UNISON City of Edinburgh Branch
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AGM 2006 Motions AGM Index AGM 2006 Index Previous Branch Meetings and Annual Report Archive 2005 Annual Report Back to About the Branch			UNISON City of Edinburgh Local Government & Related Sectors Branch AGM 2006 Decisions on Motions and Rule Changes Rule Changes 1. Rules B, C, D and H - APT&C and Manual conditions Motions (click here for more details) Emergency Motions Emergency Motion - Equal Pay Claims Council Budget, Cuts and Redundancies (local) 1. Equal Pay, Single Status and Outsourcing 2. Equal Pay 3. Housing Stock Transfer Service Conditions Issues 4. Disability leave Health & Safety 5. New Council Headquarters Pensions and Superannuation 6. Discrimination in Pensions 7. Pensions * 8. Protect our Local Government Pensions * UNISON Services and Structures 9. Management of Offenders Act 2005 10. Protection of asylum seeker families 11. Edinburgh Trade Union Council Policy and Campaigning 12. Underfunding of Social Care 13. Aid, Trade, Conditionality and Force Liberalisation 14. Global warming and climate change International 15. Palestine 16. Histradut Motions ruled out of order 17. Scrap the Self Nomination Provision 18. Motion not competent top 9. Rule Changes 1. Rules B, C, D and H - APT&C and Manual conditions Proposed by: John Stevenson (Children & Families) John Ross (Housing) The RULE CHANGE was WITHDRAWN 10. Motions top Emergency Motions Emergency Motion - Equal Pay Claims Proposed by John Stevenson (Children & Families) John Ross (Housing) This meeting notes the updated legal advice for members who are being offered compensatory payments in relation to Equal Pay Claims. The focus at this stage is on large groups of predominately women workers who are not in receipt of bonus payments which have been applied to groups of predominately male workers whose jobs have been assessed at the same grade. We also note with concern the compensatory payments do not equate to the full value of the potential bonus payments. Further, we note the compensatory payments will only be made following the employee signing a binding legal document which removes an individual's rights to pursue any issue pertaining to equal pay as opposed to addressing the sole issue of bonus payments. This meeting therefore supports the legal advice that members should not agree the terms of the legal document and that, where an Equal Pay claim can be demonstrated to have substance, we will request the union's legal officer pursue it on behalf of the member(s). CARRIED unanimously.   top Council Budget, cuts, redundancies (local action) top 1. Equal Pay, Single Status and Outsourcing Proposed by John Stevenson (Children & Families) John Ross (Housing) WITHDRAWN IN FAVOUR OF EMERGENCY MOTION top 2. Equal Pay Proposed by Marlyn Tweedie (Health & Social Care) Catriona Grant (Health & Social Care) WITHDRAWN IN FAVOUR OF EMERGENCY MOTION top 3. Housing Stock Transfer Proposed by John Ross (Housing) John Stevenson (Children & Families) This meeting commends the partnership working between UNISON and Edinburgh Against Stock Transfer (EAST) which led to the council tenants rejecting the council's attempt to transfer their houses to a Housing Association. We note the intensity of the council's campaign for a YES vote and call upon Branch Officers to seek the costs of that campaign and to issue them into the public domain. The rejection of stock transfer in Edinburgh may be pivotal to other such campaigns across Scotland and full benefit of that result must be taken by UNISON Scotland. We call upon UNISON Scotland to convene a conference on options which may or may not be open to councils who wish to modernise their housing stock while keeping it under council ownership. Such an event should be open to all stakeholders with local branches being encouraged to urge local councillors, MSPs and MPs to attend along with representatives from Tenants Organisations and other Trade Unions. CARRIED AS AMENDED top Service Conditions Issues (ie pay and conditions) top 4. Disability leave Proposed by Irene Stout (Culture & Leisure) John Ross (Housing) This meeting agrees current sickness absence monitoring procedures discriminate against disabled members who may have higher absence levels due to their disability. We consider this to breach the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act. We note the growing campaign from Trade Unions and pressure groups for such absences to be excluded from sickness absence monitoring processes and support those representations made by the Staff Side to the Joint Consultative Group on this matter. It is recommended a briefing paper be issued to Branch Labour Link representatives and all City of Edinburgh Councillors. We call upon Branch Officers to draft a suitable motion for Annual Conference with a view to increasing pressure on parliamentarians to recognise this is an issue they should legislate on. CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY top Health & Safety top 5. New Council Headquarters Proposed by John Ross (Housing) John Stevenson (Children & Families) This meeting requests the Branch set up a Working Group with involvement from all departments who would be based in the new Headquarters with the group being led by the Branch Health & Safety Officer. The purpose of such a group would be to monitor progress and to ensure they are satisfied with accommodation proposals as they affect the individual departmental work areas and any joint accommodation. The Group would also take responsibility for communications with the membership with appropriate involvement of the Branch Communications Officer. CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY top Pensions and Superannuation top 6. Discrimination in Pensions