The Return of the Returning officer

At the start of the NEC meeting held on Wednesday 17^th February 2016 the UNISON President made a statement that the union was still waiting for the returning officer’s report in relation to the General Secretary election – the result of which was declared on 17^th December 2015. The President expressed frustration that this was the case (This report has now been published on the UNISON national website - Friday 19^th February 2016).

See here: https://www.unison.org.uk/search/elections/

https://www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2016/02/UNISON-General-Secretary-Election-2015-Returning-Officers-Report-February-2016.pdf

It had been hoped the report would have been ready by 11^th January 2016. NEC members from the North West (myself included) asked a number of questions about the reasons for the delay as it was unusual for the report not to be available on the date the election result was declared. The President stated that she assumed the reason for the delay was because there had been so many complaints and that the union had a duty to publish the report. 
A highlight of the report now published was that ’83 complaints were received regarding staff in the Greater London Region, specifically that UNISON staff during working time were undertaking campaigning activities. The basis of all these complaints was a recording and a transcript of a meeting that took place at the Greater London UNISON offices at 2 p.m. on 21^st October 2015.’ ‘These complaints are, as at the date of this report, the subject of an ongoing investigation by the union.’ – Report dated 18^th February 2016.  
There is some analysis that any undue influence by these campaigning activities in the Greater London Region has not affected the outcome of the election - ‘of the 12 regions the percentage vote for Dave Prentis in the Greater London Region is the 2^nd lowest percentage votes he received by Region. ‘It should also be emphasised that the returning officer has not at any stage been presented with any evidence that suggests that any candidates were directly involved in, or had any knowledge of any of the activities that were the subject of the complaints’.

There needs to be a period of reflection on all of this and the union’s NEC should have the opportunity to discuss the conclusion and recommendations of the report. There are a number of issues including the poor turnout in the election (9.8%), much lower than previous General Secretary elections, which shows a worrying disengagement of members from their union.  There is also a further article in the latest ‘Private Eye’ magazine on the UNISON General Secretary election ‘Flexible friends’ No. 1412 19^th February – 3^rd March 2016 which raises further worrying concerns for the union. This was raised by a North West NEC member at the meeting on 17^th February 2016 asking was there an investigation into the new Private Eye allegations? The President replied that she had not seen the Private Eye allegations.  

I will blog a full report of the rest of the business discussed at the NEC meeting on 17^th February 2016 separately.

Personal report of Development and Organisation subcommittee of the UNISON NEC 13th January 2016

Under the Recruitment and Organising report the figures up to the end of last year indicated there had been a net membership loss of 36,851 members this was of a membership of 1.25 million. It was stated by the national officer, Strategic Organising that compared to other unions we were doing quite well in a difficult period. 30% of those joining are not directly employed in the public sector (Private and voluntary sector). Membership in the Health service continues to hold up. The nature of the union is gradually changing as a result of these trends. Turnover rate was about 15%. This meant we had to recruit 180,000 members a year to stand still. Turnover had been about 11% before the austerity years. There were a lot of people in the public sector not in a union – so it was not the case we should focus everything on the private and voluntary sector.
Annual Line Count process - at the end of September a manual line count of the DOCAS (Deduction of Contributions at Source) schedules from employers is undertaken and member figures are added for members who pay by other methods. Regions were asked to take the DOCAS schedule information for 96% of their DOCAS membership. The annual line count process indicated a 17% turnover. Membership at 30^th September 2015 was 1,254,250. In early 2017 UNISON will have its membership audited by an assurer so a Membership Audit Certificate can be issued and next year the membership figures will be taken from RMS/WARMS. This means there needs to be an intensive data cleansing process between October and December 2016.

Overseas members recruitment (Overseas nurses organising campaign) – a report had been circulated by the Head of Strategic Organising which also highlighted Government hypocrisy on immigration. The Government had failed to ensure that there were sufficient trained staff in the NHS but had also removed nursing from the shortage occupation list of migration and restricted the rights of non- EU migrants to apply for permanent residency if their salary was less than £35,000. This meant that migrant nurses including UNISON members would be faced with dismissal from their jobs from April 2016. UNISON organised a successful campaign to get the Government to withdraw these measures. On 15^th October 2015 Theresa May announced she has temporarily included nursing on the Shortage occupation list. It is estimated 2,000 to 3,000 overseas nurses have been recruited by UNISON organisers.

