UNISON's One Priority - Defending Public Services

The major item for discussion at last week's UNISON NEC, led off by our General Secretary but also involving most of the other senior officers in the room in one way or another, was around a report entitled "Defending Public Services."



Dave Prentis made clear that this should be viewed as THE priority for our Union over the coming months, and should provide the focus and direction for all the activities of every part of our Union.



Probably because this was the first NEC meeting since Conference (and therefore also the first since the Emergency Budget) the combined length of the officer introductions to this 11 page report exceeded an hour, although as the report's author rightly pointed out; "UNISON must be judged by our actions in this period not the length and extent of our analysis."



Given the proposed review of timing for future NEC meetings (of which more below) the error of not having met in July will not, I hope, be repeated.



The report itself usefully summarised the attacks upon us from the Coalition Government and the response to date from UNISON and the wider trade union movement. Rather than repeat that here I will append the document to my report to London UNISON Branches.



The key point from this debate was that our defence of public services must be the central principle around which we organise all our trade union activity, building towards the TUC demonstration in March (and various elections in May) on the basis of local anti-cuts activity.



United on this basis we can be formidable. I hope we are.

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