Proposed by John Ross (Housing) Irene Stout (Culture & Leisure) The terms of this motion to be adopted as branch policy and forwarded to National Delegate Conference. This Conference welcomes the Civil Partnership legislation which will give parity of pension provisions (as currently provided to married couples) to same gender partnerships. We view this as a major step forward but note with regret the same improvement has not been extended to non-married heterosexual couples. We call upon the union at all levels to work with other interested parties to campaign for Equal Rights for all contributors to Public Sector Pension Schemes. CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY top 7. Pensions * Proposed by the Housing and Health & Social Care Shop Stewards Committees This branch condemns: 1. The findings of the Turner Report that recommends raising the state pension retirement age to 68. 2. The Government's proposals to increase the retirement age in Local Government to 65 and abolish the ‘Rule of 85". 3. The hypocrisy of the CBI who talk about a two-tier pension provision between public and private sector when they sit on huge pension savings. This branch believes: 4. Raising the retirement age will mean that after a lifetime of work many more, particularly manual workers, will die before receiving any kind of pension. 5. The so-called pensions ‘crisis' is being exaggerated in order to justify the government's attacks on all our pensions. This Branch resolves: 6. To submit this motion to the next Scottish Council. 7. To call upon the Local Government Service Group Executive to organise a mass campaign in defence of the Local Government Pension Scheme which includes an industrial action ballot leading on to possible strike action. CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY top 8. Protect our Local Government Pensions * Proposed by Health & Social Care Shop Stewards Committee This Branch: 1. Condemns the finding of the Turner Report that recommends raising the state pension retirement age to 68. 2. Condemns the Governments proposals to increase the retirement age in Local Government to 65. 3. Condemns the hypocrisy of CBI bosses who talk about a two-tier pension provision between the public and private sector when they sit on huge pension savings. This Branch believes: 1. The real pension divide is between top bosses who continue to access their huge pensions at 60 and everybody else who at best can accrue modest pensions if any at all. 2. Raising the retirement age will mean that after a lifetime of work many more, particularly manual workers will die before receiving any kind of pension. 3. The so called pension ‘crisis' is being exaggerated in order to justify the government's attacks on all our pensions. 4. That the Economic Support Ratio statistics show that by 2045 the proportion of those working will fall to from 33% to 27% but that a modest growth rate of only 1.75% per year will see gross national product doubling in the same time, more that offsetting that fall. This Branch resolves: 1. To call upon the Local government Service Group Executive to organise a mass campaign in defence of the Local Government Pension Scheme which includes an industrial action ballot leading on to possible strike action. 2. To publicise this motion. 3. Send this motion to the next Scottish Council. CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY top UNISON Services and Structures top 9. Management of Offenders Act 2005 Proposed: Catriona Grant (Health & Social Care) Vikki Kerr (Health and Social Care) This branch recognises that the Management of Offenders Act 2005 has a major impact on legislation and service provision regarding offenders both in the community and serving prison sentences. We recognise the setting up of the Edinburgh, Lothians and Borders Community Justice Authority (CJA) and the affect this will have on service provision and possible reorganisation within the five local authorities. This branch resolves to initiate a UNISON Criminal Justice meeting with the other relevant UNISON branches in the local CJA in order that shop stewards and branch officers can support members and negotiate for members regarding re-organisations, pay and conditions, keeping services in-house and good practice. This meeting will be called as near as April 2006 as possible. CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY top 10. Protection of asylum seeker families Proposed by John Stevenson (Children & Families) John Ross (Housing) The terms of this motion to be adopted as branch policy and forwarded to National Delegate Conference. Conference deplores the unacceptable treatment of asylum seeker families, many of whom have been happily settled for years in the UK and in particular the practice of removing these families from their homes in dawn raids. Conference is particularly concerned about the impact of these tactics on the children of asylum seekers, and believes that such inhumane and degrading treatment breaches their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and possibly domestic legislation. It creates distress and fear not only for those children directly affected, but also for other refugee children who must live in terror that it could happen to them. Conference also condemns the practice of this government of deporting unaccompanied asylum seeking children as they become adults, after they have been cared for in this country, often for many years. Conference fully supports the online petition "An amnesty for Scottish asylum families" and other similar initiatives to highlight the injustice of the current policy and undertakes to promote these to branches and members. Conference further resolves:- 1. to campaign for an end to the forcible removal of asylum families and in particular, an end to the practice of dawn raids. 