A report was received on organising in UNISON Four seasons Healthcare project. Membership has been growing to a reasonable density. The aim was also to build up the membership in Care UK.

There was an item on Private contractor organisation and organising strategy – These were recommendations that came out of a recent private contractors national seminar which was held on 9^th/10^th November 2015. Work had been done to implement a 2014 National Delegate Conference resolution on Organising in fragmented workplaces which was referred to in the 2015 annual report. 4 main issues identified in the seminar were 1) Private contractors structures and democracy 2) Private contractor planning and branch allocation 3) Private contractor activist development 4) Private contractor membership eligibility. 3 options were put to the seminar 1) Do nothing 2) Have private contractors as a full blown Service Group 3) Establish national private contractor forums.  Option 3 was agreed as the best and most pragmatic by the forum and D&O Committee. For the first of the 4 issues above rule changes were approved by D&O to go to full NEC to allow the Private Contractors national forum to submit 2 motions and amendments to National Conference and individual Service Group conferences. There was a 7 page appendix tabled on Membership eligibility – UNISON Rulebook interpretation. ‘UNISON rules permit recruitment and organising across private sector employers that have some public service function’. The general assumption was we take people into membership in the private sector unless there is a compelling reason not to.

The Head of RMS Operations stated that there was a plan to get reports to Regions on a weekly basis of all join online members with a list of employers also an email would be sent to Branch Secretaries with this information so they are 100% aware of join online members going into their branch.

Under Recruitment and Organising in schools update – UNISON membership had peaked in schools in Autumn 2014 but there had been a significant increase in leavers since then. Around half of our members in schools are teaching/classroom assistants. Recruitment had spiked when linked to specific campaigns e.g. industrial action over Pensions or NJC disputes. 20% of our total membership is in schools with 13% of the total membership being teaching assistants. Possible reasons were given for the recent loss of members – a cut back in support staff and other unions being more aggressive. There was also the lack of a recent campaign around pay.

Under Learning and Organising activity we were presented with various tables which showed stats for reps, Health and Safety reps and Union Learning reps trained in 2015 compared to 2014 by Region. 447 new stewards had been appointed in the North West in 2015 with 124 of these being Employment Relations Act (ERA) accredited by the end of 2015. 

Continued development of the RMS – Development has started to introduce a third collection date for Direct Debit payers at the end of the calendar month in addition to the 1^st and 15^th of the month where we already collect subscriptions. This was welcomed by the committee. I stated that this was not just a technical matter as there are competitor unions offering 2 or 3 dates plus a 4 weekly option.  RMS has continued to be developed to support any mass DOCAS to Direct Debit switch.

We approved 2 motions to go from D&O to NEC for submission to 2016 National Delegate Conference – one on ‘Trade Union facilities’ and the other on ‘ Strengthening our union: Supporting and developing our stewards’. D&O is entitled to 2 of the 12 motions the NEC as a whole can submit. Rule amendments were also approved to go the NEC in relation to the establishment of the Private Contractors national forum referred to earlier in this report and also on Schedule C on elections which allows the NEC to consider alternative voting methods for Service Group Executive elections.

8 Branches are currently under Regional supervision – none from the North West.

We received full documentation regarding a Certification Officer’s decision with reference to a complaint by a disgruntled ex-activist which generally found in favour of the branch concerned although 1 rule does need updating at their AGM this year. 

An honorary life membership award was approved.

Personal report of the UNISON National Executive Council Wednesday 9th December 2015

I have already blogged about certain other matters that are still ongoing:

http://tonypwilson63.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/unison-nec-tries-to-shut-unisongate.html

but here is my report of the rest of the NEC meeting held on 9th December 2015:

The meeting moved to the rest of the business - several NEC members were welcomed back after illness and Best Wishes were sent to former NEC member Max Watson who was also ill. The President also made reference to the serious injury (from which he has now recovered) of John Jones from the North West and WET service group.

