Unison bullies members over pensions

Submitted by Matthew on 22 August, 2012 - 1:31

I am in a local government Unison branch which has a firm branch position of opposition to the pension offer currently on the table.

The deal is not that different to what was on offer prior to our industrial action on 30 November. We will all be working longer, paying more, and getting less.

How has our union ended up recommending acceptance, and indeed threatening any branch that has a different position? The undemocratic way in which this has been handled has shocked many ordinary members and reps and given us all a lesson in the nature of bureaucracy and the lengths they will go to silence dissent.

This “deal” was offered to the union leaders by the government shortly before Unison conference, and yet the Unison leadership only released the details of the deal when they were worried “rival” union GMB might release them first. Unison’s top leaders got the local government Service Group Executive (SGE) to agree that conference shouldn't be allowed to decide our recommendation because conference was “unrepresentative”. In reality, the bureaucrats were rightly worried that conference would, given the opportunity, recommend rejection.

A regional officer came to one of our branch meetings and weakly tried to argue the above point while denying she was doing so.

The idea that our conference, which is supposedly our highest decision making body, couldn't make this recommendation is outrageous.

Unison then ran a postal ballot to decide which recommendation the union should make on a very short timescale (less than two weeks) The turnout was predictably poor; our branch was one of the best in London with over 10%. The literature in favour of the LGPS deal was ridiculously biased, and peppered with arguments based on completely different figures to those used initially. A regional officer shouted at me when I pointed out how unfair a career average scheme was for women (or anyone taking a job break) by saying it was “only women who have children” who would be affected.

Ultimately, though, London region returned a vote to recommend rejection of the deal. Despite this, two of our three reps on the SGE voted to recommend acceptance.

Since the decision to recommend acceptance was taken, the actual ballot on whether or not to accept the deal began, and the Unison machinery has been threatening branches that are campaigning for a no vote, saying we are against Unison policy.

This is completely wrong, as the union cannot have formal policy until the ballot ends (only a “recommendation”), and branches are allowed to organise around their own recommendations until the union has formal policy. Despite support for the deal not being agreed policy, big advertisements have been paid for in papers like the Evening Standard, Guardian, and Metro encouraging Unison members to vote yes. This has all been paid for with members’ money, of course.

Unison leaders have learnt a lot from the ballot on the NHS pensions scheme, where they made no recommendation and members voted to reject the deal. They completely ignored that democratic decision, but have made sure there is little possibility of members exercising this kind of oppositional instinct again.

From the beginning, there was no say from ordinary members and reps in how the local government pensions dispute was organised.

We need to hold our current leaders to account, fight to replace them, and make sure rank-and-file union members are organised independently of the bureaucracy.

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