Broad lefts and rank-and-file groups

Unison right wing plans pushback

The first face to face conference of the public services union Unison for three years meets in Brighton on 14-17 June. It is also the first since Unison’s first-ever election of a left National Executive Committee (NEC), the first since Covid hit, and the first since campaigns on 2021-2 pay went badly in Unison’s two biggest areas, local government and health. On 6 June the union, jointly with GMB and Unite, announced its pay claim for local government: the current rate of RPI inflation (presently 11.1%) or a minimum of £2,000. Downsides: the claim comes late, for a pay award that was due in...

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...

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...

Speed up on 2022-23 pay!

The public services union Unison has been consulting on the local government pay claim for April 2022, with the results being fed through to Unison representatives on the National Joint Council alongside other public sector unions. Members haven’t yet been given a timeline for future decisions. The options given to members were a flat rate claim, or RPI plus 2% The claim is to be for pay from 1 April 2022, and yet hasn’t even been submitted yet. RPI inflation is currently 9.0%, so we have to build confidence in an urgent fight for a serious pay award. Many Unison members will receive the 1.75%...

From fear to fightback (John Moloney's column)

We need to learn from the result of our consultative ballot over cost-of-living issues. We will be able to break the data down to workplace and branch levels, and the places with higher rates of return will give us an indication of where we have stronger organisation. Around 70,000 members took part in the ballot, but that includes those who voted electronically and postally, as we have some members for whom we don’t have email addresses. As can be imagined, amongst those who voted electronically we had a higher turnout. It’s clear we didn’t sufficiently energise our activist base in this...

Vote Independent Left in PCS

Nominations for the National Executive Committee (NEC) and Group Executive Committee (GEC) elections in the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) closed on Thursday 10 March. Workers’ Liberty supporters in the PCS are part of Independent Left (IL). The other main groups in the union are Left Unity (LU), the dominant leadership faction, for many years run as an alliance between general secretary Mark Serwotka and the Socialist Party, and the Broad Left Network (BLN), the Socialist Party’s new vehicle created after they fell out with Serwotka and split from LU. All three networks – IL, LU...

Unison NEC left must turn outwards

The left took the majority on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the public services union Unison in June 2021. Eight months later, what difference can Unison members notice? Understandably the NEC majority has placed an emphasis on reforming the structures of the union. They have vowed to learn a lesson from the experience when the Labour Party right retained much of the power after Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership poll. Time for Real Change (TFRC), the majo group in the NEC left, has moved to wrestle democratic control of key committees and increase the number and accountability of...

Unison joins universities battle

Ten Higher Education branches of the public services union Unison are striking in February and March against a 1.5% pay increase, imposed in August 2021, or to defend their USS pensions. Price inflation is 7.5% on the RPI measure and pay has been cut by around 11% in real terms over the last decade. At my institution, a level 2 administrator started at £16,376 in 2011, equivalent to £21,487 today, but now they are paid £19,209 when they start. Unison organises lower grade admin including many library staff, and estates and facilities operations including cleaners, catering, security, hall...

Making change real in Unison

The Time for Real Change campaign in the public services union Unison has released a statement about the General Secretary instructing staff to not support committees and attempting to block the new National Executive (NEC: which has a left majority for the first time ever, led by TFRC) from making meetings more regular and accountable. There is also an attempt to block proposals on electing senior officials and clarifying the paid release to attend NEC meetings. The previous leadership in Unison had agreed to pay employers for full release for some NEC representatives, but not those on the...

Turning round Unison after the pay setback

This spring brings the nomination stage for the Time for Real Change candidates for service group national executives in the Unison public services union (Health, Local Government, Higher Education, Community, Energy and Transport sectors). Branch nominations opened on 10 January and branches can meet any time up to 11 February to nominate. Members will vote from 28 April to 25 May. TFRC is standing a significant number of candidates, with a real chance of breakthroughs in these sectors and improvements in some regions like mine (Northern). Democracy But national elections in themselves won’t...

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