Recruitment to UNISON - must try harder

Well I have finally got round to writing up my report from the last meeting of the UNISON NEC Development and Organisation Committee and have circulated it to London branches. Please Email me at jonrogers1963@btinternet.com if you are a UNISON member in London who would like a copy of the report. The first major discussion was on recruitment. This is picking up again and is now forecast to fall only just short of the 3% target. Alan Kerr, Recruitment Officer gave a typically enthusiastic presentation and pointed out that we are within view of a figure of 1.4 Million members. There is no scope for complacency.

For Greater London the good news is that we are the fastest recruiters in the country, recruiting at an annual rate of 15.23%, however since we have by far the highest turnover figure (14.5%) our actual net growth rate is a mere 0.73% (second lowest). To hit the current national target with a turnover rate of 14.5% we would need to recruit more than 17.5% in total – or (put another way) for each 200 members an average Greater London UNISON branch we need on average to recruit 35 new people a year to meet the target for growth – or 3 people a month. For a branch of 1,000 that is 15 people a month, for 2,000 it is 30 people a month (this does not take account of exceptional membership loss where there are significant job losses for example). All no doubt a good reason to get more branch activists to sign up to Challenge X and recruit ten extra members.