A number of obituaries were read out including for Craig Wilde of North West Ambulance service UNISON branch.

There was a Service Group update given ‘Pay campaign/National industrial action’. It was asked by an NEC member ‘Did we have a strategy on Pay?’ It was also asked by a number of NEC members what were we planning to do on pay? and what would be co-ordinated between Service groups in terms of Industrial Action? This appeared vague from the written report that had been circulated beforehand. In reply it was stated that ‘smart forms of Industrial action’ i.e. including selective action were being floated as a point for discussion. There had been a pay summit in the Autumn involving service group reps, Regional activists and Self organised groups at which this had been discussed.   

John Jones from the North West reported that the Environment Agency (EA) had got slightly better than the 1% pay increase given elsewhere. It was hoped that the EA would not be subject to cuts any more than already the case. The NEC was asked to send a message of support to the workers who had done sterling work as regards the recent floods.

Forward planning and Budgets 2016 - In response to this report it was asked by an NEC member – how much was in the Industrial Action (I.A) fund? And over the last few months in that NEC members branch there had been an increase in members who elected to pay into the Affiliated political fund (APF) now increasing from 25% to 40% of members – was this being reflected nationally?

Another NEC member asked ‘in the budget figures which line is it where we had spent money on the General Secretary election?’ and if we had to rerun the General Secretary election where would we find that money? The President advised the last question would not be answered today. Finance would be contacted over the other questions and the information hopefully would be available before the end of the meeting. There was also an Industrial Action committee after the full NEC at which information would be provided.

Draft objectives 2016 – A consultation process had taken place across the union which was a process that takes place every year with the constituent parts of the union. The key changes this year were the reference to the Trade Union bill and also direct reference to racism including that suffered by migrant workers and also to combatting UKIP. The challenge of the Trade Union bill was a priority objective in every sense.

I stated that it was commendable that the reference to racism and combatting UKIP had been included in the draft objectives after the outright poisonous racist comments of Farage of UKIP after the Oldham by election where Labour had defeated UKIP and we needed to keep our eye on this as this unfolded.

Another NEC member also welcomed this reference and also referred to the increase in Islamophobia in society at large. 

General Secretary report – Dave Prentis devoted quite a lot of his report to updating the NEC on the campaign against the Tories Trade Union bill which was now worming its way through the House of Lords. We had been working with the TUC. The ballot provisions in the bill in particular were a negation of democracy. Evidence had been given to a select committee of Parliament by a number of the General Secretaries and Frances O’Grady of the TUC. UNITE had surprisingly written to Cameron saying they would accept voting thresholds if the Tories caved on electronic voting which was very disturbing as no union should have truck with this disgraceful legislation. Dave Prentis thanked members for attending the demonstration against austerity and the Trade Union bill in Manchester on October 4^th 2015 at the Tory party conference. It was hoped the part of the bill removing DOCAS (or ‘check off’) – automatic deduction of union subscriptions from salary - would be dropped in the Lords. The 2^nd reading in the House of Lords was planned for 11^th January 2016. Dave Prentis again stated that we should plan for the worst if the Tories removed DOCAS and we were putting systems in place for this eventuality but we didn’t need a knee jerk response. To transfer members to Direct Debit from DOCAS if we had to do it would be one of the biggest exercises we had ever undertaken as a union.

There was a week of action against the Trade Union bill 8^th February to 14^th February 2016. Information would need to go to branches before Christmas to give 4 weeks for branches to organise for it. This week of action had only been decided on the previous day after a debate with all the Trade Unions. Work would have to be done nationally and from the Regions.

One of the North West NEC members in relation to the threshold for Industrial Action ballots stated that if the worst came to the worst and the change came in to ballot thresholds, branches may want to go early on local disputes so they did not get to the position whereby if the situation drags on they did not get to the threshold level on the ballot after the change.

