopped.

“After the Housing market fails…”

This packed lunchtime fringe was addressed by Pete Challis, the UNISON National Officer (Local Government and Housing) and Alan Walters from Defend Council Housing. The meeting was chaired by John Martin, Chair of the National Community and Voluntary Sector Forum.

Alan spoke first and he appeared to be very conciliatory towards Housing associations and their staff. Making it clear that DCH was not against them as such, rather that they wanted a equal playing field for tenants to make meaningful choices between remaining tenants of Councils or transferring to a Housing association (or ALMO etc). He felt that tenants were being blackmailed into voting for Housing associations by government policy. While DCH did not have a “fetish” about Council housing, they feel that “warts and all”, Council housing has provided decent housing for working class people for many years. He pointed out that there are still 2.5 million Council tenants and some 200 Councils who have still kept their stock. The “success” of DCH he believes is due to it being a unique broad base coalition of tenants, trade unions and councillors from all political parties.

Alan argued that such is the failure of the market in recent times means that there is no alternative to Council’s building homes again and he pointed out that now is an ideal time to obtain (not buy interestingly) all the properties and land banks that private developers cannot sell.

DCH has been very controversial in my branch. Some members are very, very opposed to the DCH and are genuinely concerned about their tactics and motivation. However, at our AGM a motion for our continued affiliation to DCH to continue was passed with fairly widespread support. All the major unions remain affiliated as well.

For years Housing issues use to be thought as a bit boring and very much a side issue. Nowadays, as Pete Challis pointed out it is top of the agenda. Social, Economic and Political. So far over 23,000 homes have negative equity, there is a mortgage famine, repossessions (45,000) are starting to creep up and there are fewer new build starts (from 42,000 down to 32,000). Developers such as Persimmon and Barratt have had their share price decimated. Council lettings and transfer have begun to dry up in certain areas as existing tenants now cannot move out and buy in the private sector. This means that overcrowding and homeless needs are not being met. Existing 106 agreements (called after a section 106 of a housing act – private developers pay for environmental and social improvements in return for planning permission. Many associations rely on this to build social housing) are in danger and new ones of course will be more difficult. This means that the viability of many regeneration schemes is in danger.

Peter also pointed out the issues regarding the cuts and long term uncertainty affecting Supporting People funding (which pays for housing workers who provide vital support for vulnerable residents). The major housing association, London and Quadrant, has recently decided to pull out of Supporting People putting many jobs at risk and affecting 1850 vulnerable tenants.

There is in one small way an upside for housing associations since they have an opportunity to add to stock. Since many developers are desperate to sell. However, often such developments are not always suitable for social housing (for example they may be built in an area with no good public transport links)

He also pointed out the awful wages and conditions that many housing association staff receives. While UNISON members earn far more on average than non-members, some 25% earn less than £17,000 per year; some earn less than £6 per hour; 20% have either no occupational pension or a poor quality money purchase scheme; 1 in 6 have had no training in the last 12 months! UNISON is developing an organising strategy to take these problems on.

While she was housing minister, Yvette Cooper announced that there will be a review of the infamous Housing Revenue Account (HRA). “To ensure that we have a sustainable, long term system for financing council housing”. Yvette has now moved on (as housing ministers do) but she is now by co-incidence a treasury minister who has responsibility for the HRA. Many, many years ago I attended a meeting of residents and their local councillor, who was quite a senior figure. For nearly every local problem that came up, regardless of whether or not it was estate based, he said “Charge it to the HRA”. Due to “right to buy” is it appropriate that tenants only should pay the full cost for estate based community schemes even though 25% of tenures in that estate are now lease or free hold?

Finally, Peter made the key point that you will not make any sustainable headway in dealing with education, health, environment, child poverty, climate change, community cohesion or community safety unless you make housing policy part of it. This is what I call “joined up” thinking.

In the Q&A (or statements from the floor) I asked Pete whether or not housing associations could use the “downturn” as a reason to restrict pay rises of staff! I felt he was genuinely surprised that this could be used as an excuse. We had a good chat about it after the meeting.

Chair, John Martin, ended the debate, remaking as he did that he has been in construction and housing for many, many years and he never seen the market in such state. He is really worried about the future.

Sunday: First day of Business – who needs a magician when you have so many comedians?

Pleased to get up early (07:30) and go for walk along West Cliff and the beach before breakfast. It was lovely and sunny. Saw two groups of lads (not UNISON delegates) who had obviously been up all night and still wandering around still drinking and looking pretty “rough”.

