UNISON'S “DAWN RAIDS” BREAK RULES

Not surprisingly the raids on three UNISON offices in Greater London have angered UNISON members across the country, and have shocked a number of the union's own officials. The common link is that the Branch Secretary's of these branches had been disciplined by UNISON in the case revolving around the Three Wise Monkeys leaflet distributed outside UNISON's Annual Delegate Conference. This explanation has more credibility that the claim that the branches were “failing” in some way, and is consistent with a bias against left wing UNISON members detailed below.

Of particular concern is the cancellation of the Annual General Meeting of one of the affected branches, denying members of the Branch the right to run their own Branch affairs.

Neither the National Executive Council nor any of its subordinate committees has sanctioned these actions, which breach Rules B.2.2, B.2.4, B.2.5 and G.8.8.1.

These actions appear to be a continuation of the trend of a biased political interpretation of the rules recently demonstrated in a case brought to the Certification Officer, Bedale v UNISON, where left wing UNISON members are penalised and/or punished whereas right wing members are allowed to break the rules. This in itself is a breach of Rule A.3.

The officials should be withdrawn from these Branches, and their members' right to run them should be restored. As one UNISON member commented, “If UNISON was as hard on the employers as they have been on these Branches I'd be impressed!”

Stop public sector cuts! Fighting union needed!

The outcome of a BBC survey shows that at least 25,000 council jobs are at risk. A spokesperson from the London School of Economics has declared that: “Nothing like this has happened for a generation”. They added that council job losses could soar to 100,000.

Unison members will be asking which candidates in the current general secretary election have a clear strategy to fight these massive cuts.

Socialist Party member Roger Bannister, who is seeking nominations to stand, says that local government members should be mobilised now, with a clear message to local authorities and all the main political parties that their union intends to resist these cuts.

He believes that it is crucial to move now to send a message out that whoever wins the general election will face nothing but opposition to these draconian cuts to jobs and services.

There is a lot of talk about maintaining ‘front-line’ services and reducing the ‘back-office’. But with years of cuts (3% savings year on year) back-room services have already been reduced to the bone and front-line services cannot function without workers in the back.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis responded to these cuts by saying that: “big job losses could cause social disharmony.” And that: “We will not allow our members to pay the price” (of bailing out the banks.) But there is no clear plan as to what he is going to do about these attacks.

The current leadership of Unison gave no effective opposition to the employers when single status, which was supposed to increase the pay of many women, led instead to women workers suffering pay cuts. Unison are still bogged down in legal battles over this. Socialist Party members warned of the pitfalls of single status before it was implemented.

The one-day strike over pensions by local government workers in 2006 was the biggest strike since 1926. But if Unison had continued the strike, Unison members would not be paying more for their pensions now. Unison only put up half a fight and now we see further attacks on public sector pensions.

Unison members who want a democratic fighting union should back the nomination of Roger Bannister for general secretary. He believes Unison should not fund the Labour Party which is committed to implementing massive public sector cuts.