THE RECALL ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Was held on MONDAY 7 MARCH 2011
ST COLUMBA'S BY THE CASTLE CHURCH Edinburgh

• Election of Branch Officers See below
  (click here to see what the positions are and what they do)
• Rule Changes and Motions passed
  • Rule Change 1
  • 1. Organising to meet the challenge
  • 2. Organising for public services
  • 3. Stop The Cuts
  • *. Emergency Motion Alternative Business Models
  • 4. Scottish Government To Cut Funds For Tackling Unemployment And Poverty In Edinburgh
  • 5. Our Pension Fund
  • 6. Supporting the Social Care Workforce
    
• 2011 Agenda and 2011 Annual Report
• Supplementary Agenda (pdf)

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2. Organising for public services

This AGM deplores the Westminster Government’s attacks on public services as a means of dealing with the deficit. It believes that cutting public services is unnecessary and runs the risk of further damaging the economy and creating a “double dip” recession.

This branch notes that:-

a) Our economy depends on a healthy public sector and the private sector depends on public sector contracts. Throwing more and more people out of work will only make matters worse.

b) For every job lost in the public sector, one goes in the private sector. Public service workers spent around 70p of every pound they earn in the local economy. Cuts in public services affect the whole economy.

c) The Institute for Fiscal Studies warns that these cuts will hit the poor far more than the rich and will increase inequality in the UK.

d) The cuts are opposed by expert economists who predicted the crash and are driven by right wing ideology rather than concern for dealing with the financial crisis created by the banks.

This branch welcomes UNISON’s campaigning against the cuts at Scottish and UK level under the million voices and public works banners. This AGM believes that there are better ways to deal with the financial crisis - ways which will ensure that the rich and the banks all play their part in the recovery. For example:-

e) Dealing with tax avoidance amongst the very wealthy would raise £33 billion and a one off 20% tax on the richest 10% would raise £800 billion. A 0.05% tax on banks for all transactions not involving members of the public would raise £30 billion.

f) Using these measures and maintaining and increasing employment in both the public and the private sector will lead to higher tax receipts and to economic growth, which will, in turn do much to deal with the deficit.

This AGM calls on the branch to

1. Recognise that organising, lobbying and campaigning are all a major part of this campaign but we must also be willing to combine that with industrial action if and when needed. All attempts possible should be made to ensure that action is co-ordinated across trade unions locally and nationally to ensure the biggest impact.

2. re-state its policy of seeking a ballot on action in the event of any compulsory redundancy.

3. continue the work to get the key messages out to members and the public that the cuts are unfair, unnecessary and will damage the economy

4. continue to build alliances locally with other branches, trade unions and community groups to oppose the cuts.

5. lobby politicians about the impact of the cuts and for their support to oppose cuts to public services.

6. put forward a motion to UNISON’s Delegate Conference calling for UNISON to continue its high profile campaign against public service cuts and to seek co-ordinated action.

7. build support amongst members for the national march and rally on 26 March.

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3. Stop The Cuts

This Union Branch Notes

1. The rising UK deficit reflected the collapse in tax revenues and rising cost of unemployment benefits during the recession. It was not caused by excessive public spending as the Conservative -LibDem government claim.

2. The breadth and depth of the cuts are unprecedented since the birth of the modern Welfare State and will devastate public services for many years to come. Furthermore one of the main effects of these cuts will be to increase the pressure to outsource and privatise.

3. The breadth of the cuts affects the whole of society often hitting the poorest and vulnerable the hardest. All branches of public services including Local Authorities, Higher Education, Voluntary and Community Sector, the NHS, the civil service face cuts, as will students, people on benefits, and tenants in private and local authority accommodation, etc.

4. For every job lost in the public sector there will be a job lost on the private sector.

5. The success of the STUC demonstration in Edinburgh in October shows that people respond and feel empowered when they see the unions acting together.

6. The call from the TUC conference for a national demonstration against the cuts in March 2011.

7. In France and Greece the attempt by governments to shift the blame from the bankers to working people have met with General strikes organised by trade unions.

This Union Branch Believes

8. These cuts are politically motivated rather than driven by economic necessity and threaten a weak economic recovery which may prolong the recession. The STUC’s ‘There is a Better Way’ campaign shows there is an alternative.

9. The coalition government is attempting to overcome union resistance. We must learn the lessons from history and seek united action against the present government where possible.

10. As the cuts threaten jobs, pay, and pensions of workers across the whole economy we need a unified and powerful response. The kind of action that fits this is a General Strike which brings together workers in both the public and private sectors.

11. This kind of united national action undercuts attempts by the far right parties to use the economic crisis to scapegoat ethnic minorities.

