Unison gen sec election

[Serge Forward]

Mendoza... who she?

 

[killer b]

Conspiracy theorist hustler Kerry Anne Mendoza of The Canary

 

[Shechemite]

Mendoza... who she?

Very good.

I guess a less ironic question would be why she and her Der Sturmer-ism came to such prominence on the radical Left (and why also does the radical left get so upset when you remind them of the ‘I suspect hand of Israel’ politics still floating about around them.)

 

[hitmouse]

Unison NEC results are out:

https://www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2021/06/2021-NEC-summary-of-results.pdf

My first thought was that it looked quite a good result for the left but I was fucked if I was going go through and add up the results of 68 seats, luckily someone's already done it for me:


Without necessarily endorsing the source, here's the first left analysis I've found of the results:

Unison left victory – Time to transform the union into a fighting weapon | The Communist

Left-wing candidates have won a clear majority in the Unison NEC elections. This is an incredible result, which could set in motion the transformation of Britain’s largest union – and of the entire labour movement in Britain.

www.socialist.net

This bit sounds impressively stupid:

Even in this NEC election, the sectarian Socialist Party (SP) split the vote in the Northern region male seat to allow the right wing to win. The left candidate got 1208; the SP candidate got 1016; and the right-winger got 1227 – a majority of only 19.

Still, at least there's not any other union elections going on right now where the left are about to let a right-wing candidate stroll in by running left candidates against each other.

Oh, LabourList article as well:

Left wins majority in UNISON national executive committee election - LabourList

Candidates on the left slate ‘Time for Real Change’ have gained a majority on the national executive council…

labourlist.org

 

[hitmouse]

Statement from the Time For Real Change slate here:

Statement on UNISON NEC Elections

By The #TimeForRealChange campaign The #TimeForRealChange campaign is delighted to announce that 37 of its 56 candidates were successfully elected to the UNISON NEC. Congratulations go to all our s…

labourhub.org.uk

From looking around the results a bit more, I'm fairly sure there must also have been a health seat where a SP candidate ran against a non-SP left candidate and both lost. And mad to realise that in the NEYH region, you had one seat where the same thing happened, and then another seat where someone was elected unopposed.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Tedious ever-present vote-splitting aside, sounds like a generally good result in broad terms of power in the NEC and the intent within the wider membership.

 

[hitmouse]

Tedious ever-present vote-splitting aside, sounds like a generally good result in broad terms of power in the NEC and the intent within the wider membership.

Yeah, definitely a good result overall. It's weird, I'm not used to being glad about the outcome of elections!

 

[Lord Camomile]

Did anyone attend the SDC this week? Would have liked to go, but think our branch only got spot and knew I was going to be busy with a consultation in our dept. anyway.

Did just catch this, though; is "decades old tradition" right?





E2A: Sorry, don't think I'd realised how recent this news was, so in case anyone wasn't aware:

 

[hitmouse]

Did anyone attend the SDC this week? Would have liked to go, but think our branch only got spot and knew I was going to be busy with a consultation in our dept. anyway.

Did just catch this, though; is "decades old tradition" right?





E2A: Sorry, don't think I'd realised how recent this news was, so in case anyone wasn't aware:

First I knew of it, but I have to say that I'm not sure that breaking with "decades old traditions" in Unison is necessarily a bad thing. Like, the name of the slate that got a majority of seats was "time for real change" after all.

Also, come to think of it I'm not really sure what the President of Unison does?

 

[Lord Camomile]

Also, come to think of it I'm not really sure what the President of Unison does?

Not a great deal at the moment, as I've just discovered Holmes is still suspended so currently can't take up the post

 

[hitmouse]

Not a great deal at the moment, as I've just discovered Holmes is still suspended so currently can't take up the post

An important step forward in terms of representation for suspended members, who have traditionally had very little representation when it comes to Unison leadership posts.

 

[Dom Traynor]

I don't know what PH is suspended for and I'm not his biggest fan but worth noting that the Assistant General Secretary for legal matters including internal discipline is Emily Oldknow of Labour leaked report fame.

 

[hitmouse]

I don't know what PH is suspended for and I'm not his biggest fan but worth noting that the Assistant General Secretary for legal matters including internal discipline is Emily Oldknow of Labour leaked report fame.

Oh, bit of a belated response, but do you know anything about Sian Stockham? I'm kind of assuming that she's someone who'd be seen as a safe pair of hands from like a Prentice/McAnea perspective, but don't really know anything beyond that.

 

[hitmouse]

Oh, I know everyone loves hot gossip about Unison's structures and rulebook, and this blog has quite a lot of it. Includes a post about what the new NEC means for Unison's representation within Labour (shock horror, would you believe that the excitable Skawkboxery about how all this was going to shake Starmer up may have been somewhat misinformed), as well as the rather more important question of how it might affect branches' ability to take industrial action:

If the newly elected UNISON NEC want to demonstrate to our membership that there is real meaning to the slogan “#timeforrealchange” then there are a couple of things that the incoming IAC could then do, fairly quickly.

