The start of the meeting discussed the delay in the
publication of the Returning officer’s
report in relation to the General Secretary election – I have already
blogged on this: http://tonypwilson63.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-return-of-returning-officer.html
The early part of this meeting was taken up by considering
the NEC’s motions from its strategic
committees to this year’s National Delegate Conference which will be held
in Brighton.
There are 12 NEC motions to Conference: 1. Trade union
facilities, 2. Strengthening our union: Supporting and developing our stewards,
3. Opposing DFID’s privatisation agenda (DFID – UK Government’s Department for
International Development), 4. Eradicating exploitation in supply chains, 5.
Welfare and Work: Social Security provision for all, 6. Fairer Taxation and the
future funding of our public services, 7. Public service workers under pressure,
8. Public Service Campaigning - Stop outsourcing and protect members, 9. Health
and safety of public service staff, 10. Living standards, pay justice and the
living wage, 11. Building the campaign against European Union Trade and
Investment Agreements, 12. Trade Union Bill
There was also an NEC motion and report (fairly lengthy) to
Conference on the Branch Resources review. I and a number of other NEC members
were not happy that these had been tabled on the day and we therefore had not
had time to read this material beforehand which was likely to be controversial
at Conference.
Most of the 12 NEC motions were seen as uncontroversial.
There was some debate however on the motion on the Trade Union bill and whether
there should be an amendment, which was proposed by an NEC member, - ‘including
Industrial Action co-ordinated through the TUC if any member union faces
sanctions arising from the Trade Union bill.’ – this was to be inserted after
the first action point in the motion. After a debate this was lost when put to
the vote. I voted in favour of the
amendment.
There was then some discussion on the Branch resources review report and accompanying motion. The motion
has since been titled ‘Gateway to the
future: Stable and sustainable branch resources’. The report and motion
propose ‘activity based budgeting’ to be rolled out to all branches which it
was stated has already been piloted with branches covering 30% of the
membership, and ‘that the current percentage of subscription income allocated
to branch funding, 23.5 %, delivers sufficient funds to cover all branch
activities’, ‘the process involves branch committees producing a work plan and
a budget which reflects UNISON’s objectives’, and ‘the specific needs for
resources are identified as part of the joint branch assessment’.
There is a proposal that ‘those branches that have
insufficient funds to support their agreed work plans will in 2016 receive an
automatic top-up from the regional pool, providing immediate support to
branches most in need.’ ‘All branches will be required to produce annual
activity based budgets’, ‘where a branch has agreed a work plan and budget as
part of the joint branch assessment process, but does not have the resources to
meet the work plan, there will be a provision for the branch budget to be
automatically topped up from the Regional pool.’ Also ‘Where a branch wants to
fund activities that are not agreed as part of the joint branch assessment as
meeting the union’s objectives, there will be an appeal process whereby the
budget is referred to a joint regional council body for resolution’. ‘During
2016, in consultation with Regions, the regional pool structure and criteria
will be revised to facilitate the automatic funding for branches whose reserves
are insufficient to fund their activity-based budget work plan.’
The
discussion on this was returned to later in the meeting (under the Finance
item) and we moved to discussion of proposed rule amendments to be discussed at
Conference. These included one allowing the NEC to determine that UNISON SGE
(Service Group Executive) elections be by either postal ballot and/or
electronic ballot i.e. to consider alternative voting
methods. This was agreed as were a number of rule amendments arising from a
private contractor’s seminar to enshrine the right of private sector members to
speak and attend National Delegate Conference and Service Group Conference and
to establish a private contractor’s national forum.
On the Conference
plan item - The UNIZONE will run
this year from Sunday to Friday and international speakers will include
somebody each from Ireland, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the international
builders federation with particular emphasis on the football World Cup and a
last minute suggestion was welcomed of inviting Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the
Labour Party.
The highlights of
the General Secretary’s report
included UNISON’s support for the BMA (British Medical Association) in their
fight against Junior Doctors having new contracts imposed. The NEC sent them a
message of support. It was repeated that there would be an industrial response
from the union if the Government tried to make any detrimental changes to
unsocial hour’s payments of UNISON members in the NHS. A number of NEC members said
we should be asking the TUC to consider a national demonstration to defend the
NHS and in support of the Junior Doctors.
There is industrial
action taking place in UNISON’s Further Education Sector on 24th
February 2016 and again we sent them our good wishes. UNISON continues to
oppose student nurses bursaries being removed.
