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National Conference 2008

NATIONAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT CONFERENCE 2008

NATIONAL DELEGATE CONFERENCE 2008

1. Branch motions and involvement in debates

Local Government

Care of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children: Our amendment was carried: John Stevenson moved it.

Timing of Conference: Attempt to split Local Government and National Conference was defeated against the odds with many English branches changing their vote at the last minute in light of the debate. Scotland’s speakers were led by John Stevenson as agreed by the branch. Duncan Smith and Marylin Tweedie spoke in the Housing and Home Care debates promoting branch policy and the motions were carried.

National Conference

Recruiting and Organising: Our amendment to focus on representation of members was carried. John Stevenson moved

Rule Change on waiting 2 minutes for a card vote: We opposed as mandated with John Stevenson the main speaker against, raising a chuckle from Conference. The rule change was defeated.

Unfortunately, the rest of our motions were not heard.

2. Report on main issues

Local Government Conference

Pay ballots: The pay ballots across the UK dominated Conference but issues like privatisation, shared services, Housing and Social Care all took centre stage too.

Mileage Rates: An Emergency Motion from Aberdeenshire (among others) demanded action on mileage rates to reflect the huge increase in costs for essential staff. Edinburgh liaised with Aberdeenshire on this following representations from members.

School meals: Scotland's Carol Ball spoke on the effects of staff due to school meals changes.

Housing: Conference has pledged to continue to defend council housing, and to carry on fighting for decent housing for all. Delegates welcomed the government's commitment to building new houses, but determined to make sure they were council-owned, a point supported by Duncan Smith.

Social Care: Conference tackled the issue of Home Care privatisation and the possible hiving off of Looked After Children services in England.

Asylum children: Building on a motion from Scotland last year, Conference agreed to and Edinburgh amendment to keep up the campaign children to be seen as "children first with their immigration status second.

Conference: Scotland led opposition to a plan to split Local Government Conference from National Conference and won a surprise victory. Contributions here from John Stevenson, Denise McLaffery, Kate Ramsden and Sandra Kennie.

National Delegate Conference

"Raise our people up or our people will bring you down", was General Secretary Dave Prentis’ stark warning to the government as UNISON’s National Conference set out a new ‘working together’ agenda to defend public services and the public service team that delivers them.

Joint working, especially between the big Health and Local Government services, took centre stage as the Conference laid out strategies to face up to the challenges of shared services, pay limits, cuts and privatisation, while celebrating 10 years of the minimum wage by looking for improvements.

United pay campaign: The motion committed us to "a united front, to work with the PCS, the GMB, NUT, UCU, CWU, Unite and other trade unions." This has already happened in Scotland.

A campaign against violence to staff was agreed, demanding better reporting and gathering of figures to assess and address the problem. This reflects UNISON Scotland’s research which shows huge shortfalls in how, or whether, public authorities monitor the problem.

Enforce trade union rights: Alan Bradley, Dumfries and Galloway Branch called on the NEC to continue to challenge inequality and enforce employment and trade union rights.

NHS 60: How often do we need reminded that public services were made public all those years ago precisely because private, profit based service delivery dismally failed?

And how better could that have been demonstrated than by the celebration of the NHS’s 60th birthday? Scotland – where the first ever NHS hospital came into operation – was to the fore again in the debate.

Slamming PFI and privatisation, Lothian Health’s Mick McGahey reminded us that, "The NHS is not bricks and mortar. It is not about who manages it. It's about the staff who work in it, who provide the services to patients and who are dedicated to it."

It is hard to imagine now that some of our grandparents were born at a time when money – and class – dictated how or whether you got basic medical treatment.

South Lanarkshire’s John McLaughlin, a home carer, couldn’t have underlined that – and the real effect of privatisation - better when he asked, "Would we rather big business looked after our mums and dads, or dedicated carers?"

James Clancy, President of Canadian public services union NUPGE told Conference that public services define a country and its communities.

Organisation

But we can’t challenge any of this if we are not organised ourselves. That’s why decisions on updating our organisation and recruitment strategy, UNISON’s democratic structures and our political fund were also key debates.

Equal Pay: The biggest challenge in the union’s history has been the fight for equal pay and the Conference threw its weight behind a funding formula to meet that challenge.

Review of structures: Scottish Convenor Mike Kirby hammered home the need to review our 10 year old structures and update them to meet the challenges of the 21st century, not least in terms of how we relate to devolved government across the nations.

Recruitment: Backing a six-point recruitment and organisation plan, Edinburgh’s John Stevenson underlined the need for support for the ‘nuts and bolts’ work of the union. "There is no better way to recruit a new member than by word of mouth from a fellow worker who has something to thank the union for", he told Conference.

Qualifying time for legal support: And Davena Rankin from Glasgow Caledonian University persuaded Conference to reduce new members’ qualifying time for legal support to four weeks. Giving early support to members had led to UNISON being "the biggest union on campus". Edinburgh had supported this last year but opposed it this year.

Review of political fund: Conference backed a review of the union’s political fund, rejecting a misleading motion that suggested every member’s money went to the Labour Party. In fact, only those members who pay into the ‘affiliated fund’ pay anything to Labour, while the ‘general’ campaigning political fund has no party affiliation. Both are essential to the union’s campaigning agenda.

Social responsibility – challenging racism, gun and knife crime, pensions

As a union we have a responsibility to members but we also have a wider social responsibility. Without that over the last 100 years, we wouldn’t have won many of the rights and equalities we now enjoy – and we wouldn’t have our NHS.

Gun and knife crime: Conference heard harrowing accounts from people directly affected by the rise in gun and knife crime, as relatives of victims and as public service workers dealing with the human pain. A measured motion sought to address the causes in communities rather than overreacting to the results which can make the problem worse.

Show racism the red card: There is no greater threat to equality than the lies and myths peddled by the far right and Conference was united in challenging that head-on, pledging to continue campaigning in communities and backing ‘Show Racism the Red Card".

Migrant workers: Equal rights for migrant workers do not just protect them, they protect all workers and, as Conference met, UNISON Scotland’s Sofi Taylor was launching a charter for these workers at the Scottish Parliament.

Pensions: Marking 100 years of the state pension delegates overwhelmingly backed a retired members’ motion for the union to push for an immediate and substantial increase in the basic state pension to £138 a week. They also backed a call for a Responsible Contractor Investment Policy in Public Sector Pension Funds.

International

In a global economy, unions have to think globally. UNISON has a proud tradition of international solidarity and its long support for justice in South Africa was updated as we celebrated honorary UNISON member Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday.

Zimbabwe, Palestine, Burma and Colombia were all on the agenda. We heard of the life and death struggles of trade unionists in Colombia as UNISON pledged support for the Colombian Solidarity Campaign. While some of us face victimisation or even the loss of our job, Colombian trade unionists face death for their activity. Scotland’s Angela Lynes told Conference, "In February, some 70 NGOs, trade unions and other social organisations reportedly received e-mail death threats from paramilitaries."

The tragic situation in the Gaza siege was reflected in a call to continue working with Palestinian and Israeli trade unions to promote dialogue and the peace process and to campaign to bring a concrete change in the policies of the British government and European Union, starting with an end to the arms trade between Israel, Britain and the EU

John Stevenson
Branch President

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See also

Conference Index

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UNISON Scotland Conference 2008 site