Dave Prentis stated that the Junior Doctors dispute was an important one over unsocial hours and this would be a big issue for our members in the NHS. The British Medical Association had never balloted before and they had sought help from UNISON with regards to this. We would work closely with Junior Doctors.  

Strike action is being undertaken in Further Education colleges in January against their funding cuts and a message of solidarity was sent from the NEC.

Reference was also made to the Tory U turn on tax credits and the part UNISON had played in this where the Government had tried to reduce the income of some of the lowest paid people in the country. Also referred to was the hit to Local Government funding. Local Government had lost half of its income in the previous few years.

A major campaign in the New Year would be against the Tory plan that student nurses no longer receive bursaries but would have to take out loans to train. This would not get more people into nursing. There would be a summit in January 2016 at the UNISON Centre in London of those groups campaigning on this issue including the Royal College of Midwives and BAOT (British Association of Occupational Therapists).

On the UK bombing of Syria an anti-war statement was read out and we were right not to agree with Parliament that this would get us anywhere in relation to defeating IS/Daesh.

In reference to the recent floods in Cumbria and Lancashire, Roger Bannister, North West NEC member suggested that as well sending a message of support to the public service workers who had battled the recent floods, that we protest to the Government about the cuts in flood defence which meant that more people would be put at risk from this type of disaster.

In the recruitment and retention organising report, the loss of state funding for Trade Union education was raised from the Autumn of 2016. UNISON is reviewing the way training in the union is undertaken. The Union Learning Fund is also under threat.

Under Any other Business - Dave Prentis announced that Karen Jennings, Assistant General Secretary was retiring and she was congratulated and thanked for all the work she had done for the union. It was agreed that Roger McKenzie, Assistant General Secretary would replace her as a UNISON delegate to the TUC General Council.   

UNISON NEC tries to shut #unisongate after the horse has bolted

There was a meeting of the full NEC yesterday (I will blog a full report of the rest of the meeting later) before which a lobby took place by some London UNISON branches demanding an independent investigation, outside the ranks of UNISON's senior officials, into matters that are now clearly in the public domain (I bought a copy of 'Private Eye' magazine on the way home this evening, issue dated 11th-18th December 2015 No. 1407 and there is an article on Page 35 entitled 'UNISON on tape').  My fellow NEC member Jon Rogers has already blogged about this. See:

http://jonrogers1963.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/worrying-news-of-electoral-malpractice.html

#unisongate is the twitter hashtag.

There was a statement read out at the start of the meeting by the President along the lines that the ballot for election of General Secretary had closed the previous Friday and that there was an ongoing investigation into complaints concerning a member of staff and ERS the ballot scrutineer were considering complaints that were their preserve, and that we should not discuss this at the meeting today and we were encouraged to refrain from commenting on the issues. This was the only comment that was going to be made.

This was challenged by the left NEC members present arguing that we should be able to discuss the process of investigation i.e. that we protect the reputation of our union and the confidence of our members in our own democracy by ensuring that there is a full and transparent process. This was not to expect the NEC to comment on whether individual members of staff have acted in breach of rule or committed acts of misconduct.

In reply we were told that a decision had been made by the top table. An NEC member raised a 'point of order' that we move to next business. A left NEC member (from the North West) asked for a vote on this which the President agreed. The subsequent vote was 32 to 21 in favour of moving to next business (I was one of the 21). It was then asked by another of the North West NEC members could we have a named vote of the NEC to which the reply was it was too late we were not taking a named vote. So the highest lay body in the union in between National Delegate Conferences did not discuss the process of the investigation. Watch this space in terms of what may unfold in the next few days and weeks. Any UNISON member who has concerns about alleged malpractice in connection with the General Secretary election should raise these concerns with the Returning Officer by email to unison@electoralreform.co.uk (before the deadline of 5 p.m. 11th December 2015).

I will blog further about the rest of the NEC meeting later. 

Personal report of Development and Organisation sub committee of the UNISON NEC 24th September 2015

Recruitment report

The national officer for Strategic Organising in his report stated that the number of members leaving the union has increased as a result of austerity.