First, the Industrial Action Handbook (which was last updated in June 2019) could be redrafted, following a brief consultation - in particular - with those activists in UNISON with recent experience of leading industrial disputes.

At present, the introduction to the Handbook states that “industrial action becomes a legitimate strategy when negotiations have broken down and where any agreed disputes procedure has been exhausted” - exemplifying an attitude of mind which leads UNISON officials to discourage activists from pursuing industrial action, because that is the message that they have received from more senior officials.

Industrial action becomes a legitimate strategy whenever a group of workers decide for themselves that it is a legitimate strategy and UNISON’s Industrial Action Handbook should be a helpful guide for workers having to negotiate the many obstacles placed in their way by a succession of hostile Governments and by the courts - not another such obstacle.

According to their latest return to the Certification Officer (for 2019) UNITE (a smaller trade union than UNISON) held 245 industrial action ballots in that year, whereas UNISON’s return for the same period indicates that we held 234. (An earlier version of this blog post incorrectly reported that number as 25 and I am indebted to a comrade from the NEU who pointed out that I had misread the document).

UNISON needs to be much more inclined to encourage - rather than discourage - members whose interests will be best served by a willingness to take industrial action. The difference between a left-led trade union and the other sort is not that a left-wing leadership can (or would want to) provoke strikes or foment discontent - however, left-wing union officials, and representatives, can decide not to obstruct union members from taking action.

Secondly therefore - and this is something which the IAC could recommend to the NEC following its first meeting as a Committee - the daily rate of strike pay could be increased (perhaps from the current rate of £25 a day to match UNITE at £50 a day).

These changes - to the Industrial Action Handbook - and the rate of daily strike pay would matter as much for what they symbolise as for their substance, but they would provide practical assistance to members and activists on the front line of defence against the attacks coming at UNISON members from the Tory Government and the employers.

I was a bit surprised by some of this stuff cos I thought of him as being a McAnea-supporting blogger, but it turns out that I'd somehow managed to mix Jon's labour movement blog up with John's Labour blog.

 

[Lord Camomile]

I don't know what PH is suspended for and I'm not his biggest fan but worth noting that the Assistant General Secretary for legal matters including internal discipline is Emily Oldknow of Labour leaked report fame.

Christ...

Oh, I know everyone loves hot gossip about Unison's structures and rulebook, and this blog has quite a lot of it. Includes a post about what the new NEC means for Unison's representation within Labour (shock horror, would you believe that the excitable Skawkboxery about how all this was going to shake Starmer up may have been somewhat misinformed), as well as the rather more important question of how it might affect branches' ability to take industrial action:


I was a bit surprised by some of this stuff cos I thought of him as being a McAnea-supporting blogger, but it turns out that I'd somehow managed to mix Jon's labour movement blog up with John's Labour blog.

Nice one, cheers. This is the sort of stuff I want to be more clued up on, but ADHD is sadly not always compatible with such things... Still, we keep on trying, as always!

 

[hitmouse]

Apparently Paul Holmes' disciplinary hearing with Kirklees council is finally starting:

Union secretary suspension biggest mystery since Victor Grayson vanished

Supporters of Paul Holmes held a rally outside a Huddersfield hotel to back him

www.examinerlive.co.uk

Still no idea what either this, or the Unison suspension, is about, or whether Unison will ever get around to holding a hearing.

 

[hitmouse]

Update on the sort-of-President's situation:


Offered with the disclaimer that I still absolutely do not know what's going on there.

 

[hitmouse]

Apparently things are proper boiling over in Unison national structures atm with the GS and staffers facing off against the NEC, both sides taking legal advice and so on. I know people love hot internal Unison gossip, for some reason it doesn't seem to be front-page news most places but here's some articles from some of the trot groups with members in Unison:

Unison civil war: push for a recall national conference!

In their attempts to block the new left-wing leadership in Unison, the right-wing bureaucracy are looking to tie the left up in legal wrangles. The only way forward is to mobilise the rank and file. Defend the union! Let the members decide!

www.marxist.com

Civil war in Unison: Mobilise the membership! Fight to transform the union! | The Communist

The conflict in Unison between the union bureaucracy and the new left leadership came to a head at yesterday’s NEC meeting. The right wing has thrown down the gauntlet. The left must answer by mobilising the membership.

www.socialist.net

Unison: fight for democracy to fight for pay

The victory of the left in the national executive council (NEC) elections of the public services union Unison in June was a major opportunity to transform the country’s largest union. Unison has been politically and industrially timid with little fight against privatisation, losses of jobs and...

www.workersliberty.org

Who runs Unison: lay members or the paid officials?

