Support for Roger continues to grow

Over 90 UNISON warehouse members attended the aggregated on site NHS Supply Chain Unison Branch AGM's held on Thursday 25th February 2010.

There was overwhelming support from members for the branch to support Roger Bannister's nomination for the General Secretary Election.

Members commented it was important to have an election for the top Unison post, in which Roger promotes a clear programme in dealing with genuine concerns covering members where at this depot very few members earn above £21, 000 per year.

The Regional Officer attending the AGM commented this is a real work-place based branch.

Brain Loader

Stop Council Cuts!

Roger Bannister, who is seeking nominations to stand in the UNISON general secretary election, commented on the latest round of job cuts announced by councils across the country.

“Up here in Knowsley the Labour council are preparing to slash our jobs in the new financial year. In a pre-emptive strike they have unilaterally ripped up a long-standing agreement for redeployment of those whose jobs have changed or gone. People were put in a redeployment pool for five months. Only after that, if they still didn’t have a job, they would be given three months notice of redundancy. This meant that redundancies were very rare.

The council now say – the three months statutory notice and that’s it. It’s clear that they are preparing the ground for a new wave of redundancies from April. We are organising a strike ballot at the moment, along with the Unite union branch, in opposition to this.

In a further development, we are organising a strike ballot over the defence our 35-hour week agreement. We won this after strike action in 2001.

Under this agreement, workers working 37 hours have had their hours reduced to 36 and should have had them reduced to 35 by 2008. But it didn’t happen. Now the council say that those on 35 hours will be forced to go up to 36 hours.
These attacks by Knowsley council reflect what is happening around the country on jobs and pay. Nationally the local government employers have offered a zero pay increase this year. Last year it was 1.5% which was in effect a pay cut.

The councils, year on year, have faced a 3% cut in grants under New Labour. According to one of our managers: ‘They have trimmed the meat, now they’re cutting the bone’.

Where is the current general secretary Dave Prentis? What does he say about all this? He should be organising a national mobilisation of our members against these cuts in our jobs and pay and against the expected attack on public sector pensions, whoever wins the general election.

Prentis said at UNISON conference last year that if the Labour manifesto did not contain key elements of UNISON policy then UNISON would further cut its financial support for the Labour Party. Brave words then but silence now.
If elected I will begin the process of ending the union’s link with the Labour Party and, along with other unions, would call for the development of a new workers’ party.”

Get your nominations in!

The nominations are coming in now, but the right wing's restrictive timetable means that we have to move quickley. Make sure you raise it in your Branch, and fight for the nomination. UNISON members need a fighting General Secretary!

* For a Fighting General Secretary
* A General Secretary on a Worker's Wage
* Stop Wasting Money on New Labour - Disaffiliate Now!

Get your Branch to Nominate Roger Bannister, nomination close 1 April 2010

Wolverhampton General Branch Nominates Roger Bannister

Wolverhampton General branch have nominated Roger for General Secretary. We need a leadership that will fight for our members rights not a leadership tied hand and foot to New Labour and its agenda.

UNISON seems more intent on expelling activists who are committed to figthing the attacks we face than defending our members interests.

Roger has proven over many years his committment to building a fighting and democratic union.

Activists are often accused of not listening to our members - in nominating Roger we have listened! His call for disaffiliation from a party which is the cause of many of the problems our members face is a clear response to the question we are constantly asked 'why do we continue to donate to New Labour?'.

Dave Auger

No to Birmingham City Council Job Cuts!

Birmingham City Council intends to slash spending by £75 million and destroy up to 2,000 jobs in a cuts package so severe that Thatcher’s spending cuts in the 1980s could seem tame by comparison. Among the services which face the axe are all 23 council-run nurseries, libraries, neighbourhood offices, day centres and care homes for the elderly and youth clubs.

Roger Bannister

The savage cuts announced in Birmingham are being repeated by councils, health authorities and the education sector across the country. While the mainstream parties argue about how deep the cuts should be and how quickly they should be implemented after the election the reality is that the culling of jobs, conditions, pay and public services has already begun in earnest.

Dave Prentis on the UNISON website attacks the Tory’s who run Birmingham Council but Labour councils will be making similar cuts. Is he prepared to attack them?

Why can’t the Labour government bail out our public services as they did with the banks?

