General Secretary's report to UNISON NEC

As always, the General Secretary gave a wide ranging report to yesterday's meeting of the UNISON NEC in order to cover items not already on the agenda. These included the following;
UNISON will be supporting Saturday’s demonstration in solidarity with the people of Burma, meeting at Millbank at 11am on Saturday 6 October;
Dave Prentis congratulated the Greater London Region on organising the “Slavery, Yesterday, Today but not Tomorrow” event on 17 September, which he had attended;
UNISON have established a telephone hotline to combat racism in the National Health Service;
The Police Community Support Officers in the North West unjustly criticised in the media over the tragic drowning of a child were UNISON members and UNISON was making complaints to the BBC and the Press Complaints Commission about the way they had been treated;
Keith Sonnet, Deputy General Secretary, had not won the election to be General Secretary of the Public Services International (PSI) and there were significant concerns about the way the election had been run, which UNISON would be considering;
In reporting from the TUC, the General Secretary mentioned the Fremantle dispute and urged support for the demonstration on Saturday 10 November – at which he said he would try to be in attendance;
It was reported that UNISON had supported the constitutional changes at Labour Party Conference on the basis that these could be reversed in two years time. This had been the position of all the trade unions organised through TULO (the Trade Union Labour Organisation). There was some unexplained amusement when I asked how UNISON actually voted on this at the Conference (perhaps one of our Conference delegates in the Region will be able to explain that!)