If we shy away no one can help us but if we decide to fight, no one can stop us

#uNDC15 A thumping speech from Dave Prentis, UNISON general secretary, hit all the right buttons with Conference with support for the Glasgow strikers and a pledge that 'an injury to one is an injury to all' as he backed sacked SECC worker Robert O'Donnell.

It celebrated victories, listed the challenges ahead and underlined that trade union rights are human rights and must be protected.

His full speech is below:

Bob Crow RIP - 'A great member of our trade union family'

Dave Prentis issued this statement on yesterday's untimely death of RMT leader Bob Crow: ‘I am shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Bob Crow. Unison members will want to send their sympathy to his family and friends. Bob was a tough, no-nonsense union leader who always did his best for his members. And it was very much down to his tough stance that their pay and conditions improved.Despite all the flack he got, he stood his ground and was a great member of our trade union family. His loss will be felt across the whole trade union movement’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPPUGjJ6I8A&app=desktop

Hands off our NHS says Prentis

#nhs299 (and @BBCNews in case you're missing this) UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis, in a speech to the 'wonderful people' at the Manchester rally, says the union will fight to keep the privateers out of the NHS.
   "55,000 people marching, speaking with one voice a clear message to the Tories, hands off our NHS", said Dave. He pledged support to the fight against privatisation at George Eliot hospital and for UNISON ambulance workers about to ballot. 
    He warned privateers would 'suck money' out of the NHS. "The NHS loses out, patients lose out, staff lose out: the only winners are the shareholders. Even the NHS chief executive now agrees that the government's ridiculous competition rules are holding back quality improvements.
   "Cameron said he could sum up his priorities in three letters: NHS. It turns out he was right. But in Tory language, this stands for 'National Hospital Sell-Off'."
   See also UNISON head of health Christine McAnea's speech on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b5iYLfBlv8&feature=youtu.be&a

Future of NHS on the line - fight we must and fight we will

#NHS65 High spirited events were held across the UK this weekend to celebrate Friday's 65th anniversary of the NHS but nowhere was there any complacency about the danger posed to the NHS by the Con Dem Coalition Government. UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis assesses the myriad threats to the country's most treasured institution and issues a rallying call for redoubled efforts to save the NHS:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/135034

Happy Birthday NHS - Now what are we prepared to do?

#NHS65 Tonight Dave Prentis will celebrate our cherished NHS's 65th birthday at a rally in Manchester. We are rightly proud of our NHS but as it faces death by a thousand cuts, are there enough of us with Bevan's 'faith to fight for it'? As Polly Toynbee points out today: "How the NHS looks at 75 depends more on the future of politics than on economics".

GS sets out priorities for year ahead - Pay, Organising and Fighting Austerity

#undc13 Dave Prentis restated the absolute importance of pay campaigning following the poor 2013/14 settlements in health and local government (except Scotland) - ‘we must break the pay policy and we must build our members’ resolve' - calling on GMB and UNISON to join in the 2014/15 pay campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I73r-ED6lfM&feature=youtu.be

Protect Colombian human rights defender Alfamir Castillo’s life

War on Want has launched a campaign to protect the life of Colombian trade unionist and human rights campaigner Alfamir Castillo (pictured with UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis on a recent visit to Britain). Alfamir and her family have been subject to persecution, attacks and repeated death threats since the conviction of seven soldiers for the murder of her 23 year old son in 2008:
http://www.waronwant.org/overseas-work/conflict-zones/17837-urgent-protect-colombian-leader-alfamir-castillos-life

Prentis visits Western isles to support case against cuts

Dave Prentis, UNISON General Secretary, is joining members today in Stornoway to add his voice to their opposition to spending cuts and job losses, reports UNISON Scotland. Invited by Branch Secretary Alison MacCorquodale (pictured), he will be speaking at the union’s Western Isles local government branch AGM this afternoon.

The Guardian takes the pulse of UNISON

As the Con Dem Government passes the halfway mark in its term of office, Andrew Sparrow, the Guardian's political correspondent, has conducted a wide ranging interview with Dave Prentis which includes strong criticism of Labour's front bench - "They are avoiding all the big issues. There's no doubt whatsoever they want to avoid a discussion on privatisation. They want to avoid a discussion on public service pay. We won't let them"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/dec/14/dave-prentis-interview-coalition

PSI must fight for quality public services - Dave Prentis

#PSICongress2012 Introducing the PSI Programme of Action for 2013-2017 yesterday, Dave Prentis said: 'Our goal is to achieve Social Justice through Trade Union Rights and Quality Public Services. It is a plan for us to work together – smarter, faster and more effectively – to achieve a more just, more equal and more civil society in every nation. Our job as trade unionists is to lead – to give inspiration and hope that by working together we can create just, equitable and civil societies'
http://congress.world-psi.org/blog/psi-president-dave-prentis-be-bold-be-brave-together-we-can-be-brilliant