UNISON must not leave each council, school or hospital to fight alone. National attacks must be answered with national co-ordinated action. Campaigns against the cuts must be linked up along with other trade unions in the public sector.

The truth is that the UNISON leadership is fighting with one arm tied behind them due to their backing of the Labour Party. The £3 million that UNISON pays to Labour each year could be put to better use by launching a national fight-back against these attacks.

What has this Labour government done for workers? Public sector workers have had to put up with meagre or zero wage increases, worse conditions and now threats to their pensions. The disgraceful anti trade union laws brought in by an enemy of the working class – Margaret Thatcher – have not been repealed in the 12 years that Labour has been in power. Now Labour is promising draconian cuts to our public services. This is despite the millions of pounds that UNISON and many other unions have poured into the coffers of New Labour.

This is why I argue that Unison should break the link with Labour and act in the interest of our members.

If elected to the position of General Secretary of UNISON I would take a workers wage instead of the inflated income of most union leaders and ensure that all union officials are elected.

Nominations for General Secretary candidates close on the 1st April and I urge branches to nominate me so that we can begin to build a democratic fighting union which is essential to the battle to defend jobs and conditions in the worst attacks facing the public sector for decades.

More witch-hunted activists support Roger

"I'm fed up with our Unison leadership that has now overseen what will be four failed pay campaigns; a botched defence of our pensions where we now pay more for less. This is all due to the current General Secretary and his colleagues being more protective of a Labour government than our members. In Hackney, we have fought for four years to have regional and national officers elected and accountable to the members, which is what Roger Bannister also stands for.

We also want the dead hand of regional officialdom removed from stopping our members having strike ballots when they want them. Over the last 10 years Roger Bannister has supported members in Hackney on demos, strikes and meetings. So I know first hand that Roger as General Secretary - taking a workers’ wage, not the hundred thousands pounds plus on offer - will fight for the best interests of all our members in all sectors."

Brian Debus,Hackney UNISON joint Chair

Brian Debus is one of four Socialist Party activists in Unison who have been the victims of a vicious witch-hunt. For more information on these attacks and the campaign to Defend the Four, see www.stopthewitchhunt.org.uk.

Witch-hunted Branch Secretary backs Roger

"In Greenwich we are fighting on two fronts. We are in the front line fighting attacks on our sevices from a Labour Council. But we are also in the front line in another battle, a battle with our current union leaders whose cosey relationship with New labour means that they will attack and witch-hunt anybody who demands that we stop funding those who attack our members and our services. We need a General Secretary who puts members first, not the big business labour government. That is why I am supporting Roger Bannister"

Onay Kasab, Greenwich UNISON Branch Secretary

Onay Kasab is one of four Socialist Party activists in Unison who have been the victims of a vicious witch-hunt. For more information on these attacks and the campaign to Defend the Four, see www.stopthewitchhunt.org.uk.

Political Fund Report "Business as usual"

The NEC met on 10 February, and approved the Report on the Political Fund to be presented to Conference in June. It says nothing new, and doesn't even go as far as Prentis did in June last year, calling for cuts in Labour Party funding if the election manifesto doesn't have substantial elements of UNISON policy in it. So the dwindling minority of APF payers will still call the shots, unless Conference stops them in June!

Unison general secretary election: Fighting leadership needed!

Nominate Roger Bannister

Whoever wins the general election, members of Britain's largest public sector union Unison, like all other public service workers, are in for a hard time. All three capitalist parties have declared their intention to make the working class pay for the financial crisis through attacks on jobs, pay, pensions and public services.

Roger Bannister, with over 33 years of trade union experience and activity, is standing for general secretary of Unison. If elected he will lead Unison members, along with other public sector workers to fight against these attacks.

The union's leadership has to date failed to use the union's full strength to maximum effect. In fact it has signed disastrous deals, such as the Single Status Agreement, instead of fighting for decent pay. Now thousands of Unison members, mainly women, face pay cuts in the name of equal pay!

Roger has an outstanding record of supporting workers in struggle. In 2001 he led a strike of 1,500 council workers, successfully defending the 35-hour week, in Knowsley, where he is Unison branch secretary.

Dave Prentis, the incumbent, announced his intention to stand for re-election last month. Under current rules he could continue without election up to his retirement, so his decision to stand has been greeted as "brave" by his right-wing sycophants on the national executive committee (NEC).