August was always a bad month for recruitment but we were losing more members compared to the same month last year. With the recruitment figures down there was a need to refocus on recruitment. Local Government had suffered in particular under the austerity agenda. By the end of the year judging by the direction of travel we may have lost more members in local government than we did last year. There had even been a decline in schools membership despite school rolls increasing (it has been an area of increase in previous years). Young members continued to be a group where recruitment was up. There was a net loss in all Regions except Northern Ireland. Membership in the Health Service continues to decline at a slower rate than membership in Local Government does. The impact of the DOCAS conversion for National Probation staff will take some time to show up in the figures for this service.

There was a concern from one or two NEC members regarding the format the recruitment figures were presented in. The level of detail supplied was welcomed so we could see what is going on but the smallness of the font in the printed material meant the figures were hard to read in hard copy. The material needed to be fully accessible.

An NEC member with reference to schools recruitment said that members had lost confidence in the ability of the union to deliver on pay after the dispute last year and that nothing had come out of the Local Government special conference that had been held.

Another NEC member stated that a large number of members had joined as a result of the pay campaign in schools because the union was prepared to fight over pay but comparing the Year to Date (YTD) figures for 2015 with 2014 we were going backwards. Some Regions were facing cuts because of cuts to school funding – there needed to be a strategy to deal with cuts.

Another NEC member said that we all know we recruit best when we have high profile campaigns.

The national officer said that the situation in Northern Ireland where we were doing better might be explained by the fact that the structure of Local Government is not the same there.

Switching members from DOCAS (Deduction of Contributions at source) to Direct Debit – lessons to date.

It was stated by the national officer that UNISON was the primary object of the attack. In August the Government announced that it intended to include in the Trade Union bill provisions for removing DOCAS from public sector workers along with draconian strike provisions.

The scale of the challenge facing us is that we have 800,000 members paying by DOCAS. It was anticipated there would be a certain level of loss in the switch over. Not everyone would switch. Even if everyone switched to DD there could be a significant impact on membership retention as the average length of time someone paying by direct debit stays in membership is 5 years as opposed to 7 or 8 when paying by DOCAS.

There was an interesting reference to the International situation regarding Government attacks on Check off or DOCAS where Government's at state level in Australia and the United States have mounted similar assaults.‎ The organising response of the Australian trade unions appears to have been a more effective defence than the legal challenges of the US unions.

There would be a number of ways in which members would be contacted regarding the switch over. UNISON Direct could have a significant role. There may be a web based system to switch. There would be over the phone contact and face to face contact. A good point I thought was made that we should use this exercise as an opportunity to talk through all of the issues around UNISON. Having accurate data on the system would be very important (e.g. addresses, phone numbers) so some serious data cleansing would be necessary. It would be a factor how employers interacted with the legislation. This had been relevant for the PCS (Civil servants union) where some Government departments had better relations with the union than others.

An NEC member said that we were right on this and we should get on with this piece of work. The emergency motion at National Delegate conference had pointed us in the right direction. We had to make a virtue out of a necessity otherwise we could lose members. Material should be sent out to branches encouraging them to think about this. If the switching was being done by face to face contact branches would have a crucial role in this. Contact would have to be made at least annually to check members were paying the correct level of subs.

Another NEC member said there was obviously a relation between steward density and contact with members in workplaces. A further NEC member said this was a very important debate that we had to have in all NEC Committee’s not just D&O. Members will keep paying their subs if they see the value and the benefit. Members trust their stewards the most in terms of the switch but this brought the question should there be training for stewards on confidentiality and data protection.

Lessons learnt from the National Probation service switch campaign – i)easy and efficient systems are essential, ii)face to face switching is the most effective means of switching members, iii) switching takes time and we need as much time as possible in order to switch as many member s as possible, iv) the principal concern expressed by UNISON members has been over double payments - if they pay by DD before DOCAS ceases, v) it is important for people doing face to face switching to understand the issues, vi) Where there have been incomplete or not updated RMS records it has been difficult to contact members.

Learning and Organising services – There had been a slight decrease in Union Learning reps (ULR’s) trained. An update of the activist learning database is scheduled for November 2015. This should make reporting on the number of trained stewards more accurate and for identifying reps who require Employment Relations Act (ERA) accreditation.

