Personal report of UNISON National Executive Council 10th February 2021

A minute silence was held for members who had recently passed away.  

A number of NEC members (including me) raised concern at the start of the meeting re: the very late receipt of the majority of the papers for this meeting, some 18 hours before the scheduled start time. Especially given important decisions to be made on the national conference 2021 and Branch resources review (BRR) although the latter was not discussed due to the meeting overrunning. 

Agenda item 1 revolved around cancelling 2021 National Delegates Conference (NDC) and replacing it with a “special” Conference on a remote as opposed as physical basis.

John Jones, NEC member for the Water, Environment & Transport (WET) Service Group raised concerns about WET Conference being proposed to be held on the Wednesday of the week before the special Conference. WET conference is usually held on a Sunday as the majority of WET Activists receive little or no facility time for such events.

The report was contentious and after two hours of discussion the following decisions were made.

That a virtual National Delegates Conference would take place – unanimous decision.

 

That the following was agreed: “The NEC identify priority themes and invite all branches and other submitting bodies of the union to submit motions on these themes. Motions would either be prioritised or incorporated into thematic composites that would be debated and voted on at conference. The SOC would be responsible for the prioritisation and compositing.” I voted against on the basis that it did not give sufficient consideration to allowing branches, regions, SOGs and service groups the opportunity to suggest what the themes should be. I also had concerns about how the SOC would handle prioritisation. The vote was 29 -19.

That the themes should be Branch Resource Review, the COVID pandemic and how we build back from it to create a fairer society. I opposed this on the basis that I felt we could accommodate more themes, that the Climate Emergency should be one of them and that branches, regions, SOGs and service groups should have the opportunity to contribute before the themes were determined.

That the NDC should take place over three days for no longer than three hours per day. I opposed this and instead supported a proposal from Karen Reissmann (which was only rejected with the chair’s deciding vote) to have an NDC for four hours over four days. The vote was 26 – 26.

That discussions would take place with service groups and SOGs about their conferences, and that Health Conference would be put back from April and a date agreed with the Health SGE. This was unanimous.

WET Service Group Conference (and Energy) to be held remotely but to be discussed with the Service Groups regarding the best way to hold either around the special Conference or later in the year.

New General Secretary, Christina McAnea was welcomed in her new role and gave her first General Secretary’s report in a rushed manner due to the meeting seriously overrunning. Christina focussed principally on our work on social care, the pay freeze and support for activists who were feeling the effects of working through the pandemic.

Delegates came in to congratulate her on her election and there was a positive response to her comments on support for activists, with a number of delegates bravely sharing just how difficult they had found the last twelve months. Critical comments were also made though about the perceived lack of intention to develop disputes, as well as Christina’s recent comments on BBC Women’s Hour about other unions and the invitation for Jeremy Hunt to share a platform with her at a recent social care event.

In her response, Christina thanked those who had shared difficult stories. Agreed that poorer countries as well as the UK should have equal access to vaccines, a subject the Prime Minister has been written to on by UNISON.

There remains a disproportionate effect on the Black community and on those who live in areas of social deprivation. Mental health support needs to be given to Activists who are in the front line of dealing with COVID.

Furthermore the reduced hours of UNISON Direct was criticised when they are currently likely to be most needed out of “normal” office hours.

Regarding finance, it was noted that subscription income as at 31/12/20 was £171.7m, £6.4m higher than in 2019.

Net income for the NEC is £120.2m, £4,2m ahead of budget.

Net operating expenditure is £113.1m which is £4.7m under budget thus the overall results are ahead of budget by £8.9m.

The net result is a surplus of £7.1m for the year compared to a budgeted deficit of £1.8m.

General reserves are increased by £7.1m to £173.3m supported by fixed assets and investments of £114.2m, cash of £56.8m and other net assets of £2.3m.

We were due to discuss motions to NDC, but as a result of the time taken on the previous discussions and the decision to pursue the agreed themes and timings, it was decided by the President to look at an additional meeting within the next three weeks to consider those matters.

Further reports were noted, with the exception of the Disciplinary Report, on which there were a number of questions. Questions were asked about Mental Health and wellbeing support to activists who had been suspended for very long periods by the union where the process of investigation had not started yet.