Union conferences

Jim Byagua reports on the 2005 conventon of the AFL-CIO, the United States’ trade union federation. The AFL-CIO convention, which took place in Chicago on 25-8 July, was witness to two important developments. One concerned the split in the American labour movement, the other, the US occupation of Iraq. Four of the biggest affiliated unions — SEIU service employees, UFCW food and commercial workers, UNITE HERE textile, hospitality and retail workers and the Teamsters — boycotted the event. Two unions, LIUNA laborers and UFWA farm workers, did attend, but are working with the boycotters as well...

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...

Possible privatisation of Royal Mail, and the union’s link to the Labour Party, were the big issues at the General Conference of the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) in Blackpool from Sunday 12 June. On Sunday the Executive’s emergency proposition, calling for a strategy to defeat privatisation and a review of the Labour link at conference 2006 if privatisation happens was narrowly passed. The alternative was a demand to withdraw from the Labour Party in November 2005 if the Government will not give a restatement of its commitment in the general election manifesto to keep the Post Office...

By Maria Exall, CWU Executive (pers cap) The intertwined issues of pensions and retirement age will be on the agenda at this year’s Communication Workers’ Union conference. The Post Office schemes are not in the frame for the attacks curremtly happening in the rest of the public sector, but the threat is still there. There will be a call for ballots for strike action if any attempt is made to reduce benefits or increase the age that members are entitled to claim their pension. The issue of possible Post Office privatisation will be discussed but motions also call for a review of the Postal...

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...

Ken Livingstone's office has produced a document defending his invitation to the Muslim cleric Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi to City Hall in July 2004. Al-Qaradawi is a leading spokesperson of the Muslim Brotherhood. According to a briefing written by gay activist group Outrage, using the words of Qaradawi himself, the Livingstone dossier includes factually untrue claims in defence of Dr al-Qaradawi. From Outrage’s briefing: The Mayor claims Dr al-Qaradawi is one of the Muslim scholars who have done the most to combat socially regressive interpretations of Islam on issues such as women’s rights. Dr al...

On the final day of NUS conference, the two Union of Jewish Students members on NUS national executive, Luciana Berger and Mitch Simmons, resigned in protest at the NUS leadership’s failure to stand up to growing anti-semitism in the student movement. In addition to the Executive’s lack of response to a variety of anti-semitic comments and incidents over the last year, they might also have cited the political capitulation in search of votes, by NUS President Kat Fletcher and her allies to the MAB-supporting leadership of FOSIS. Yet their resignation statement met with scoffs from all parts of...

By Sacha Ismail Events at National Union of Students Conference, which took place in Blackpool between April 5 and 7, should sound the alarm for socialists in the student movement and beyond. The deterioration of NUS’s political culture is gathering pace, with the leadership and sections of the left facilitating the rise of right-wing forces that previously had no presence in the student movement. The Islamist-led Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) was strong enough to conclude alliances not just with the SWP and others on the “anti-imperialist” far left, but with large swathes of...