Continued development of the RMS
The Head of RMS Operations reported that UNISON processes around 330,000 direct debit payers every month. A second cycle collection option was introduced in June 2015. Regions, UNISON Direct, Join online and branches via WARMS can choose either the 1^st or the 15^th of the month for the collection date. 800 Branches have WARMS access with 700 Branches actively using the WARMS system. In response to a question from an NEC member about the branches that just use RMS and not WARMS it was stated that RMS will not be switched off overnight and there would be phased approach. WARMS/RMS technology is being refreshed early next year. RMS Operations had taken on board comments from branches in terms of processing direct debit members via WARMS. Enhancements should be made in the autumn of 2015. Current systems have been reviewed so they are capable of transferring members from DOCAS to DD. Lessons had been learnt from the National Probation service. It was important to track progress when switching members - it was asked by an NEC member if a dashboard type facility could be put on WARMS so branches could have an overview of their progress in switching members. It was anticipated that a considerable number of members would only switch when DOCAS is actually removed. RMS is being adapted to include reporting of DOCAS members who have provided bank account details. Regions and branches will be able to monitor the DOCAS members who require transferring to Direct Debit.

Honorary life membership awards - The committee approved an honorary life membership award.

Personal report of the UNISON National Executive Council 29th July 2015

It was requested that in future meetings take place on the ground floor of the UNISON building to make the NEC fully accessible. This would be looked at.

Obituaries were read out and condolences given including UNISON members affected by the tragedy in Tunisia.

NEC members were asked to complete a National Delegate Conference review proforma.

Dave Prentis in his General Secretary's report welcomed newly elected NEC members. Dave also on behalf of the union pledged full support to Max Watson in his attempt to keep his job. The union believed there was a major element of discrimination by the employer at London Metropolitan University. Resources would be given to defend Max and the branch.

There was good news in that the Glasgow homelessness caseworkers had won their dispute for parity of grading. The NEC sent congratulations to the Region and the branch. This showed what we can do when we have the strength of the members. The General Secretary made reference to Barnet's ongoing campaign against outsourcing and that John Burgess, Barnet branch secretary was a great union activist. John's car had recently been vandalised with offensive and anti union graffiti.

Probation service - there would be a 2 hour strike to keep the legality of the ballot. The employers were refusing to talk even through ACAS. There was an exercise in probation to get members signed up to Direct debit.

A major issue was the Trade Union bill. A very good TUC briefing was circulated to NEC members that could be used in speeches etc. The main areas of attack were the use of agency workers, picket rules/limits, turnout percentage in ballots, facility time and political funds. We would campaign with NGO's like Liberty and Amnesty international against the bill. The Trade Union bill was also an attack on democracy in this country.

We needed a very big presence on the demo at the Tory party conference on 4th October 2015 and on 2nd November 2015 there was a parliamentary lobby over the Trade Union bill. NEC members asked for this to be turned into a demo as well but approval may be difficult to acheive. Dave Prentis in response to a question about the position of Labour on the welfare bill to abstain (only 48 Labour MPs voted against) said there was a job to get some backbone into some Labour MPs. It was remarked by an NEC member that there had been 'uproar' in the discussion on the Labour Party NEC on the decision of the acting leader to say MPs should abstain on the welfare bill. The 48 who voted against should have been joined by many, many more.

It was agreed that the Industrial Action report the NEC sees should go to every service group as well.

General secretary election - Any potential candidates were asked to leave the room while the rest of the NEC discussed the election timetable and procedures. Dave Prentis, Roger Bannister (NEC member North West), Heather Wakefield (Head of Local Government) and Karen Reissmann (NEC NW) left the room. Karen has subsequently withdrawn. Several NEC members commented that the nomination period was short for the election. The procedures and timetable were agreed as presented however.