2. to campaign for an amnesty for all asylum families living in this country for a year or more, in line with the precedent set in 2002 by the then Home Secretary. 3. to campaign for alteration to regulation to entitle individuals admitted to this country as "unaccompanied asylum seeking children" to receive right of residence. 4. to urge branches to write to their MPs, MSPs, and AMs to raise these matters and seek their support. Conference recognises that if there are measures that UNISON members can take in the interim to protect the interests and safety of children and families who are asylum seekers, they should be fully supported in doing so. It recognises that legislation designed to protect the interests of children and their families in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland may have a role in protecting children of asylum seekers from abusive situations created by practices under other legislation. Conference therefore instructs the NEC to build urgent links with the relevant Children's Commissioners, UNISON members who are practitioners in the field and relevant legal advisers to research whether and how such legal action may be applicable. This AGM also calls on the Branch to progress support structures for staff who may become involved in such situations via a working group of Branch Officers and senior stewards from the Children & Families and Health & Social Care Shop Stewards Committees. CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY top 11. Edinburgh Trade Union Council Proposed by Matthew Crighton (City Development) Duncan Smith (Housing) This meeting agrees that the branch should affiliate to the Edinburgh Trades Union Council (ETUC) and instructs the Secretary to bring a report to the Branch Committee with a recommendation about implementing this decision. This should cover the likely areas of co-operation with ETUC, the management of the Branch input to ETUC, the number of delegates and the affiliation payment. REMITTED TO BRANCH COMMITTEE top Policy and Campaigning top 12. Underfunding of Social Care Proposed by John Stevenson (Children & Families) John Ross (Housing) The terms of this motion to be adopted as branch policy and forwarded to National Delegate Conference. This Conference believes that there is a great need for a review of the challenges and demands facing social care, and the resources that will be needed to deliver social care fit for the 21st century. Conference welcomes the current review by Sir Derek Wanless of social care for older people in England, but regrets that this not being funded by the Department of Health or ODPM but the Kings Fund. In 2001, the Wanless Review of future health care spending in the United Kingdom identified a massive historic shortfall in health spending. This laid the ground for the Chancellor to announce in the 2002 Budget and Spending Review a £40bn cash injection for the NHS over 3 years and National Insurance rises for employees and employers to pay for it. Conference, therefore believes, that the new Wanless Report expected in 2006 could assist in identifying the massive historic under funding of social care and the increasing future demand and complex needs. Conference notes that some 486,000 people are looked after in independent and local authority-run care homes, down 9,600 in the last 12 months. Care home places peaked in 1996 but have dropped by 89,000 since then as more and more people are looked after in their homes. Conference further notes that about one million people work in social care of whom over 80 per cent are women and that two thirds of social care employees work in the independent sector. Conference therefore resolves to: 1. campaign for a massive increase in social care spending to meet need as part of the 2006 and 2007 Government Spending Reviews; 2. campaign for high quality social care provision with a well trained and rewarded staff; 3. exploit the opportunities of the Wanless Report on Social Care; 4. reaffirm policy for personal care to be free, as in Scotland; 5. to work with the STUC, WTUC and ICTU to influence the social care agenda in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland REMITTED TO BRANCH COMMITTEE AND CARRIED top 13. Aid, Trade, Conditionality and Force Liberalisation Proposed by Matthew Crighton (City Development) Stephen McMurray (Associated Bodies) Although there were some small positive moves on aid and HIV, despite unprecedented popular pressure, the G8 and the WTO have failed to produce a reform of trade which meets even the most immediate needs of impoverished and developing nations. Meanwhile their economies continue to struggle against the tides of globalisation and in particular we note the enforced liberalisation imposed as a condition of aid and debt relief imposed by many donor nations and multilateral organisations like the IMF and the World Bank and supported by the EU. This drive towards ‘liberalisation' means not only opening up home markets to multinational penetration but also the privatisation of state owned industries and service sectors. These are the same pressures which UNISON members have to fight in this country to defend services, jobs and living standards. The revision in 2005 of the UK government's position on conditions attached to aid is welcome. However it now needs to be applied to its contribution to debt relief, and to be argued forcefully at the EU, IMF and World Bank. The UK government should support this by demonstrating the damage done by the imposition of these conditions by these institutions. In conclusion, this meeting agrees that within UNISON's international campaigning and solidarity work, exposing and working to remove such conditionality should be a high priority. REMITTED TO BRANCH