Democracy in UNISON

 

Continuing the series of extracts from my memoirs (which you can purchase at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history), here is a recollection of the debate about UNISON democracy back in 2008 during which it was confirmed that UNISON branches have the right to campaign against national recommendations in member ballot;

“Ten years after our 1998 Conference had agreed the motion which led to the first “Democracy in UNISON” guidelines a similarly titled motion had found its way on to the Preliminary Agenda for the 2008 Conference, in the name of the Scotland Region (which reminds me of something that my old friend, Croydon Branch Secretary Malcolm Campbell, used - with an admirable but wholly uncharacteristic lack of diplomacy - to say, which was that Scotland is a Nation, except in UNISON where it is a Region and in cricket where it isn’t even a minor county).

The motion had arisen from Scottish health branches who were angered at attempts to prevent them from making recommendations to their members in the ballot on the previous year’s national pay offer, in circumstances in which the national leadership (the Service Group Executive) had not themselves made a recommendation. I seized the opportunity to draft an amendment to a motion which was certain to be prioritised at Conference, and so Lambeth proposed an amendment which clearly restated the “the right of UNISON members, branches and other appropriate representative bodies to make and campaign within Rule for recommendations in member ballots.”

In preparation for what I felt would be an important Conference debate, I organised a meeting at the (then) University of London Union in Malet Street to coincide with an official UNISON briefing and invited London branches to attend. I made clear that this was a purely unofficial event, and that I had paid for the room booking out of my own pocket. However, that didn’t discourage the Regional Secretary from writing to me warning me not to go ahead with such “factional” activity.

At the risk of repeating myself, I should explain that - in UNISON - “factional” simply meant something the leadership/officials disagreed with (since it was never used to describe the majority faction of the NEC for example, nor “Team Dave” - of which more later). Anyway, I responded to the Regional Secretary by inviting her to attend the meeting, which she did - along with a couple of friends (well, associates)(at least people to sit next to her).

Because the main motion came from the Scottish Region (generally a mainstay of support for the leadership) the NEC had to agree to support it and, realising that they would have trouble defeating the Lambeth amendment the NEC majority agreed (in spite of my attempts at persuasion) to ask Lambeth to remit, on the basis that they would otherwise oppose the amendment (because, they said, UNISON members did not have the right to campaign to change policy…)

When Lambeth refused to remit our amendment, which the Scottish Region had agreed to support, my NEC colleagues chickened out of an argument and agreed to change policy on the amendment to “support with qualifications”. This is - and always has been - a device by which the NEC avoids defeat on the floor of Conference on a motion (or amendment) which it would prefer had never been written but which they know that Conference will pass whatever they say. Which it duly did. We won that round, but in the battle for democracy in UNISON there is no final victory - and no final defeat.”