Cheers Malcolm!

This evening I have a good excuse for my continuing failure to blog a full report from last week's meeting of the UNISON National Executive Council (NEC).



I have been at a meal with comrades remembering a friend we have lost (http://remembermalcolmcampbell.blogspot.com/?m=1).



A collection of branch activists, together with former Chairs of the Local Government Service Group Executive (SGE) and National Joint Council (NJC) Committee gathered in honour of a former leading activist (Malcolm Campbell, Croydon UNISON), whom we lost three years ago.



Malcolm Campbell did not live to enjoy his pension, but I am fairly certain that he would have been unforgiving of those prepared to sacrifice our pension rights on the altar of that "realism" which teaches us always to give in.



As such he would have found himself in convivial company this evening, amongst lay activists who refuse to capitulate and who face clearly, without illusions, the difficult reality in which we find ourselves.



Early on this evening I was rightly berated by comrades for my failure to issue a circular about subsections (g) (h) and (i) of s188(4) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. I protested that I had been allowing time for union officials to do this - I like to think that Malcolm would have shared the disdain with which this poor excuse on my part was viewed by comrades.



As we move forward in the struggle we are empowered by, and owe a debt to, those who came before.

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