COMMITTEE AND CARRIED top 14. Global warming and climate change Proposed by Matthew Crighton (City Development) Stephen McMurray (Associated Bodies) This meeting notes that the clear evidence of climate change arising from human productive activity poses the challenge of the capacity of humanity to order production and the world economy for the common good, so that we can live comfortably without damaging our environment. The alternative is an unprecedented series of crises arising from environmental degradation across the world and the economic and social catastrophes which would follow. We believe that a sustainable path for economic development which does not require climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions and can meet the reasonable aspirations for a high quality standard of living across the world is possible. However the partial targets set in the Kyoto agreement fall so far short of this that they either create a false illusion of progress or undermine credibility in the possibility of a economic future which does not produce climate change. In addition we understand that carbon emission trading schemes are not a sufficient means for achieving this. We recognise the scale of this challenge and that there is an urgent need for a policy platform on climate change, energy policy, energy efficiency and sustainable economic development which shows the route to a climate-neutral economic future. This needs to be credible (i.e. it is sufficient to deal with the problem), practical (i.e. it is technically feasible and capable of winning popular support) and socially-just. As a contribution to this process, while recognising that an international solution is required, we agree that UNISON aims to support the development of conversion plans to a climate-neutral economy at Scottish and UK levels. In addition it will seek to develop support for this approach nationally and internationally, in particular within the labour movement. REMITTED TO BRANCH COMMITTEE AND CARRIED top International top 15. Palestine Proposed by John Stevenson (Children & Families) John Ross (Housing) Conference notes that despite the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in September 2005 Israel has continued to create new settler outposts across the West Bank and to expand the existing settlements. Israel has also continued to build the so-called ‘Separation Barrier', dividing Palestinian towns and villages, cutting them off from access to vital agricultural land and water supplies and leading to a de-facto annexation of territory occupied illegally since 1967. Conference condemns the appalling social and economic conditions created by the occupation under which ordinary Palestinians have to live. Up to 65% of the Palestinian workforce are unemployed, condemning 70% of Palestinians to live below the poverty line, resulting in malnutrition amongst children and stress-related diseases in adults. Conference also believes that the cost of the occupation is having a detrimental effect on Israeli society and the economy. 20% of Israelis live below the poverty line and the government is having to cut back and privatise essential public services. Conference calls on the National Executive Council: a) to continue to campaign with Trade Union Friends of Palestine, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others for an immediate end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the creation of a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state, alongside a secure Israel b) to continue to develop capacity building projects and solidarity work with the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions c) to facilitate dialogue and co-operation between the PGFTU and the Histadrut, and thereby create a wider civil society movement campaigning for peace and economic justice based on exchange for land. REMITTED TO BRANCH COMMITTEE AND CARRIED top 16. Histradut Proposed by Marlyn Tweedie (Health & Social Care) Duncan Smith (Housing) That this trade union calls on the STUC/TUC to boycott the Histradut, the Israeli "Trade Union". There is no common ground between the aims of British trade unions and the Histradut. Like all Zionist institutions, it shares a racist commitment to ensuring Arabs, including Arab citizens of Israel, remain a minority in relation to Jews. Palestine remains under military occupation causing untold deaths and suffering. In solidarity with their oppression, we ask that the TUC/STUC stop inviting the Histradut and instead invite delegations from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions. REMITTED TO BRANCH COMMITTEE AND LOST Motions Ruled Out of Order top 17. Scrap the Self Nomination Provision Proposed by David Hop WITHDRAWN top   top Policy Motions In line with practice since the inauguration of the branch, motions have been prioritised under the following headings. In addition, they are prioritised on whether they are urgent, instruct the branch to act on an issue within its remit, and need a branch meeting decision. Where there is no clear priority, they are in the order in which they were received. Council Budget, cuts, redundancies (local action) Service Conditions Issues (ie pay and conditions) Health & Safety m Pensions and Superannuation UNISON Services and Structure Policy and Campaigning Economic Policy m International Miscellaneous Any motions not dealt with will be remitted to the Branch Committee. COMPOSITES * Movers of motions marked thus are asked to try to merge them into composites to simplify business. EMERGENCY MOTIONS Must be urgent, unable to be submitted within the timescales and relevant. They require a two-thirds majority to be heard. Because of developments in Single Status and Equal Pay, negotiators may wish to submit emergencies on these. top