Pre-Congress delegation meeting‏ - respecting UNION policy

TUC: On Sunday morning UNISON's policy committee presents its recommendations to the delegation as to how it should be voting. The delegation can then debate the recommendations. On a TUC agenda very little is opposed. But obviously there are those who always know better……

The recommendation that the POA motion 7 be opposed was rejected by the usual suspects who felt that it was a “refreshing approach" rather than self evident Congress gesture politics.

To bankrupt our union? To dictate to our members that they will go on strike? A tiny minority voted for that proposition.

We moved onto Motion 56 from the NUT. Suddenly education has become the property of the “education” unions only and taking strike action on political demands is the fashion. …….Or not.

As Rena Wood from North West put it, are we an organisation that works from the bottom up, putting members first or do we dictate from the top down? Is there anyone in UNISON who can say that having a ballot with a group of staff who don’t have an immediate in-your-face industrial issue, would be won? Thankfully only a handful of the delegation lives in that fantasy world.

Then came the issue of proportional representation. Never been the top of a UNISON agenda has it? Never been discussed, has it? Never taken a conference decision on it have we? So sensibly, the recommendation was that UNISON should abstain till we have that internal discussion was accepted, but only after various people have decided that UNISON democracy amounts to little and they know better. (Glen Kelly since you asked)

Finally there’s the motion from the CWU on “a conference of all affiliated unions to consider how to achieve effective political representation for our members”. The first Para makes it clear that the CWU don’t like new labour? Who does?

But as Jane Carolan argued that was not the TUC’s role to organise the unions politically, and that it was usurping the role of individual unions to take such decisions, up pops Jon Rogers and Glen Kelly to tell us the real agenda. Both Glen and Jon were clear. This motion was about the creation of a new political party, and that was something they both welcomed.

Given the Glen is a member of a small sect called the Socialist Party his enthusiasm for trying to replace the Labour Party in understandable, but Rogers is a self declared Labour Party member. Hmmmmm. Work that one out.

The delegation did and voted heavily against them, respecting conference policy from their own trade union.