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)

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Happy New Year to the West Midlands!

I’ve just added links to the website of the Staffordshire Branch and the blog of the Birmingham Branch Secretaries. I wish a Happy New Year to UNISON members in the West Midlands, who had the good sense and good fortune to organise a meeting almost immediately after the strike on 30 November, of which our General Secretary rightly made a great deal in his report to the December meeting of our National Executive Council (NEC).

From what the NEC were told, the bulk of our activists in the West Midlands felt that our members could be persuaded to take further action, albeit that it would be difficult to replicate N30. A minority were more gung ho and another minority more pessimistic, but the message which I took from the report of the General Secretary was that we were in a position to take further action if necessary. UNISON in the West Midlands did well to get reliable information to the national Centre as promptly as they did.

Birmingham Branch are also beneficiaries of the particular attention of the new national organising unit – and I will watch with interest in 2012 to see how this initiative turns out. UNISON’s organisation in England’s largest local authority is of more than local interest – and we need to increase our membership and density in every branch.

No comments: