23 January - speak up for Public Services

I’ll post a full report from today’s meetings of the Regional Committee and Regional Council of Greater London Region UNISON later (best not to blog when angry…). I am sorry to report that, for the second time in a row there was not a quorum present at the Regional Council. It is some years since we had two out of three inquorate Regional Council meetings in a year and it is a sorry statement about the organisation of the Union by the Regional office that we have ended up in this predicament.

Amongst the constructive points which I would have liked to have had the time to make at the Regional Committee meeting this morning, had it not been terminated early by the Chair, would have been a call to all London UNISON branches – and members – to support the TUC Lobby of Parliament on Tuesday 23 January 2007 to “speak up for public services!”

Whilst it is a shame that this message was not conveyed to the 92 voting delegates who did turn up today, I hope that we can get the message across to UNISON members in London that we need a unified, joint union campaign against privatisation, I am sure that we can mobilise significant support from 130,000 UNISON members in Greater London for our public services (in line with the views of a large majority as expressed in a recent opinion poll).