Labour front bench support for pay freeze 'morally wrong and economically wrong'

#lab12 UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis, in moving composite 2 on the economic alternative to austerity, condemned the Con Dem pay freeze and said that public servic workers expect Labour to do the same. In a clear response to the pre-conference spinning of Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls,  Dave said “to those who believe that driving down further the pay of public service workers will save jobs, I say you are wrong. Wrong morally and wrong economically"  http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.alabsp?id=2827 This is, of course, the same Ed Balls who wrote in 1991 that a national minimum wage 'could make poverty worse'! http://unisonactive.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/balls-opponent-of-nmw-supporter-of.html

October 20 is a launch pad for anti-austerity fight - Dave Prentis

#tuc12 At Congress yesterday UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis moved composite 1, on ‘a future that works campaign’, which condemned the government for ‘the hardship suffered by millions of people losing their jobs, local services or receiving cuts in their pay, pensions or benefits, and for deepening inequality in our society’:
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=2806

UNISON said it from the start, we say it again - PFI is a debt time bomb

At the 2002 Labour Party Conference the affiliated trade unions, led by UNISON, defeated the Labour leadership on their use of the Private Finance Initiative to fund public sector capital projects.
  10 years on, Dave Prentis, who was the subject of much abuse and negative briefing by New Labour ministers at the 2002 conference, restates in today’s Guardian UNISON’s objections to PFI: "We're sitting on a PFI debt time bomb, and the sheer scale of the burden paints a seriously grim picture for the future of our public services." As predicted back in 2002, PFI had left the UK with a "staggering mountain of debt"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jul/05/pfi-cost-300bn?newsfeed=true

Dave Prentis call to arms - "we will smash pay freeze"

#undc12 "Our week to show our unity, our solidarity, to set out our battle plans. To show the most right-wing government in our history that we will stand in their way” said Dave Prentis in opening his General Secretary's address to Conference. The well received speech included a strong pledge to lead the union into a fight against the public sector pay freeze: "We have to be brave, we have to be bold, we have to be strong, we have to be proud. And together we will smash this pay freeze"
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=2728

Facts of Public Life

Last week UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis was appointed a Non-Executive Director of the Bank of England. As an experienced member of the TUC’s Executive Committee and President of Unity Trust, the trade union bank, he would appear the obvious choice to replace Brendan Barber, the retiring TUC General Secretary, as the TUC nominee at the UK’s Central Bank. Yet it is a sad reflection of the immaturity of some in the movement that representing trade unions in a key economic institution can be portrayed as 'collaborating' with the Con Dem Government. Surely the basic purpose of trade unions is to represent the interests of workers?

Con Dem austerity is creating a ‘lost generation’- Prentis

As unemployment among women and young people rises inexorably, UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis accuses the Government of ignoring the human cost of its cuts in public services - ‘it is shameful to see that women, who make up the majority of low paid public sector workers, have had an unemployment hike of 45,000, to 1.1 million, the highest figure since 1988. Youth unemployment has also risen by 54,000, creating a lost generation of young people struggling to afford education, or find work, which the government will struggle to curb. Women and young people first in the government's jobless queues!’
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dave-prentis/unemployment-figures-and-cuts_b_1148501.html

'Quietly awkward' - The Independent profiles Dave Prentis

'...if he has an ideological worldview, he keeps it hidden behind the self-effacing exterior of a professional negotiator. His politics are to the left of the Labour leadership, but the views of the people he represents, all of whom work for the public sector, and most of whom are low paid, are to the left of the rest of the general public's' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/dave-prentis-quietly-awkward-6268165.html

Toynbee gubs taxdodgers alliance

See Polly Toynbee waste the taxdodgers alliance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4iLOP1WCVk
Also yesterday Dave Prentis took part in the BBC Radio 4 'you and yours' programme debating the right to strike and industrial relations with Ed Holmes of the Thatcherite lobby group Policy Exchange http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes
/b015zm9d#synopsis

Pensions - UNISON "expects the support of this Party & its Leader"

Dave Prentis, UNISON GS, moving composite 2 on Public Services, won two standing ovations when he called on the Labour leadership to back public sector workers in our fight for fair pensions. Dave noted that very demand had been unscrupulously omitted from the composite. Prior to the debate Dave had set out the UNISON position on the LabourList blog:

Pensions - time to stand up and be counted

#TUC11 Ahead of Congress Dave Prentis tells the FT that UNISON members “did not cause this recession. They have seen the rich, the powerful, celebrities, milking the system and taking vast profits and now it’s ordinary people who are paying the price. It comes to a point where they are saying to us – not us to them – that we have got to stand up and be counted”:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/18134998-daea-11e0-a58b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1XZ571wJc