Stop the witch-hunt against Liam Conway!

Submitted by cathy n on 13 August, 2014 - 2:07 Author: By Gerry Bates

The Nottinghamshire Division of the National Union of Teachers has repeatedly written to the General Secretary and the National Secretary seeking to negotiate a settlement on issues relating to financial irregularity in the Division and to close down the matter on just terms. But the appeals of Nottinghamshire members appear to be falling on deaf ears.

Yet the union has continued to process disciplinary cases against those who blew the whistle on the irregularities.

Liam Conway has been the main victim of the union’s actions having now been subject to eight separate disciplinary complaints. Those making the complaints can only have one intention, to have Liam either removed from his officer positions (Secretary of Nottinghamshire NUT) and the National Executive (representing Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) or to have him expelled from the union.

Effectively those initiating false allegations (of bullying, unprofessional conduct and bringing the union into disrepute) have lost the debate and are seeking to use the complaints procedures to overturn the democratic decisions of members.

Two new complaints have been made against Liam Conway since his election to the National Executive in March, both are now being processed to full disciplinary hearings in October.
At every stage over the last two years, members meetings, officer elections in Notts and this year’s NEC election (where, Liam Conway was elected comfortably to represent Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) those bringing the charges have been vindicated in their views and supported overwhelmingly by members.

Even the Certification Office for Trades Unions has written to the NUT informing them that the two internal NUT investigations into the finances of Nottinghamshire NUT were flawed, that the union’s view that no fraud or financial irregularity had occurred was unsustainable, that those who had raised the alarm were right to do so, that on the lack of authorisation for payments and the absence of transparency in the accounts of the payments, the evidence supported their contentions.

It has been claimed that the NEC and national union officers cannot interfere with an independent disciplinary process. This is nonsense!

The NEC and the officials of the union have a responsibility to ensure that all disciplinary complaints comply with both the rules of the union and the law. These cases breach both the law and the union’s rules.

Whistleblower legislation and the 1992 Trade Union Act protect union members from unjustifiable discipline and any detriment arising out of complaints about financial irregularity, provided such complaints are made in good faith.

More importantly, as a result of a similar case in the 1990s when Ian Murch (the current NUT National Treasurer) was suspended from the union, the NUT rules were changed to ensure that no member could be disciplined for opinions “expressed about the policy and management of the union”. This rule has been repeatedly ignored here.

Members of the NUT are paying for this injustice. The cases cost time and money and undermine the functioning of union officers, permanently tying them up in complaints procedures. It is effectively a union groundhog day and not a very nice one.

This is a witch-hunt conducted against Liam Conway and others by the official structures of the NUT. No member of a trade union should be denied the right to blow the whistle on potential wrong-doing in a trade union.

The left should not ignore such wrong-doing for fear it might give a bad name to a trade union. Charges of bringing a trade union into disrepute should not be used to cover-up financial bad practice or other forms of corruption.

The NUT claims to be a democratic lay-led union. This case shows such a claim to be fraudulent. All trade unionists should unite in calling for the end of these complaints and for a settlement of the dispute in Nottinghamshire Division of the NUT on just terms.

We call for an end of the witch-hunt against Liam Conway.

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