Shrewder judges should take this view with a large pinch of salt however, given that the union usually approves the election procedures in October, and makes a nomination in December. This delay until January in announcing his intention more likely reflects a period of uncertainty and argument within the right-wing camp between pro- and anti-Prentis forces, the latter being further divided into pro and anti-election cliques.

Roger is a NEC member for Unison's North West region. He has fought several general secretary campaigns in Unison, and its precursor union Nalgo, getting over 41,000 votes (see box) last time. He regularly tops the poll in North West NEC ballots, proving that Unison members in the region do not endorse the policies of its right-wing dominated regional structures.

A clear call to disaffiliate Unison from the Labour Party will be a key feature of Roger's election manifesto. Unison's 'Labour Link' organisation operates like a union within the union, and has a great deal of influence, despite the fact that only one third of the members support it. What is worse is that to hold office in it you have to be a member of the Labour Party, so the majority of Unison members are disenfranchised, and it is run by a tiny clique.

More importantly, the millions of pounds of members' money that the union gives to the Labour Party have not modified Labour's anti-public service, anti-trade union policies. Unison members have been forced to strike to defend their pensions, pay and jobs under a Labour government. Local government workers now face a 0% pay rise!

It is time the union was led by someone who can represent the vast majority of Unison members, not someone who is beholden to ties with the Labour Party.

Roger Bannister's record

Result in 2005
Dave Prentis 184,769 (76%).
Roger Bannister 41,406 (17%).
Jon Rogers (United Left) candidate 18,306 (7.48%).
Turnout 16.6% (membership entitled to vote 1,476,488).

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Result in 2000
Roger Bannister (CFDU candidate) 71,021 (31.65%).
Dave Prentis 125,584 (55.9%).
Malkiat Bilku (a London hospital striker) 27,785 (12.3%).
Turnout 16.5%.

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In 1995 Roger won 58,052 votes (18.2%) on a higher turnout of 22%.

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Unison general secretary election: Fighting left challenge needed

Following the announcement of an election for the general secretary of Unison, a meeting of the left in the union took place on 30 January. This was an attempt to reach a consensus on standing one left candidate to confront the incumbent Dave Prentis.

Glenn Kelly

Socialist Party members in Unison want to see one genuine fighting left challenge.
At this point we have three possible options: Socialist Party member and general secretary candidate on three previous occasions, Roger Bannister; Paul Holmes; and Delroy Creary.

The Socialist Party would be happy to stand down if we believed that there was a candidate who would have a better chance of defeating Dave Prentis than Roger Bannister, even if that meant making concessions on our political programme.

We would be prepared to stand aside for Paul Holmes, despite the weakness of his political programme and our disagreements with it, in particular over the issue of the Labour Party.

Outstanding record

But our assessment is that Paul Holmes does not have a genuine chance of beating Prentis and we do not believe that he would secure a better vote than Roger Bannister. Roger has a long established record of nationally challenging the bureaucracy on all the key industrial and democratic issues. He has played a key role in building the left and organising against and opposing the witch-hunt of socialists publicly.

Roger and the Socialist Party were the ones to seek to rebuild some left unity by proposing the 'Reclaim the Union' initiative, which even at this stage has achieved the most united electoral challenge to the union bureaucracy for many years.

Roger has secured the highest vote of any left wing challenge in the last three general secretary elections. This has been when other lefts - for example Yunus Bakhsh and Jon Rogers - stood against him and split the left vote.

At the meeting on 30 January we were asked by some to stand down for Paul Holmes, who is standing on the same political programme as Jon Rogers and who is less well known than Jon. This is despite the fact that in the last election Jon came last and was soundly defeated by Roger Bannister.

In the last election a key plank of Roger Bannister's manifesto was a call for 'not a penny more for New Labour' and for a ballot on disaffiliation from New Labour. This was described by some at the meeting as being secondary but it actually reflects the mood of the members and is what is politically required.

Our position has been reaffirmed in the last six months by the results of the last national executive (NEC) elections where Socialist Party members won three more seats. If this had been matched by the rest of the left it would have meant we would now have a left majority on the NEC. Despite Socialist Party members' gains, the left as a whole went backwards in those elections.

