What was the meaning of Card Vote 3?

Unison Conference has just heard the result of Card Vote 3 on Rule Amendment 12 from the Bolton Branch.



The Rule Amendment sought to impose a 24 month limit upon the power of the National Executive to suspend from office members who face disciplinary action under Rule I. It was opposed by the NEC.



It required a two thirds majority and narrowly failed to achieve this, securing 718,273 votes for to 373,801 against.



Not surprisingly the vote had looked close to being carried on the show of hands and delegates had been shocked when the Vice President initially refused to call a Card Vote, declaring that the amendment had fallen.



The closeness of the vote, after a recount, thoroughly vindicates those delegates who remained on their feet calling for the Card Vote until the Vice President accepted the advice of the General Secretary and allowed the vote.



Though the NEC clung on with the support of 34.2% of Conference it had earlier lost two Card Votes on NEC Rule Amendments (one to merge the Higher Education Service Group and Further Education Sector and one to prohibit the holding of duplicate branch officer positions).



As is so often the case on the Thursday afternoon of Conference the Conference was shadow boxing in the Rules Debate. The real clear message of the afternoon was that 65.8% of the Conference had lost confidence in the NEC's custody and conduct of our disciplinary procedures.



With Conference rightly ending with calls for unity against the ConDem Government it is time now to end intolerance of dissent in our trade union. The representatives of a large majority of our members throughout Unison made this clear yesterday afternoon.

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