UNISON

Having read your report on UNISON conference (Solidarity 3-75) I saw it failed to mention an outcome of an issue covered by your paper on 28 April 2005. “The Race-hate election: Why don’t unions answer Tory Racists”. Your article correctly criticised the article in UNISON Labour Link News entitled, “Ten things the Tories did to you. That article included a fact that the asylum applications had increased by 45% under the Tories; this of course is not something we should consider bad i.e. something the Tories did to us, there being plenty of examples of the Tories’ attacks on us such as...

By a delegate Delegates at the national conference of the public services union Unison, meeting in Glasgow from 21 June, have defeated the platform in two votes which show growing distrust of the Blair-Brown government. A motion welcoming the “Warwick Agreement” was defeated. That is the agreement under which, in July 2004, the union leaders agreed to rally behind Blair for the run-up to the General Election, shelving their members’ demands on issues like privatisation and repeal of anti-union laws, in return for a few slight concessions, some of which the Government would have had to give...

By a health worker UNISON members employed by private contractor Serco at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital have decided to take their claim for NHS pay and conditions to arbitration with ACAS. Serco had made a revised pay offer taking basic pay for porters, domestics and catering staff at the hospital to around £5.60 — a significant increase on their current £4.85 but a long way short of the union’s claim for full parity with the new NHS pay system, Agenda for Change, which would have brought in a system of annual incremental rises for all staff, together with extended annual leave...

Activists in the civil service union PCS and the public services union Unison are discussing a push to revive the unions' campaign on pensions at their conferences in June. The union leaders cancelled strikes due on 23 March and 26 April on the basis of a Government promise to negotiate after the election. But there is no reason to suppose that Blair and Brown have backed off from their plans to cut public sector pensions (or that the Tories or a Tory/Lib Dem coalition would go easy on the issue). A government letter, dated 1 April, to everyone involved in "consultation" on the Local...

National Agenda for Change profiles for ambulance workers have just been released. There has been a dispute for some time between UNISON's Ambulance sector and the management organisation, the Ambulance Service Association (ASA), over these profiles. The ASA had been unwilling to agree to the release of profiles because they did not want to fund the likely results - ambulance workers would be entitled to more money. Branches will need to work to ensure the matching process is applied properly and that we are in a position to defend the resulting banding (guaranteeing us higher wages) if it...

By a health worker Health workers are stepping up campaigns for NHS pay and conditions from the private contractors in the NHS. Privatised NHS workers get lower pay and poorer conditions than workers doing the same job on NHS contracts. At Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals workers employed by Serco have voted to strike in support of their claim for NHS pay and conditions. Serco offered them a compromise deal, but talks came to a standstill amid rumours that Serco reneged on their offer at the last minute. A mass meeting in Norwich is due to discuss a response. Action is planned or is...

A UNISON health steward is standing against Blair loyalist Stephen Hepburn in the Jarrow constituency. Roger Nettleship's platform is "Save the National Health Service!", opposing NHS cuts and privatisation . Roger says his decision to stand followed discussions among local NHS union activists. Although the state of the NHS is the key issue for his campaign, it is about much more than hospitals" "The private sector is utilising the public services in Britain as a source of huge profits. PFI in schools and hospitals is now netting big business billions of pounds in profits - funds which could...

By a UNISON member Delegates arrived at UNISON's health conference in Plymouth (25-27 April) burdened by the impact of Agenda for Change, the new NHS pay system, and troubled by uncertainties about the NHS pension scheme. They left three days later with neither issue resolved. That might partly be due to growing cynicism that no matter how good the resolutions on the conference agenda the union's leadership have no intention of carrying them out. The UNISON Health Group leadership supported many motions which implied criticism of their current strategies - including one motion which committed...

By a UNISON member The National Executive Committee elections in Unison are now underway. The left in Unison has been split recently. Last year the Socialist Party walked out of the Unison United Left. In the recent election for the union’s General Secretary current General Secretary Dave Prentis won comfortably, as the left fielded two candidates, Jon Rogers backed by the UUL and Roger Bannister of the SP, who between them managed only a quarter of the vote. In these NEC elections, the two left camps have managed to avoid standing candidates against each other, but more by default than design...