My first day back at work was as exhausting as you would imagine – but on the way home I was pleased to bump into my friend and comrade Kevin Courtenay – newly elected Deputy General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers.
This of course reminded me that my branch Annual General Meeting has instructed our Branch Committee to try to write a Rule Amendment for UNISON Conference to introduce the election of the Deputy General Secretary (and which won’t be ruled out of order).
The question of leadership for our public service trade unions was underlined by today’s Evening Standard which renewed its scaremongering about the Local Government Pension Scheme. The coming months offer great challenges to all of us - and I wish Kevin and his NUT colleagues the same luck I wish us all.
Of course some unions used to have an elected DGS but recently abolished it (nodded through Congress) when certain people were concerned that a lefty might win the forthcoming election...
ReplyDeleteI am a member of Unite and we have a huge number of Assistant General secretaries, none of whom are elected and yet they fill out all our delegations to TUC and Labour Party events. All the senior officials of the unions should be elected and no appointed official should be able to sit on delegations to represent lay members. Common problems in both Unison and Unite?
ReplyDeleteSigned
A Democrat