Now -read the book!

Here is a link to my memoirs which, if you are a glutton for punishment, you can purchase online at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history.
Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name. (William Morris - A Dream of John Ball)

Monday, June 14, 2021

What have #timeforrealchange ever done for us? A Seventh Internationalist writes...


In many years of trade union activity I have come across comrades (and quite often friends) from a very wide range of different groups of what are often referred to as “Trots”. It is an observation so commonplace as never really to be funny that these groups are very fissiparous - and this has led, over the years, to various different organisations (in different parts of the world) claiming the mantle of the “Fourth International” (although there is one legitimate holder of the franchise).

Some enterprising comrades, rather than continue to squabble about who is, or is not “really” the Fourth International, went on to set up the Fifth International. I have often thought that, if I were to abandon my wishy-washy “left reformism” I would probably want to get ahead of the game by declaring myself an adherent of the “Seventh International”. We Seventh Internationalists would be very pure and rigorous in our politics.


At the moment, for example, Seventh Internationalists, not wishing to get carried away by the electoral success of the #timeforrealchange candidates in the UNISON NEC elections, would be demonstrating our clear leftist credentials by demanding to know “just what have they achieved so far, eh?”


The answer would be - of course - “nothing” and that would be for the reason that those whose election to the UNISON NEC was announced last Friday have not yet taken office are not therefore in a position to do anything just yet.


Under Rule D.2.7.1; “The period of office of every [NEC member] shall be from the close of National Delegate Conference immediately following the declaration of the result of the election to the close of the National Delegate Conference two years later.”


This year UNISON is having a (virtual) Special Delegate Conference instead of the normal National Delegate Conference and therefore the term of office of the 2019-2021 NEC will end, and the term of office of the 2021-23 NEC will commence at the close of the Special Delegate Conference.


The first thing which the incoming NEC needs to do is to elect its President and two Vice-Presidents (together comprising “the Presidential Team”). This is normally done at a meeting of the new NEC on the final day of National Delegate Conference and so should - this year - take place before the end of this week.


After this meeting - and before the first regular meeting - NEC members are invited to express preferences as to the Committee(s) on which they will serve. Newly elected member are normally briefed about this process by officers during Conference week (although they would be well advised to pay more attention to more experienced fellow NEC members).


The Presidential Team are then (formally) responsible for making recommendations to the first full regular meeting of the new NEC (which usually takes place early in July) as to the composition of the NEC’s Committees, based upon the preferences expressed by members and (officially) taking into account proportionality, fair representation and the balance of membership between the different categories of seats on the NEC. 


I wouldn’t like to say that this is work which (in my time on the NEC) was often done - at least initially - by officers and then approved by the Presidential Team. So I won’t say that. Unofficially the composition of Committees (at least in the past) also reflected the views of the Presidential Team about NEC members - what else could explain why a male Regional NEC member from Greater London (myself) spent ten years on only one Committee whilst a male Regional NEC member from the East Midlands served on so many Committees he had to spend almost his whole time in London?


Notionally the NEC itself approves the composition of all of its Committees, but in practice (at least in the past) the recommendations put before the July NEC (biennially after each set of elections) were nodded through (occasionally with a slight amendment if someone of sufficient standing was sufficiently put out as to make an effective fuss - never myself having had such standing I never paid much attention…)


The exception to this is the NEC members of the Labour Link Committee (who are elected at a special meeting of all NEC members who pay into the Affiliated section of the Political Fund) and the Campaign Committee (if that is what it is now called - I think of it as the General Political Fund Committee) whose members are elected at a special meeting of NEC members who pay into the General section of the Political Fund. The NEC adjourns its July meeting (biennially after the NEC elections) to allow these meetings to take place.


Once the Committee memberships are agreed, the NEC adjourns (again) so that each Committee can meet for just long enough to elect their Chair and Vice-Chair. This is important because all of the business of the NEC is carried out through its various Committees and (between meetings of the Committee) the Chair (or, in their absence, the Vice-Chair) can act on behalf of the Committee. The exceptions to this are those Committees which include NEC members but do not consist exclusively of NEC members (the Labour Link Committee, National Women’s Committee etc.) which have their own separate arrangements for electing their Chair and Vice-Chair.


The July NEC also elects/appoints the NEC members who will form part of UNISON’s delegation to the forthcoming annual meeting of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in September and makes nominations to the General Council of the TUC for the coming year. There are some interesting observations to make about this process, but they are for a subsequent blog post.


The meeting of NEC members who pay into the Affiliated Political Fund also chooses a (very) small number of NEC members who pay into that section of the fund (regardless of whether they are members of the Labour Link Committee) to join the delegation to Labour Party Conference in October.


Although the NEC (under Rule D.2.1) “shall have full power and authority to act on behalf of the Union in every respect and for every purpose falling within the objects of the Union.” Subject to the proviso that “it shall not do anything that is inconsistent with [UNISON] Rules or the policy of the Union as laid down by the National Delegate Conference,” from a practical point of view this power depends very much upon the existence of all the NEC Committees, with their Chairs and Vice-Chair, if the paid officials of the Union are, effectively to be held to account. 


Therefore it will be at least a month from now before the newly elected members of UNISON’s NEC are in a position to even begin to effect any change and, in reality, it will probably be at the TUC in September that such change may become clearly apparent.


Of course none of these practical realities would matter to my hypothetical comrades of the Seventh International, who would already be working on an article for our next bulletin (due out in the early autumn after the entire membership of our tendency had enjoyed a summer break at a small cottage in Prestatyn) denouncing the #timeforrealchange majority on the UNISON NEC for not having initiated an insurrection before the end of August.


I hope that all of the new members of the UNISON NEC are prepared for the aggravation which they will be facing…


(Good luck comrades!)

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