Allocation of NEC members to various NEC sub committees was agreed and also to the General Political fund and Affiliated political fund (APF) committees. The APF (Labour link) committee met and agreed to nominate Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader with Yvette Cooper as second preference. Angela Eagle was nominated for Deputy leader. An NEC member asked for earlier circulation of NEC minutes. The President noted this and confirmed that the minutes would be issued as soon as possible.

Personal report of UNISON NEC - 3rd June 2015

A message of support was sent from the NEC to Barnet UNISON members in London currently taking Industrial Action against mass outsourcing proposals. Action had taken place on the 1^st and 2^nd June 2015.

A large part of the NEC business was concerned again with National Delegate Conference (NDC) business. We received reports from Strategic Committee (NEC subcommittees) Chairs on the current policy recommendations from these sub committees to the full NEC meeting on motions, amendments to motions and amendments to rule.

The dealing with of NEC policy on motions etc. was made more difficult as the NEC currently sits in two rooms with the bulk sitting on the 9^th floor and other members sitting in an upper ground floor room made available to a disabled member who has access issues and those joining the member in solidarity, who participate by video link. Members in one room are unable to see fellow NEC members in the other.

There was an emergency motion on the outcome of the General election from Development and Organisation subcommittee of NEC which had become Composite A to NDC. This proposed an organising response to Government attacks.  In relation to the threat to collection of union subs by DOCAS (Deduction of Contributions at source) under Tory proposals, Dave Prentis, General Secretary said that we should not wait for legislation to be carried but we should not ‘push the button’ now. Direct debit was not a panacea. Members sometimes did not tell us when they went up through the subs bands. Concern was expressed from the North West NEC members (after similar concern was expressed at the prior North West Regional Council of UNISON) that should we be just moving to Direct Debit without a fight on the issue? The Tories had published their intentions in relation to Trade Union ‘reform’ so we would not be putting ideas in their heads. Paul Holmes, UNISON NEC member made a good point that we should be having a political argument in public over this – why is the Government doing this? The DOCAS arrangements had been in place since before the 2^nd World War. In politics there was a fine line between being prepared and encouraging the other side.

Dave Prentis in his General Secretary’s report referred to the 42 bills in the Queens’ speech a few days earlier – quite a few affected our members.

Dave said the ‘the job of the union to a large part is to resist’. There needed to be ‘militant action’.

The discussion went back to Composite A. A proposed amendment by the North West NEC members to lobby parliament when the Trade Union reform bill was being discussed was voted down by the majority on the NEC. Also opposed was an amendment from North West NEC members calling for a lobby of the Tory party conference in the Autumn. It was later qualified that these protests would be supported (though presumably not led) by the union. A proposal to write to all members as part of a recruitment drive for stewards was also rejected.

Many North West UNISON members rightly see the presence of the Tory party conference in our Region as an affront.

Bernie Gallagher, North West UNISON NEC member asked that information be sent out to branches quickly regarding the anti-austerity demo in London on 20^th June 2015.

Discussion returned to the General Secretary’s report – Dave said there were disputes in schools around changes to terms and conditions and schools were one of biggest growth areas. We needed to raise our game on Industrial Action ballots and ‘we are a union that seeks to take Industrial Action’. We would fight proposed Tory measures regarding Trade unions ‘all the way to the U.N and ILO’ (International Labour Organisation). We would take national Industrial Action if need be over the threat to unsocial hours payments in the NHS. Dave referred again to the dispute in Barnet Council and the need to support also the struggle of the Glasgow Homeless caseworkers fighting downgradings and changes to terms and conditions. Helen Davies, UNISON NEC member and from Barnet branch thanked Dave for the support. 8^th July was a possible future strike date. Jon Rogers, NEC member London Region referred to the need to support these local disputes that were however of national significance including the dispute at London Metropolitan University over cuts proposals. These branches were at the sharp end.  

An upcoming 25% cut to further education had already led to 4 colleges closing down Trade Union education units. Budgets may need to be reviewed to support Stewards education and there will be an increase in Fighting fund organisers to get support to branches on the front line.

The decisions taken at the Local Government special conference were in the process of being actioned and the General Secretary undertook to come back to the NEC on the non-payment of the Local Government pay rise to transferred health workers.