At Conference there didn’t seem to be that many newspaper sellers and leafleters outside. Inside it was a bit chaotic as delegates and visitors queued up to make last minute changes to delegations and replacements for lost identity cards etc. I found our seats and met up with my branch delegation. We had a brief meeting about the day’s business. The morning order of business was pretty quiet – no big rows. All the motions and composites were supported by the SGE. This actually meant in my view that there were more thoughtful contributions on issues than may have been the case if they had been opposed (as we found out later).

Of course some speakers used the opportunity simply to make statements to slag off the Labour Party whenever possible. No big surprise there! It reminded me of the saying that there are more tears from prayers answered than those which are not. A number of speakers who work in Tory dominated councils complained about the horrendous attacks on jobs and services. There seems to be no linkage to this, no recognition that for all its faults, workers in local government are better off under Labour councils and governments than Tories. In my experience strikes and protests over protecting services and conditions tend to be far more successful in either controlled Labour councils or those councils were there are supportive labour minorities. While strikes in Tory Councils and shires tend to be unsuccessful. There are obviously exceptions to this. But not many.

There was also another passionate speech in support of Fremantle. Business passed by very quickly.

During lunch I went to a crowded fringe on “After the Housing Market fails…” which I will post separately.

The afternoon session was livelier. The main bone of contention was a motion (4 and amendments) criticising last year’s pay claim and the way it was dealt with. This was not unsurprisingly opposed by the SGE. The SGE lost during quite a bitter debate. I need to double check on what the motion will actually mean in practice but I was told on the way out of conference by one old hand that we had effectively voted for strike action every April. We live in interesting times.

I spoke on motion 59 which was on “Pay in the Community and Voluntary sector” (CVS). I admitted to conference that it had been a bit of a shock when I became an activist in the UNISON CVS, how many organisations pay such poor wages, have shoddy sickness arrangement and rubbish pensions. There are very good organisations but they are increasingly being under cut in many contracts by those who will cut terms and conditions. “A race to the bottom”. The motion is in many ways a “back to trade union basics” call to organise, campaign and bargain to bring up terms and conditions for all 60,000 UNISON members in CVS.

At 4:30pm there was a guest speaker Ana Lucia Pinzon, leader of the Colombian public sector workers trade union FENAL TRASE. Ana gave her speech in Spanish (it was then translated into English) but she had by far the best reception from delegates of any speaker that day.

The conference finished at 4:50pm. At 5pm a “Marxist magician” was due on the stage to entertain us. I felt that I had my fill of Marx for the day and would give him a miss. After all, poor chap, with there being so many such comedians all day who needs a magician!

The British summer reasserted itself on the way back “up the hill”. Got soaked.

UNISON conference – Trade Unionists are the “New Capitalists”?

Third day (Thursday) of UNISON National Delegate Conference. In the morning there was a row over the Standing Orders Committee report which led to a temporary suspension of business.

Then there was a briefing session on “Equal Pay” led by General Secretary Dave Prentis. Obviously equal pay is a key issue not least because trade unions, full time officers and even their branch activists have had legal action taken against them for allegedly failing to represent their members properly over equal pay agreements. I have heard that bailiffs have been knocking on the doors of branch secretaries at 6AM in order to serve summons on them personally. It was made clear that UNISON would back any branch officers under such an attack. We heard that “no win no fee” solicitors are evening encouraging people to join unions so they can sue them! I didn’t hear any mention of this wheeze the earlier debates on encouraging recruitment. Must remember to give that one a miss.

Baroness Howells gave a sobering and very dignified speech on the Bicentenary of the transatlantic slave trade.

Good debate on fighting the BNP. GLA delegate Alan Freeman made an excellent contribution, ending with something on the lines of “some people may not vote Labour because they can’t forgive Blair, but if they don’t vote Labour and let in the BNP they will never be able to forgive themselves”. This went down very well.

Ironically this debate was followed later that day by a UNISON rule change amendment during which a delegate referred to black people as “coloured” which quite rightly upset many people.

In another rule Change debate a proposal to “bash the NEC” and restrict their right to propose motions was knocked back.

