The newly-elected NEC met for the first time on Friday 16 June straight after national conference ended.
Keen followers of the elections will be aware the results
were mixed with several surprise wins and defeats, and several long-standing
NEC members had stood down. So almost half of the NEC are now brand-new
representatives. Time for Real Change remain the largest group on the
NEC. The Time for Real Change group now has 32 seats, the Socialist Party
with 1 seat, the Unison Unity group* with 29 seats, and 5 independents.
The first NEC meeting is solely to elect the 3 members of
the Presidential Team who in Unison’s constitution are the honorary (unpaid)
principal officers of the NEC, who work alongside the General Secretary (the
employed principal officer)
So, this meeting was to decide who the NEC supports for the
presidential team for the next year. For the third year in a row Time
for Real Change supporters were elected by the NEC as the presidential team.
The votes cast were as follows:
President – Libby Nolan (existing Vice
President and Cymru/Wales Region female seat) – 35 votes to 32
Senior VP – Steve North (North West region
male seat) 35 to 32
Junior VP – Julia Mwaluke (Black Members’
reserved female seat) 34 to 33
The next full meeting of the NEC on Friday 14 July will be
to agree membership of the all the NEC committees which lead much of the work
and carry out policy and crucially the Chairs and Vice chairs of these
committees.
*Some of those which have been reported to be part of the
Unison Unity slate, state they are not a formal group or slate. But there was
publicity circulated clearly promoting them as a group of candidates. We
welcome support and cooperation from all NEC members in the two years ahead.
