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)

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Card vote fiasco mars pensions debate

A lengthy and contentious, yet generally comradely, debate about the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) at today's UNISON Local Government Conference was marred at its conclusion by some spectacularly inept Chairing, as UNISON's Vice-President refused to call a card vote in breach of UNISON Rule P.8.1, which requires the Chair to call a card vote if (as was clearly the case) in excess of 10% of the delegates demand one.



Officials refused to permit a delegate (me, as regular readers might expect) to raise a point of order, contrary to UNISON Rule P.15.1. This calls into question the legitimacy of a decision, which may well have reflected the views of Conference, to refrain from making any recommendation at this stage in relation to the forthcoming member ballot on the LGPS 2014 proposals.



I'll blog further about the debate when I'm less irate...

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rule P6 says any questions of procedure or order shall be decided by President whose ruling is final. So the chair was within rule to decide as he did.

Doris Anorak

Brian said...

The chair thought that he could do whatever he wanted. It is disappointing that he convinced even one union member.