UNISON NEC motions to Conference

UNISON's National Executive Council meeting having been interrupted by an unexpectedly prolonged "special" meeting of our Policy Committee, I have the opportunity to report on the first half of the meeting without breaking the promise I gave to a previous President not to blog during meetings.

The NEC has agreed thirteen policy motions for submission to National Delegate Conference. I assume we are exceeding our normal quota of twelve (the number which the NEC can prioritise) because we anticipate that one (a holding motion on the review of branch funding) will be timetabled automatically.

I'll blog separately about branch funding soon as I think it's a vital question and I've been involved (with a branch hat on) in discussions between branches seeking sensible change.

The other policy motions are, two from the Development and Organisation Committee (on Organising and "Promoting Learning as a recruitment and organising tool"), two from the International Committee (on Colombia and Burma) and eight from the Policy Committee.

The Policy Committee motions are on;
Public Services;
Challenging inequality and the squeeze on living standards;
Campaigning for fair and progressive taxation;
Fighting welfare and benefit cuts;
Resisting the pay cap;
Fighting for employment rights;
Outsourcing and privatisation, and;
An alternative to austerity.

I proposed changes to the pay cap and employment rights motions, and accepted slightly different amendments suggested instead by the Chair of Policy.

On employment rights I am pleased that the motion will (when it shortly appears in the Preliminary Agenda) demonstrate to activists and branches that our NEC is working to ensure that UNISON members bringing employment tribunal claims with the support of the Union will not have to pay the fees which are to be introduced later in the year.

The text of the motions (as, in those two cases, slightly amended) will be published in any case shortly, but if any Greater London UNISON branches have an urgent need to see the text of NEC policy motions to Conference, let me know.

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