Union meetings..Now and then

On Tuesday I had the great joy of attending the UNISON London Regional Committee.  Before I bored everyone to tears with my Finance Convener report, the Regional Council Officers (RCO) had tabled a statement to the Committee on “Responding to the Coalition Government”. 

This one and a half page statement was something that we RCO’s had genuinely thought would be welcomed and serve to unite all sections of the Committee. It recognised that the real agenda of the Coalition government was to destroy our public services and committed the region to campaign and defend public services.

It also stated that we must ensure the union survives; work with members to defend jobs and livelihoods; campaign for quality public services; organise in private companies; enhance unity across workplaces and unite London against the Coalition.

All good stuff I thought.  I was expecting a debate on the statement (this was our first meeting since the General Election) however for some reason the discussion only centred on the use of this one sentence (& two words) the “current attack on public services is not only an attack on public service workers but on our society and the British people as a whole”.

There was then, to my mind, a very odd and rather unreal debate about the use of the term “British People”!  According to some members of the committee this was the wrong term to use since there are millionaires who are British so if we use the word British this means we are actually defending millionaires? 

Hmmm. 

One committee member wanted us to get rid of “British people” and instead only use the term “working class”.  It was gently pointed out that while we here today might indeed think all working people in Britain are “working class”, most workers, rightly or wrongly, do not recognise that this term applies to them and if we want to genuinely connect with them we should use terms that they relate to. 

This statement of the bleeding obvious didn’t go down well with a minority of committee members and the debate continued. I pointed out that the use of the term “British people” was actually something that we RCO’s had welcomed because we felt it was vital  to make the argument that the public sector trade unions are not just opposing the coalition just to defend our our own jobs and interests - but that we think that quality public services should be protected since they are the glue that hold this country together! 

There were some sensible points made such as some of our members are not British or do not see themselves as British (as my Plaid Cymru Councillor brother-in-law would no doubt agree). 

But overall I was astonished and frustrated that in the face of the impending Coalition Tsunami and slash and burn of our public services - we spent our precious time arguing over the modern day equivalent of “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”.  

It has since become apparent that one of the reasons for this classic “Life of Brian” debate was that some of our ultra left witch hunting brethren had thought (wrongly as usual) that the phrase “British Public” had been inserted into the statement by some dastardly doublethink enemy of their micro-sects!

Due to the scale of the threat we face we really cannot afford to waste any more of our time on such pointless and self indulgent navel gazing or rearranging of the Titanic's deck chairs. The ultra left have got to grow up and stop behaving like a dog constantly gnawing and slobbering at its favourite bone. IMO.

(see video: some things don't change)

UNISON NDC 2010: End of Conference – Goodbye Bournemouth

The UNISON National delegate conference finished at 4pm on Friday. Our President, Gerry Gallagher, was given the traditional very emotional UNISON “goodbye and thanks” - which left him red eyed and saying he would close conference down now since he was sure we didn’t want to see a grown man cry!

Conference will still live on a few more days on this blog as I will still post on some of the debates, fringes and speeches that I didn’t have time to do at the time.

It was actually quite a positive conference and apart from the occasional silliness by the Ultra (disunited) left it went quite smoothly and there were some very good and constructive debates. There was a bit of fuss and bother by some daftey on Wednesday who came to conference wearing a tee-shirt praising someone who had been kicked out of the union by independent lay discipline committees after being accused of let us say – “very serious extremely offensive behaviour” against trade union members (and various other things!). A number of delegates who represented trade union members who had been brave enough to complain against this person (who is now a paid full time SWP official and currently trying to sue the union) naturally objected to this.

There was a “call for unity” by many speakers – which is fair enough but it seemed that for some speakers this unity would only be on the basis that us proles gratefully accepted their leadership and direction over said “unity”. The words “hell and high water” comes to mind with regard to this particular no doubt kind and generous offer.

There was of course a little bit of the usual NEC “bashing and baiting”. But even the sensible left of UNISON London region had a “comradely” disagreement with the NEC over a proposed maximum term of office.

Conference was however solid and united in its opposition to the CONDEM s attempt to decimate our public services. UNISON 1.3 million members are rolling up our collective sleeves, getting ready for a fight, weighing up what is Tory bluster and what they think they can get away with – and what we shall be doing to stop it.

As is my want after close of conference I went off for rest and recuperation in another south coast resort for the weekend, this year, Weymouth in Dorset. Picture is the lovely view from bedroom window on Saturday morning. I recommend the Weymouth fish restaurant “Floods” and the late night Friday (not Saturday) boogie at the “Edinburgh - House of Sounds” bar.

It was all very strange that no-one in Weymouth was at all interested in standing order committee reports, or rule P expulsions (apparently there was some sort of football tournament going on somewhere? :)