There was a special 1 item agenda D&O subcommittee of the NEC (7th December 2020) which went through in detail the procedures for the NEC elections of 2021-2023 which were subsequently ratified by the 10th December 2020 NEC meeting.
D&O:
I took the view that the procedures from both the last NEC and SGE elections were too restrictive on campaigning and did not encourage greater member participation. I raised on D&O that there was a difference with the General Secretary election 2020 where candidates could online submit their candidacy and this was then communicated to the wider union. With these procedures a candidate could receive dozens of nominations but then be told they were not eligible at the end of the nomination period. Branches with members in more than one service group can nominate for all service groups in which they have members. Only members of that Service Group can decide on the nomination and should be consulted. This should then be ratified by the Branch. If not no nomination is made. There was some discussion around accessibility and using only online means for submitting candidate details and branch nominations. A Hybrid system was proposed so that branches used the online portal only but candidates could use an email system or the portal. It was stated this would be a problem and add to the timetable. A vote was taken 9 to 7 to just use the online portal. I was one of the 7. It was noted that the nomination period was longer than the voting period.
NEC
The above election procedures were approved after discussion again covering some of the points above. The vote was 27 for, 9 against, 6 abstaining. I abstained as bound by collective responsibility as a member of D&O.
Subscription income was budgeted at £166.5m for 2021, 3.5m up on this year’s.
Branch funding and allocation is forecast to be £50.2 m, up from this year’s by 3.2m.
A cautionary note that due to the pandemic, results and forecasts are likely to alter.
A brief written branch resources review progress was received with full details being given to the subcommittees in January with a view to the next full NEC receiving the final draft together with a hoped for motion to 2021 Conference.
A detailed UNISON response to the Government’s ridiculous and disgraceful public sector pay freeze was received - John Jones, Water, Environment and Transport NEC member raised that the Combined Authorities and Environment Agency wouldn’t be forgotten in a joint Service Group approach of opposition.
Dave Prentis’s final General Secretary’s report covered many issues including unsurprisingly the pandemic and Brexit. It was stated members were exhausted, were worrying about their health and the economic disaster after COVID. It was in the DNA of the Tory party to attack the public sector. Work would be co-ordinated through the Service Group Liaison committee of UNISON and the TUC in opposition to the pay freeze - at some point this may lead to lawful Industrial Action. All unions were saying we needed to build up a campaign. An NEC member said we should demand more from the Labour leadership. There was also the attacks on the Local Government pension scheme and the exit cap for public service workers.
Concern was once again rightly raised about the intention to close the Union Learning Fund before next Easter.
Encouragingly, UNISON now has some 66000 Young Members in membership.
We needed to raise the profile on climate change again as we run into COP26 (Annual UN Climate conference) in November 2021 in Glasgow.
Solidarity messages were agreed to a number of disputes: Addaction in Wigan, Heartlands Porters in Birmingham, Interserve in Carlisle, Sandwell, Woodchurch school on the Wirral, Salford Coucil ICT.
For those that have visited the London UNISON Centre, the 9th floor conference room is to be named after Dave Prentis in recognition of his contribution to the union over 47 years. This was 1 of several tributes paid during the meeting.
A very relevant point was made by a fellow NEC member regarding the continuing promotion in UNISON publications of online gambling.
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