Virtually no disagreement - is that a good thing?

For many years I would attend UNISON Conferences and blog about them here. Today, as a retired member, I obviously did not attend the Special (Virtual) Local Government Committee meeting which took the place of National Local Government Conference.

However, as a diligent delegate was attending from the back garden (whom I pestered from time to time with virtual leaflets and the offer for sale of virtual newspapers) I took an interest in the Conference and noted some comment online about how UNISON Conferences have become a bit tedious. Every single motion on today’s agenda was supported by the Service Group Executive and, as I understand it, every single speaker (all of whom had had to register to speak in advance) was speaking in favour of every proposal.

You may say that perhaps this is a consequence of the Conference taking place online - but having chaired (and attended) numerous Labour Party meetings online now over the past year, I think I can safely say that a virtual meeting need not be a stranger to controversy.

It is certainly true that the prioritisation process which is used for UNISON National Delegate and Service Group Conferences helps to ensure that motions likely to command overwhelming support tend to find their way to the top of the agenda. It is also true that Standing Orders Committees in UNISON have become more effective in ruling out of order potentially controversial motions over the years.

This has helped to lead us to the strange place where the moving of a series of uncontroversial motions with which people get up to speak simply to agree with each other and share their experiences is described as a “debate” - but there is another factor in the decaffeinating of UNISON Conferences, and that is that branch activists seem to be giving up.

On the Final Agenda for today’s Conference, prior to compositing, the Service Group Executive had 11 motions and 1 amendment, Regional Local Government Committees had another 11 motions, National Self-Organised Groups had 7 motions and 2 amendments and Sector Committees had 7 motions (8 if you count the Private Sector Forum).

There were only five motions and six amendments moved by branches and these came from just half a dozen branches (Manchester had two motions, along with Barnet, Renfrewshire and Surrey County who had one each, whilst Camden and Tower Hamlets each had three amendments).

As it has been reported to me, the electronic voting system at today’s Conference underlined the almost North Korean majorities being achieved for the motions. There is, of course, nothing at all wrong with many - even most - motions commanding overwhelming support if there is a consensus within the Union about what needs to be done.

However, when there is so much dissatisfaction among the rank and file membership with declining living standards and the prospect of yet further savage spending cuts, it seems a little unhealthy - not to say surreal - if this dissatisfaction does not find voice in at least some genuine debate (ie. around motions with which some people disagree as they consider different options for action). 

If there are branch activists who were delegates at today’s Conference, or who are receiving reports from that Conference, and who are dissatisfied with a Conference lacking in genuine debate then the solution is in your own hands comrades. Put proposals up through your branches, lobby for their prioritisation and force a debate or - if you read motions which seem to you to be too anodyne or vague - take a leaf out of Camden and Tower Hamlets books and propose amendments to them.

UNISON members have elected a new and more radical National Executive Council, but if the trade union is to be reinvigorated this cannot simply be done from above, it must be done from below as well as from above - and branch activists have it in their hands to make future UNISON Conferences more worthwhile.