As is the case every year, the February NEC meeting was
largely taken up with discussions around NEC motions to National Delegate
Conference. The General Secretary sent apologies for the meeting.
Presidential Team report
Before we got to that part of the agenda, we received a
report from the Presidential Team on the activity they have been involved in
since the last NEC meeting. The Presidential Team of Steve North, Julia Mwaluke
and Lyn Marie O’Hara continues to support the various service group and
self-organised group conferences that make our union so unique and inclusive,
while attending picket lines and demonstrations in support of UNISON members
and other trade unionists across all regions. President Steve North was particularly
proud to report that he had recently attended his own North West Regional
Council, where a £10,000 donation was made towards his Presidential Project,
Salford Women’s Centre.
Wes Streeting invite
In the discussion that followed the Presidential Team
report, concerns were raised about the invite to Wes Streeting to address this
year’s UNISON Health Conference. While recognising that the Health Service
Group Executive had the right to offer such an invite, numerous NEC members
raised serious concerns about the message this would send to Trans members,
after an incredible successful Year of LGBT+ workers, and others highlighted
Streeting’s support for privatisation and the lack of progress on delivering a
National Care Service.
National Delegate Conference motions
The NEC by convention submits only 12 motions to NDC, so
that conference retains proper space for regional and branch motions. Various
NEC committees are able to bring forward motions to be considered as part of
the 12 and this year a motion was raised for consideration by the Presidential
Team at the request of the National Retired Members Committee.
The motions that the NEC will take to Conference are on the
following subjects:
- Organising
to Win & Delivering a decade of growth
- Learning
develops our activists – promoting clear pathways and support
- Building
on our wins: how we resource our industrial action
- Building
for the future: how we resource what we do
- Building
support for a Palestinian State
- Time
for the UK to promote universal quality public services in the global
South
- Defending
our NHS
- Rise
of the far right
- Public
services, living standards, and the economy after the 2024 General
Election
- Backing
the Employment Rights Bill
- Climate
Change in UNISON 2025 – turning commitments into actions
- A
union of 1.5 million members is a fighting and winning union
The final motion, “A union of 1.5 million members is a
fighting and winning union” was proposed by the Presidential Team and then
agreed by the NEC. It aims to consider the vital role retired members play in
UNISON and engage the whole union in a consultation on how we can secure their
best possible involvement, given that many currently feel excluded from how our
union functions. The motion seeks to explore how the union can better mobilise
its substantial retired membership of 170,000 members into a campaigning force
that can win for members and citizens alike.
Not all NEC members agreed with this motion or its place on
the list of 12. Some NEC members voted against it, but a majority voted for it.
Concerns were raised in the debate by some NEC members that having the retired
members motion would mean the sixth ranked motion from the Policy Development
and Campaigns Committee (PDCC) on migrant workers would not be debated.
It is probably worth explaining why the NEC decided to
prioritise the retired members motion, given those concerns.
Firstly, during the discussion, it was reported that a
number of branches, regions and SOGs intended to submit motions on the issues
facing migrant workers. The NEC therefore recognised that the exploitation of
migrant workers, particularly in social care is an issue that will be discussed
and debated at NDC. Recognition that this matter will be discussed at
Conference was reflected by the decision of the Policy committee to give this
motion a lower prioritisation than others regarding consideration as to whether
it should be one of the 12 proposed to Conference by the NEC.
Secondly, the motion on retired members was proposed
following a vote by the AGM of the National Retired Members to ask the NEC to
put this forward. National Retired Members Committee was not in a position to
submit this motion to Conference themselves, having already determined their
motions at their conference last year. Unlike with the issues that concern
migrant workers, there was no other way for this retired members motion to
proceed. Either the NEC proposed it or it wouldn’t be debated. The NEC felt that
to deny the elected representatives of 170,000 retired members that support
would further reinforce the idea that many retired members hold, that they are
not valued by our union.
Thirdly, it’s worth bearing in mind that the Presidential
Team that proposed the submission of the retired members motion, features a
Vice President, Julia Mwaluke, who is herself a low-paid Black migrant care
worker. Julia and UNISON President Steve North are both members of Salford
City UNISON, the first branch in the union to secure support from a council
leader to implement UNISON’s Social Care Migrant Workers Charter. Their
commitment to this issue is clear and it is joined by the equal commitment of the
other Vice President, Lyn Marie O’Hara, a low paid woman who has fought for
years for justice for women workers in Glasgow, many of them migrant workers.
Conference will of course have the final say on all these
motions. Once the motions were agreed, we looked at a few important rule
changes that will come to this year’s National Delegates Conference. None were
contentious and hopefully delegates will understand why the NEC feel them to be
necessary once they see them published.
Service group updates
We then moved to Service Group updates where we were given a
rundown of the current position regarding pay claims and, in the case of Higher
Education, a live pay ballot. Questions were raised as to why we did not yet
have a date for a national demonstration on Local Government funding, given the
decision by Conference last year to organise one. The NEC was informed by
officers that following a consultation with regions, it was felt it would be
difficult to pull this together in the Spring. The NEC remains committed to
making this demonstration happen because we know the impact on the ground of
funding cuts and, as you will see from the motion we intend to take to
Conference, we expect to see this by Autumn 2025, with the potential for a demo
outside Labour Party Conference itself if our Conference agrees.
Organising to Win
Reports on Organising to Win from the Chair of Development
and Organising Andrea Egan show that this work goes from strength to strength.
Our union is growing, getting stronger and putting money into members’ pockets.
This is something we can all be incredibly proud of.
Finance report
We moved on to the report from the Finance and Resource
Management Committee Chair Dan Sartin who told the NEC it could be pleased that
our income is growing as a result of improved recruitment and retention over
the lest few years, but that we shouldn’t take our eye off the ball and must
continue to ensure that members’ subs are used as effectively as possible.
Staffing Committee
The NEC then took a vote to replace an outgoing member of
the Staffing Committee with a Black woman NEC member. Chair of Staffing Steve
North explained that the vacancy was specifically promoted to Black women
members as part of the Staffing Committee’s commitment to UNISON’s Black Staff
Network to try and ensure Black representation on all interview panels for
UNISON jobs. This is even more important now that sufficient progress has been
made in the Staffing Review to move to permanent recruitment of Regional
Organisers into what the NEC is assured will be genuine organising roles. Julia
Mwaluke won the vote and was therefore elected to join the Staffing Committee.
The NEC further agreed that even though the Staffing Committee was now one of
the most diverse committees of the NEC, if it was still not possible to secure
Black representation on a particular panel, a request would go out to other
Black NEC members to see if they wanted to join. If this didn’t work, the
Staffing Committee would relinquish one of the places on the panel to provide a
place for a Black member of staff.
Services to Members
The NEC then heard from the Chair and Vice Chair of Services
to Members, Mark Wareham and Christine Collins respectively on the work that
committee has been doing to ensure UNISON’s contracts with external providers
are compliant with our ethical commitments. This followed the fantastic victory
in securing ethical commitments from the ACC in Liverpool allowing us to resume
booking conferences with them going forwards.
Following final reports, the meeting finished bang on time
to allow NEC members to get their trains to Women’s Conference in Edinburgh!