After conference there was an official fringe event “Are we the “New Capitalists?” which I chaired with speakers David Pitt-Watson (see photo right - joint author of “The New Capitalists”, Chief Executive on Hermes, the in-house fund managers for BT and Post office, former assistant director of the Labour Party). Mo Baines, UNISON rep on the Greater Manchester LGPS scheme had to pull out, so National Officer Colin Meech stepped in. There were about 30 people present, mostly UNISON pension trustees or member reps on the Local Government Pension Scheme. I’ll try and write something up properly later about the fringe, but David’s precise and analytical arguments about workers capital and citizen investment were I think pretty convincing.

This is the Synopsis from Amazon about the book (£18.04 including postage.

“Thanks to the rise of mutual funds and retirement plans, the actual owners of the world's corporate giants are no longer a few wealthy families. Rather, they're the huge majority of working people who have their pensions and life savings invested in shares of today's largest companies. These grassroots owners have ideas about value that differ from those of tycoons or Wall Street traders. And corporate directors and executives are coming under increasing pressure to respond. The New Capitalists provides examples - from GE to Disney to British Petroleum - of enterprises whose shareholders have recently wielded their control in ways unimaginable just several years ago. Authors Stephen Davis, Jon Lukomnik and David Pitt-Watson describe how civil ownership will profoundly alter our world - including forcing the rise of a new species of corporation. It has already begun demolishing old rules and habits, laying the groundwork for a new "constitution of commerce." The authors spell out conventional thinking destined for extinction - and fresh strategies companies must implement to survive in the emerging "civil economy." They also outline how investors, advisors, activists, and policy makers can make their voices heard”.

A delegate remarked afterwards that usually fringe events are “for the converted” yet this event was a genuine attempt to discuss and debate new and radically different arguments.

Went for meal afterwards at the Regency Restaurant on the seafront near the Holiday Inn Hotel. A fantastic good value traditional fish restaurant. Recommend it, most of the restaurants around the conference centre are pretty poor (loads of visitors - no repeat business?).

Ended up at the traditional end of conference bash laid on by the Scottish region in the Metropole Hotel (also the joint Southern regions were having a function). The hotel was packed. See picture of me drinking with some members of the “1st Health Brigade” (led by Che Guevara look alike, Commander Mickey Crouch) and London Region Young members Convener, Sarah Lewis (sitting).

Day Two - UNISON Conference - Gun Crime fringe

Yesterday, saw more ordinary UNISON delegates speak to conference about real trade union issues such as organising and recruiting, the future of branch and service group structures and public services. An amendment which appeared to call for provocative strike action as a recruitment tactic was soundly thrown out. Ashok Sinha from “Stop Climate Chaos” spoke very well about this issue and related it to trade unions concerns.

In the lunch break I went to my first fringe event, organised by UNISON Health & Safety and chaired by Nick Green (Cheshire LG see photo right) on the launch of “Making us Better – Sickness absence agreements: A guide for UNISON safety reps". There was about 100 members present and the guide had a good reaction. See Energy Rep John Caulfield (middle) with booklet.

Afterwards there were debates on international issues. Gloria Hanson (Newham LG and Deputy London Region convener (left photo) spoke in favour of a motion on Cuba. While there was a very good debate on motion 53 which was about Palestine. This is obviously a very emotive subject. However, the standard of debate was very high and most speakers respected the views of their opponents. Often in such debates there is a tendency by the Ultra left to attack speakers for daring to argue against them. The motion was passed even though I felt that its opponents put up the better case (as you tend to do if your argument loses). Which was mostly about not just attacking Israel without also condemning Palestine extremists. Extremists on all sides are deliberately preventing any possible peaceful settlement.

After business there was a confused and noisy London Region delegation meeting on “Re-prioritisation” of motions for Friday's "snake". I have already said in previous posts that I will not try and explain about the “snake”. Due to daft remarks made on the Labour leadership elections by one delegate (not unknown to this blog) I decided to remind everyone if they haven’t yet voted for Alan Johnson 1 and Peter Hain 2 then they need to do so ASAP. A couple of members had brought their ballot papers with them. I was able to offer suitable advice.

After conference closed for the day London and North West Region held a Fringe on “Gun Crime – Time to Act”. Chaired by Alan Jarman (London region convener). I'll post a full report on this fringe another time since it was such a good event. Delegates shared their family’s pain brought about by gun crime murders and we discussed possible trade union solutions.

Finished off the day with the London Region disco in the Holiday Inn hotel. Money raised was to go to “Mothers against Gun Violence”. Very well attended and good time was had by all. A number of people were wearing dark glasses inside the conference hall this morning, I wonder why?