UNISON has launched
a joint campaign with mental health charity MIND called Blue Light which deals
with mental health issues. The scheme is supported by the ambulance and other emergency services
and aims to provide mental health support for emergency services staff and
volunteers across England. 1 in
4 people will suffer from mental health issues at some point in any year and
some of these will be issues at work.
Dave Prentis,
General Secretary reported that this year’s Black Members Conference was the
best attended yet with some 750 in attendance. Equally, Women’s Conference
attracted about 800.
Dave Prentis
referred to the Trade Union bill as the biggest threat to our Trade Union. The
bill was going through the Lords. Some changes (in the right direction) had
been made re: use of social media in relation to disputes. There were
differences between the unions in terms of ballot thresholds. UNISON had argued
for workplace balloting. UNITE would accept a 50% threshold if they could have
electronic balloting. UNITE has taken a harder line subsequently. The Bishops
in the Lords had been sympathetic. One NEC member (from the North West) quipped
that hopefully a few thunderbolts as well would be sent from on high in the
direction of the Tories. We had to make sure that the end result wasn’t that
members lost the protection of their union. The devolved nations have said they
won’t countenance such plans as contained in this Bill.
Dave Prentis said
we needed to have a debate about an interim rule change to go to conference to
protect our political fund. We needed a holding motion to conference on this. If
the default was members had to sign up to go into the fund rather than being in
unless they opt out and we didn’t take remedial action in terms of a rule
change our income would go down within a matter of weeks.
One of the
Assistant General Secretaries reported that there should be a 3rd
collection date for Direct Debit payment of subscriptions by the end of
February 2016. There would be a RMS/WARMS (the UNISON membership system) upgrade
over the May bank holiday also including a reporting mechanism on how many had
switched from check off. The North West Region had developed a switch ready
check list so that before a branch switches all the building blocks would be in
place.
One of the national
officers reported there was an initiative to support this work – the big UNISON
prize draw that would aim to increase the membership data.
Dave Prentis again
referred to the unions political fund and that if the change in the Trade Union
bill went through we would have to sign up 1 million people to the political
fund in 3 months to retain our right and ability to politically campaign. One
of the NEC members referred to it being essential that it is agreed as a
stopgap (the rule amendment) otherwise the consequence could be we would have
new members in the union who did not contribute to the political fund.
Under the organising report we heard that
private sector recruitment was continuing to increase as a proportion of
recruitment and that 70% of joiners now join online. Job losses continued,
though, with Local Government being particularly hard hit. Concern was rightly
expressed about the likely cessation of state funding for Trade Union education
in the not too distant future and the union was awaiting a response on the
future of Unionlearn.
EU referendum – Whilst the union had established policy
in relation to the European Union (EU) itself and the various treaties that had
arisen over time e.g. Maastricht, Lisbon etc., we did not have a policy as yet
on whether the UK should stay or leave the EU. A consultation would take place
with members to consider what position, if any, the union should take on this.
Briefing materials and a consultation questionnaire would be sent to branches. There
would also be a series of Regional meetings. This would be fed back to the
NEC’s policy committee to look at, the policy committee would then make a
decision for referral to the NEC meeting in April. The referendum date was believed
(subsequently confirmed) to be Thursday 23rd June 2016.
Finance - The management accounts for the 12 months to the end of December 2015
were approved.
There was then a
fairly lengthy debate and discussion of the Branch resources review motion and report referred to earlier with
concerns and reservations expressed from North West NEC members that branches
were struggling with outsourcing/privatisation etc. but with no extra funding.
There was not an automatic top up proposed as had been suggested but a process
where branches had to apply and this would be seen as bureaucratic. Branches
would challenge the statement in the motion that branch retention at 23.5% was
sufficient to cover all branch activities. Since the funding formula was
introduced there had been many changes in the challenges branches had had to
face over that time. There was falling membership and income in many branches
but the basic overheads like premises and employing staff remained the same and
there was no reduction in the work branches had to do. This was not being
addressed in the motion and report but the proposal was that branches could get
extra money on the basis of planned activity. One of the North West NEC members
suggested that this may well go down like a lead balloon at conference. After
the debate however the motion was carried.
John Jones, Water,
Environment and Transport Service Group NEC member and also from the North West
reported on the positive outcome in United Utilities branch regarding the
removal of the threat to close the Defined Benefit pension scheme (for the time
being) following healthy returns for strike action and action short of strike
by UNISON and the 3 smaller Trade Unions at United Utilities.
Finally under NEC minutes after a number of NEC
members had submitted written questions as to why there was no reference in the
minutes to the statement read out regarding the General Secretary election by
the President at the start of the 9th December 2015 meeting, it was
agreed the minutes would be amended to reflect this.
