Union conferences

PCS pay ballot will start 1 September

Civil service union PCS held its national delegate conference in Brighton 24-26 May, preceded by sectoral group conferences. Perhaps four hundred delegates were in Brighton, with some attending online but numbers overall well down since the last physical conference in 2019. The conference voted for a national strike ballot on “cost of living” issues, including pay, pensions and redundancy compensation, to begin 1 September. Whether this should be a single national ballot or disaggregated in some form was remitted to the National Executive Committee. The conference also voted to campaign...

Stand with Ukraine and its labour movement: a letter to UCU Congress delegates and activists

Bombed out building, National University of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine From Denys Pilash, political scientist at Kyiv National University and activist in Ukrainian socialist organisation Sotsialniy Rukh (Social Movement), and Rhian Keyse, Birkbeck UCU and incoming UCU NEC member Dear comrades, At its Congress this week, UCU has the opportunity to take a strong stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and its labour movement. We urge delegates to pass Motion 23 and amendments strengthening it, and reject Motion 22 . The Russian military’s bombing of universities, colleges and schools in...

Aslef and FBU vote down disaffiliation

The Annual Assembly of Delegates (AAD, annual decision-making conference) of the train drivers’ union Aslef voted overwhelmingly, by 74-9, on 16 May to retain the union’s affiliation to the Labour Party. Activists organising to reject disaffiliation motions had been expecting it to be much closer than that. We welcome this vote, which came less than a week after the Fire Brigades Union conference voted down a disaffiliation motion 75-25. Aslef’s Executive Committee remains split on this issue, and this is unlikely to be the last time disaffiliation comes up at conference. It is important to...

PCS meets in conference

As I write, our union, PCS, is holding its group conferences and national conference (23-26 May). The main debates at the national conference will be around our plan for a national industrial action ballot over cost-of-living issues. Two contested issues are when the ballot should take place, and whether it should be a single aggregated ballot, or disaggregated by department. On the former issue, the two proposals are to begin in July, or to begin in September. I favour the latter position, which is also the National Executive Committe (NEC) majority position, simply because I don’t think we...

Unison to debate building turnout

Members in local government of the public services union Unison will meet in conference on 12-13 June, followed by the whole-union conference on 14-17 June. Conferences in 2020 were cancelled because of Covid curbs. There were special online conferences in 2021, but the motions and attendance were very limited. These are the first face-to-face national and local government conferences in two years, and the first since the left, mostly the Time for Real change faction, won the leadership of Unison’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in June 2021. There is a lot on the local government...

Cuts, pay, Ukraine: issues at PCS conference

Civil service union PCS is holding its first real-world annual delegate conference since 2019 (24-26 May, Brighton), though it’s a hybrid: many delegates will still attend virtually. PCS is a left-wing union in general terms, but one with no strategy to break out of years of managed decline. Workers’ Liberty will be working with comrades in PCS Independent Left and other left-wing activists to use the conference to help seriously shift the union, into fighting, organising mode. Sector group conferences take place before the national one. The conference for the largest sector, the Department of...

CWU debates Ukraine and BT pay

The biggest political debate at the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) conference (24-29 April) was on Ukraine. It was messy but ended with the union Executive being able to pursue Ukraine solidarity. Some of us had an emergency motion along the lines of Ukraine solidarity. It was ruled out of order, we got it back on the agenda, and then the Standing Orders Committee composited it with a contradictory one along the lines of the Stop The War campaign. We attempted to challenge the compositing, but the chair ruled that we couldn’t. So we had to just oppose the composite. The Executive’s line...

Report of NEU conference 2022

The first in-person National Education Union (NEU) conference since April 2019 committed to build towards a ballot in either summer or autumn term if the School Teachers Review Body comes up with a poor pay award.

An amendment from Lewisham District with a clearer time line, and which more clearly...

NEU conference debates Ukraine

The first in-person National Education Union (NEU) conference since April 2019 committed to build towards a ballot in either summer or autumn term if the School Teachers Review Body comes up with a poor pay award. An amendment from Lewisham District with a clearer time line, and which more clearly included support staff, was largely gutted by the passing of earlier motions which it was said to contradict, but the speeches and mood of conference suggested that the leadership at least wanted to seem to respond seriously to increasing rank and file pressure on pay. The union will be working with...

Two speeches on Ukraine at NEU conference 2022

The 2022 National Education Union (NEU) conference saw heated debate about Ukraine. In the end the conference voted down the only motion available, a Stop the War Coalition-type one (more on what happened here). Below are excerpts of two speeches given by Ukraine Solidarity Campaign supporters in...

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