The new NEC must start the fight to democratise Unison

www.socialistparty.org.uk

It all sounds a bit like a re-run of Labour 2015-2019, but with the important difference that internal Labour structures didn't really have any relevance to my life so I could just ignore most of it, whereas my ability to collectively bargain with my employer, reject pay offers, potentially take industrial action and so on is directly tied to the structures that are currently putting all their efforts into fighting the NEC.
Oh, and this from a retired former branch secretary who seems well-informed about Unison stuff:

UNISON NEC vindicated - time to accept democracy

I was pleased to read the opinion of Lord Henry QC on the propriety of motions discussed at the last meeting of the UNISON National Executiv...

jonrogers1963.blogspot.com

 

[Serge Forward]

Unison is fucking dire. Its bloated bureaucracy full of arse licking full timers needs seriously fucking over.

 

[comrade spurski]

Unison was a key player in allowing the Labour Government to fuck with our public sector pensions.

Unison happily sided with known racists to victimise Yunis Bhaksh (excuse spelling) while at the same time they victimised 5 or 6 Socialist party members, falsely accusing them of racism.
And even though they lost legal cases on both of these issues (costing the union hundreds of thousands of pounds) none of those were disciplined for abusing their positions.

Unison did nothing to stop any of the attacks on public services during austerity.

Horrible fucking union.

 

[hitmouse]

I can't believe that one of the four controversial motions, that the union officialdom have written to every single branch secretary warning them about because it's so unlawful, is one saying that the NEC should meet more regularly, and the bureaucracy line is that this motion is in breach of union rules and unlawful on the grounds that union rules say "The National Executive Council shall meet at least four times in every calendar year". Like an absolute parody of bureaucratic nonsense.
Our branch secretary did also say something about left branches being suspended/closed down, I didn't get clarification on whether this was something happening right now or just an indication of what Unison's record has been like historically, but the former wouldn't particularly surprise me.
Meanwhile, Unison and the other main union in our sector have both voted to reject a pay offer, I was hoping this might mean we'd get a united/co-ordinated strike ballot campaign but the other union are running their ballot now and might be striking by the end of the month while we're scheduled to run our ballot over the end of December-start of January, meaning that for a significant part of the ballot period we'll be off for xmas and have no contact whatsoever with other members. Join Unison, it's great.

 

[Serge Forward]

Yep that's the Unison way. Get your ballot paper when it's done and dusted, forgotten about or when the momentum has dissipated. The worst of the worst.

 

[hitmouse]

Another trot article with an update on how things are going in Unison:

Unison civil war: The struggle is sharpening | The Communist

The internal struggle within Unison is intensifying by the day. The stakes are high. The future direction of the union hangs in the balance. Left activists must seize the moment, mobilise the membership, and fight to transform the union.

www.socialist.net

Over the last few weeks, the Unison right wing has launched a series of coordinated attacks against the left NEC, and particularly the presidential team, with model resolutions circulating in branches and regions – most recently at the Police and Justice sector conference, and at the national disabled members’ conference (NDMC).

At the NDMC at the end of October, the right wing made a big show of handing out a leaflet attacking the NEC, and pushing a poster for people to hold up in the conference when Andrea Egan, the vice president, was speaking. Approximately 20% of the hall held up this poster, which had a slogan of ‘Not in Our Name’ on it.

There was also an emergency motion submitted, condemning the NEC for supposedly discriminating against disabled people in one of their recently-passed resolutions.

Of course, this was all nonsense. But it had the desired effect, with about 90% of the hall voting for the motion.

It is worth noting, however, that delegates to the NDMC conference are – to all intents and purposes – self-selecting. Branches can send anything up to 10 delegates. So, in theory, thousands of people can attend. Yet this conference was attended by just 300 people.

We can anticipate a lot more of such shenanigans over the next period, with a number of conferences for various service groups and self-organised groups on the horizon.

Also there's this, which actually sounds like it should have quite important real-world implications:

 

[hitmouse]

Since everyone likes hot Unison election goss, there's now a proper website for the left slate ahead of the upcoming Service Group Executive elections:

Elections — Time For Real Change

timeforrealchange.uk

 

[Dom Traynor]

Glad to see the left get their act together finally some good candidates there. A few I could vouch for as pragmatic working class left.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

hmm

i'm in the process of changing jobs, and will go back to being in a job where unison is the union... not been a member for getting on for 20 years

 

[Dom Traynor]

hmm

i'm in the process of changing jobs, and will go back to being in a job where unison is the union... not been a member for getting on for 20 years

Which service group and region.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Which service group and region.

local government. not quite sure what region - it's one of those places that can be one of about three regions depending on who's counting.

i don't start there for a couple of weeks.

 

[Dom Traynor]

local government. not quite sure what region - it's one of those places that can be one of about three regions depending on who's counting.

i don't start there for a couple of weeks.

Unison uses the EU electoral regions if that helps.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Unison uses the EU electoral regions if that helps.

appears to be eastern