If the title of this blog post does not signal to you that this is a "niche" blog then you really are not paying attention.
As I slowly disentangle
myself from my various UNISON responsibilities I find myself more and more at
final meetings. This week I attended my last ever meeting of the Executive of
the UNISON Greater London Regional Local Government Committee, a body which has
been far more worth attending than most trade union committees over the past
quarter century.
I have served, not quite
continuously, on this august body since its inception following “vesting day”
(the day on which all members of the “former partner unions”, NALGO, NUPE and
COHSE put on the same vest). I remember the days when, meeting in the
Conference Chamber at Mabledon Place, the “NUPE” members would sit on one side
of the room and the “NALGO” members on the other.
Our then Regional Head of
Local Government (formerly of NUPE) was spoken to by our then Regional Chair of
the Local Government Committee (formerly of NALGO) about how it wasn’t
appropriate to caucus beforehand with the minority of delegates who were
(formerly) from NUPE. The conflict between (former NUPE) officials, who believe
that the paid professionals should guide the Union, and the (former NALGO) lay
activists (who don’t) continues to this day.
I am very glad that the
Lambeth branch will continue (I hope, subject to democracy) to be represented
on the Regional Local Government Executive, since it is essential to the
effective defence of the interests of UNISON members in any one London borough
that there should be a vigorous defence of those interests across as much of
London as may be possible. Parochialism is the curse of local government trade
unionism and, in London Boroughs in particular, we must be vigilant against it.
As is generally the case in
UNISON’s Greater London Region, there is little upon which one can remark which has
been achieved in the last decade or so (and we can only hope that this will
change as the Union follows through on the logic of its own defence in the
recent Certification Officer hearing). However, before the current torpor we
did have achievements worthy of record – and UNISON still has that potential.
Regional officials who
understood and respected the role of lay leadership resolved the tricky
question of how to implement single status in the face of three different rates
of London Weighting back in the year 2000 – and then backed up lay members when
we embarked upon the, ultimately unsuccessful, fight for an increase in London
Weighting, which saw UNISON attempt Region-wide strike action in 2002 and 2003.
The London Weighting dispute
is rightly remembered as a failure – but we can learn as much from our failures
as from our successes if only we can be honest about them. I claim my role as
one of the small number of activists who initiated that dispute, and I do not
apologise for testing to destruction the potential for a Region-wide dispute
(and also of the arbitration provisions of collective agreements).
We learned, a decade and a
half ago, that our organisational strength across different boroughs was not
such as to enable us to maximise pressure on the hostile boroughs whose
policies we most needed then to change. We also learned that the employers would
walk out of collective bargaining machinery rather then accept a reference to
arbitration when they know that we might win by force of argument what we were
not winning with the argument of force.
One of the hardest things
about walking away from trade union responsibilities is watching what is done
with those responsibilities once one has walked away. In the case of UNISON’s Greater
London Regional Local Government Committee I am proud and happy to express my total confidence in the Chair (Sue Plain from Southwark) and Vice-Chair (Sean Fox
from Haringey) to continue the excellent work they have been doing for several years to
represent UNISON members in London local government.
The best of UNISON’s local
government branches in London are the best of trade unionism – combative,
lay-led organising trade union branches. There are few UNISON meetings (outside
my own branch) which I can honestly say that I will miss when I no longer hold
any UNISON office, but I shall miss the opportunity to swap notes with fellow
Branch Secretaries at the Regional Local Government Executive – and I wish my
comrades all good fortune in continuing to assert lay authority over a Regional
machine which seems almost to celebrate its inability to achieve positive outcomes
for our members.
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Perhaps UNISON (particularly
in Greater London) will change…
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