This Union Branch Resolves

12. To organise for the biggest turnout possible for the national demonstration in March 2011.

13. To call on the TUC to coordinate a 24 hour General Strike against cuts and attacks on wages and pensions.

14. To take this motion to Unison Scottish Council.

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*. Emergency Motion Alternative Business Models

To follow.

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4. Scottish Government To Cut Funds For Tackling Unemployment And Poverty In Edinburgh

This meeting deplores the news (29 Dec 2010) that the Scottish Government will withdraw £2.2 m funding for tackling unemployment and poverty from the Edinburgh Partnership, over and above the overall cuts to the funding given to City of Edinburgh Council - although historically paid through Edinburgh’s unique partnership structures, this is funding which in other cities has been included in their overall Fairer Scotland Fund allocation.

As a result, highly-acclaimed local programmes for the long-term unemployed, for areas most affected by worklessness and for the most disadvantaged groups are under threat; and staff at Capital City Partnership have been told that at least some and potentially all of the staff team face redundancy if a solution is not found.

The meeting calls on Alex Neil, Minister for Housing and Local Government, to reinstate this funding allocation.

It calls on the City of Edinburgh Council to protect the share of budgets going to anti-poverty and regeneration programmes, whether or not the minister reinstates the funding.

It calls on politicians of all parties to support this position and on all political parties to commit to reinstating or continuing this level of funding if they are in government following the May elections.

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5. Our Pension Fund

This meeting notes with concern the attempts by the Government to cut our pension rights and the misinformed attacks on public sector pensions in the media. In particular we condemn the unilateral decision of the government to shift the basis on which pensions are uprated from the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Price Index which it has been calculated will ultimately result in a reduction of around 15% in pension payments.

Local Government pension funds constitute members’ deferred pay and we call for arrangements to give workforce representation, via trade unions, on the bodies which govern them in order to be able to safeguard members’ interests.

Specifically we call on the Lothian Pension Fund to adopt this principle of its own volition, that is, to make available two additional voting places on the Pension and Trusts Committee to workforce representatives to be nominated by the trade union representatives on the LPF Consultative Committee.

We also call on the government to bring forward legislation to implement the EU directive. As regards consultation on the future of the LGPS, we note with concern that the submission of the LPF to the Hutton Commission advocates a change from a final salary scheme to a career average scheme.

It also suggests that membership of the scheme should be compulsory. Union representatives on the LPF Consultative Committee were given less than two working days’ notice of this, which does not constitute sufficient opportunity for consultation with LPF beneficiaries.

We call on the LPF to withdraw its support for a career average scheme. We support the efforts of LGPS funds to use their investment power to encourage good corporate governance and to check on social and environmental issues but we believe this does not go far enough.

Our funds should avoid investments which directly threaten public services (e.g. companies which promote privatisation), violate basic trade union and workforce rights (as defined by the ILO) or undermine efforts to protect our climate and environment (e.g. investment in dirty tar sand or deepwater oil extraction).

We call on the LPF to bring forward reports on its current exposure to these risks and how to minimise it.

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6. Supporting the Social Care Workforce

This AGM congratulates all staff who continued to provide essential services for the public during the heavy snow. In particular it recognises the efforts put in by Social Care staff, many of whom walked for miles in the snow, ended up working long hours while only getting paid for core work and were penalised for being late after having struggled through the snow to get to work.

It believes this has thrown into sharp relief many of the issues facing the Social Care workforce across the country. These include:-

1. Cuts and privatisation, reducing standards of care and reducing pay and conditions.

2. Unsafe lone working

3. A ‘market’ approach to care that puts cost before need

4. Increasing demands without an increase in resources.

5. The ‘Personalisation’ agenda that, rather than offering service users independence, disguises cuts and affects the ability to strategically plan services in the public sector. 5. Increasing regulation in children’s services (for example new Scottish Government Child Protection Procedures) with no additional resources.

This Branch welcomes:-

6. The work done by UNISON Scotland’s Social Work Issues Group (SWIG) to highlight social care issues. In particular:-

a) its Manifesto for Social Work

b) its negotiating guide on Supervision and Workload Management

c) its forthcoming guide on Keeping Safe at Work.

7. SWIG’s attempts to pull together home care and social care staff at a Scottish level to share information and experiences and build an organisational base that recruits members and activists.

8. Its recognition that members need professional as well as service conditions support from their union. This Branch therefore resolves to

9. continue to play an active part in the Social Work issues Group

10. continue to campaign actively on a local basis against social care cuts

11. provide the necessary resources to assist organising and recruitment among social care staff.

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