Since I seem to have taken to blogging about the various Committees of the UNISON National Executive Council (NEC) I think it only right that I should turn my attention to the one Committee on which I served for fourteen years - the Development and Organisation (D&O) Committee.
Those who want to wait for the film version should look away now.
In each of my seven terms on the NEC the D&O Committee was a large Committee, reflecting the number of NEC members who expressed an interest in serving on the Committee. That in turn probably reflects the wide-ranging brief of the Committee.
D&O is responsible for recruitment and retention, UNISON structures, member participation, proportionality and fair representation, activist education, union learning, computer systems (including the RMS - the “replacement membership system”) and constitutional issues.
The Committee has generally useful discussions of recruitment statistics, and many of the subjects which crop up on its agenda are not that controversial. D&O inherited responsibility for activist education and union learning in 2005 when the former Education and Training Committee was terminated (following the unfortunate episode in which UNISON lost over a million pounds through the creation of “Care Connect Learning”).
Discussion about education and training matters, like recruitment, was (in my time) not usually controversial. D&O also has oversight of proportionality and fair representation (including the scheme of representation for branches at National Delegate Conference) - which became uncontroversial as we settled in to what is now a fairly long established scheme.
Over the years, contentious discussions about UNISON structures and constitutional issues enlivened D&O meetings. D&O receives, for example, a regular report of branches under regional supervision - this was something which developed during my time on the NEC as NEC members sought to hold to account the Regional Secretaries who are responsible for those branches (although in later years the report was scaled back).
Since taking a branch into regional supervision denies to the members of that branch some important democratic rights, NEC members on the D&O Committee need to be diligent to ensure that they understand why such a step has been taken - and also need to keep the pressure on regions to restore branches to democratic functioning as soon as practicable.
D&O is responsible for updating of the Code of Good Branch Practice, a piece of work which seems to have been outstanding for a good few years. Since the Code is often (mistakenly) treated as if it had the force of the Rule Book, NEC members may want to think about updating it in a more inclusive way at some point. The last time it was updated it was done by Chair’s action.
The Chair of D&O also has, on behalf of the Committee, a particular individual responsibility to the NEC as a whole for internal disciplinary matters (under Rule I and Schedule D). It is the Chair of D&O who decides (on behalf of the NEC in accordance with I.5.1.2) whether a disciplinary investigation into an individual member should be initiated.
The D&O Chair also presents (to most meetings of the NEC) a report listing all outstanding disciplinary cases (the approval of which amounts to the NEC taking the decision it is required to take by Rule I.5.3).
As part of these responsibilities it is also the Chair of D&O who exercises the NEC’s power to suspend members under Rule C.7.4. (a process which is described in the Employment Appeal Tribunal decision in the Bakhsh case).
NEC members who have questions about disciplinary matters cannot raise them verbally at the NEC meeting but must put them in writing in order to receive a written response during the meeting. This process evolved in order to avoid prejudicing NEC members, who might be required to sit upon disciplinary panels, but it isn’t perfect and the NEC may want to review it in due course.
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