Black Members seats on the UNISON NEC

The Tuesday meeting of UNISON's Development and Organisation Committee has agreed to recommend that the NEC proposes amendments to Rule to create Black Members' seats on our NEC.

The Committee had previously considered the results of consultation on the role of the four NEC members who hold the “additional members” seats created in 2000, and agreed the recommendations of a report which proposes to change the title of these posts to “Black Members seats”. By law these seats cannot be restricted to black members only and will be open to all members, but the holders of the seats will have a brief to promote issues of concerns to our black members in particular.

The meeting agreed the recommendations of the report with one slight amendment following clarification that some of the inconsistencies in the proposals were necessary in order to comply with the law. This will lead to an NEC Rule Amendment to this year’s Conference, so that the changes will not take effect until the next NEC elections in 2009.

It is regrettable that the law does not allow trade unions to reserve seats on their NECs for black members. However it is a step forward that we are proposing to create Black Members seats on the highest Committee in the Union.