Now -read the book!

Here is a link to my memoirs which, if you are a glutton for punishment, you can purchase online at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history.
Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name. (William Morris - A Dream of John Ball)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Bucking our ideas up?

The unfortunately inquorate meeting of UNISON's Greater London Regional Council is now hearing an important presentation about the work of Show Racism the Red Card (http://www.srtrc.org/).



The inspiring and positive contributions from both Megan Dobney and Jeremy Corbyn, about which I have just blogged, have however got me thinking about whether our Region is really as fit as it could be for the purpose of coordinating our defence of public services.



Since Geoff Martin stood down as Regional Convenor the only quorate meetings of our Regional Council have been the Annual General Meetings. Cross service group co-ordination is done not in large and representative meetings but in a small Committee the proceedings of which are not shared with our members.



The office mobilises brilliantly for the annual health training day, and to get delegates along to the AGM, but an internal focus will not suffice to mobilise our 130,000+ members on the streets.



Regular readers Sid and Doris Marxist-Leninist will be familiar with my occasional role as a "critical friend" to the UNISON machine in Greater London, but righjt now, the single priority set by our NEC seems so much more important than internal political squabbles.



I hope that this view can now prevail and that UNISON in Greater London can achieve our potential now that we need to more than ever.

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

1 comment:

Derek Affected said...

There might be better attendance at Council if RO's weren't so disparaging of the union's democratic structures when talking to relatively inexperienced activists.