Full details of the complaints about the UNISON General Secretary election have been published officially

Readers of this blog know where to go for occasionally obscure and often tedious posts about the state of the trade union movement in general and UNISON in particular.

This Friday lunchtime I can offer a signpost to some weekend reading for those of you interested in the impending hearing in front of the Assistant Certification Officer (ACO) of a number of complaints arising from last year’s election for the position of UNISON General Secretary. As one of the complainants I declare an interest.

This link is to the decision of the ACO from the recent preliminary hearing and provides details of all the complaints which are to be heard, and the issues to be decided by the ACO at the final hearing on 19, 20 and 21 December.

I shall not provide a running commentary on further preparations for the hearing, but will remark that, at paragraph 7(b) of the decision it is confirmed that, save for one particular disagreement between the Union and some of the claimants, the essential accuracy of the recording and transcript of a meeting of UNISON staff which took place at UNISON’s Greater London Regional Office in Congress House on 21 October 2015 is not at issue (although it would appear that the “context” of the meeting may be an issue).

As regular readers (Sid and Doris Blogger) would expect, I shall remind you that I make no allegations against the successful candidate, Dave Prentis (who had “clean hands” in relation to that meeting) – you can read the complaints which I am making on pages 7 and 8 of the decision from the preliminary hearing (which is itself a public document).