Success

In our view it was that success that forced Prentis to, in rhetoric at least, launch an attack on the Labour Party at last year's conference. He repeated the Socialist Party's phrase: "It's time to stop feeding the hand that bites us". This received a rare standing ovation.

He later warned the Labour Link conference of the threat that Socialist Party members posed because of the increase in our NEC seats.

Whilst we accept that not all on the left support our position, this did not stop us agreeing a joint platform for the Reclaim the Union election list in the NEC elections. We are happy to have those discussions again.

Delroy Creary is in favour of a break with New Labour. He put a "yes it's time to leave" position to conference. Paul Holmes is not in favour of breaking the link with Labour. Only last week he stated that he believes that: "it is untenable at the moment for a Unison general secretary not to be a member of the Labour Party".

Paul made a point of telling the left meeting about how he came under pressure from the bureaucracy to speak for them against the motion from the Bromley local government branch at the 2008 union conference.

This called for consultation with the members on whether we should continue to fund Labour.
Whilst it true Paul did not speak for the bureaucracy at the conference, he did not even try and speak in favour of the motion - a position which he now says he holds. This was the key debate of that conference.

Someone who aspires to be the leader of the union and the voice of the left has to do more than resist the call of the bureaucracy to back them on key issues. We expect them to be leading the charge.

Affiliation to the Labour Party

We note that Paul has now said that he is in favour of a special conference on affiliation to the Labour Party and for that conference to make a recommendation to the members in a ballot.
We welcome Paul's move now on something that has been an issue in the union for many years.
The problem for us is that Paul would undoubtedly be calling for a 'stay in Labour' vote in that conference and ballot.

In our opinion this runs counter to the mood of the members and is why Prentis and co have been forced to make noises in our direction whilst being determined not to allow a ballot to take place.

But let us repeat, even with this significant political weakness, if Paul had a better chance of beating Prentis than Roger, we would be prepared to stand down.

But on the basis of Roger's long standing record industrially and politically, his defence of and organising of the left in the union, his previous votes in elections and his position in the union, our view is that Roger is the better candidate. Paul Holmes and Delroy Creary should stand down in the interests of having one candidate with the best record and the best chance of defeating Prentis.

Aims of the campaign
• To defeat Prentis in the general secretary election.
• To offer a genuine fighting democratic programme capable of defending the membership from the attacks we face.
• To bring together the most fighting militant members in the union for a genuine rank and file organisation.
Programme
• For public sector-wide action to defend pensions.
• Oppose the cuts - make the bosses pay.
• No to privatisation, bring back in-house services previously privatised.
• No to the public sector pay freeze - for public sector-wide strike action.
• Not a penny more for New Labour.
• For a ballot of all members on whether to remain in the Labour Party.
• For the right of the union to back local and general election candidates who support union policies.
• Expose and oppose the racist lies of the BNP.
• For a general secretary on a worker's wage.
• For the election of full time officials on a worker's wage.
• An end to the witch-hunt of union activists.
• For genuine membership control of the union.
• For the right of all members to campaign within the union without fear of attack.

UNISON GENERAL SECRETARY ELECTION - NOMINATE ROGER BANNISTER

To: UNISON Branch Secretaries, Stewards & Members

31 January 2010

Dear Colleague

I have decided to canvas for nominations for the General Secretary election, to argue for radical change at the top of UNISON.

I fought this election in 2005, obtaining over 41,000 votes. Since then I have continued to campaign as an NEC member for the North West Region, for fighting policies to defend jobs and conditions of service. I am currently about to ballot members for strike action in defence of our 35 Hour Week Agreement, and against the imposition of a redeployment policy by the employer that will lead to compulsory redundancies. It is my belief that UNISON needs a General Secretary with this Hands On experience of dealing with the problems faced by ordinary members.

My election programme would be based on:

• A General Secretary on a Worker's Wage

• Fighting policies against spending cuts – defend all jobs – fight the pay freeze – not a penny off our pensions!

• UNISON members first - Break the link with New Labour, use our Political Fund to support candidates whose policies are best for UNISON members

• End low pay amongst UNISON members

• Oppose all privatisation

• Oppose the BNP & the Racist right

• Election of all officials

• For the right of all members to campaign under rule within the union without fear of attack

Yours sincerely


Roger Bannister (Membership Number 1318436)