UNISON General Secretary Election: Elect Paul Holmes

by Jolly Red Giant - Socialist Party / CWI Sat Feb 27, 2010 21:01

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.”

http://rogerbannister-unison.blogspot.com/

http://www.stopthewitchhunt.org.uk/

by UNISON IMT Supporters - International Marxist Tendency Fri Feb 26, 2010 22:16 ireland at marxist dot com

The post of UNISON General Secretary is one of the most important jobs in the whole of the Labour and trade union Movement in Britain and the north of Ireland . UNISON is a decisive force in the public sector and is potentially extremely powerful. UNISON is also one of the biggest unions affiliated to the British Labour Party and the leadership of the union is intimately tied up with the British government. As such this election is as important as the UNITE General Secretary Election, and in the Public Sector perhaps more so. Unlike the UNITE union however, UNISON only organises in the north of Ireland and has a Northern Ireland Region.

The UNISON NEC has decided to call for a snap General Secretary election. The nomination period opens on 4th February and closes on 1st April. The election comes at a crucial point for thousands of UNISON members in the north. The bail out of the banks and the cost of mass unemployment mean that savage cuts will be imposed on the public sector regardless of who sits in 10 Downing Street after the General Election as evidenced by Sammy Wilson’s statement recently about the forthcoming cuts in the Assembly budget.

UNISON as a whole organises 1.3 million people and as well as being the decisive trade union in the NHS and Local Government it is also a major contributor to the British Labour Party. The union leadership are intimately connected with the Labour Party leadership and a major factor in the current economic and political situation in the public sector in Britain has been the tendency for the union leaders to “hold the line” for Labour, even at the cost of the members. Indeed much of the leadership’s and the full time officer’s time has been spent in “policing the membership”. There have been a number of expulsions of important left activists in the union and a number of disciplinary hearings are in progress.

With these factors in mind, and the imminent arrival of swingeing cuts throughout the public sector, both in Britain and here,with attacks on pensions and wages and conditions, it is no surprise that there will be a left challenge to the incumbent Dave Prentis, who is associated by many of the active layers of the union with the union’s industrial strategy and also with the attacks on the left in the union.

The history of the left in UNISON hasn’t been one of harmony and goodwill to all men and women. In fact the biggest concern among the left has been the risk of failing to agree a unified campaign around a single candidate. The last time that Prentis stood for election he faced two candidates, one Jon Rogers an active member of the British Labour Party and the Labour Representation Committee and Roger Bannister from the Socialist Party of England and Wales .

In recent years the left organisation split and then last year a joint “Reclaim the Union ” slate was agreed for the NEC election. The International Marxist Tendency comrades in UNISON are keen to support a single unified candidate, but we also recognise that the differences between Paul Holmes and Roger Bannister the two main left candidates in the union which will make that very difficult. On January 30th a meeting of the UNISON left took place in London where the left tendencies in the union were represented as well as the left NEC and Service Group Executive (SGE) members. The debate perhaps inevitably centred around the issue of Labour Party disaffiliation. The meeting agreed that in the event of more than one left candidate receiving the required 25 nominations a meeting of left activists could be called to vote on a single left candidate. However, it was agreed that this would only work, in the event that both candidates agreed to abide by the decision of the meeting and stand down if they lost. We have to say, that the Socialist Party’s confused sectarian attitude towards the Labour Party means that this is very unlikely to happen. Meanwhile they support Len McCluskey (a loyal Labour supporter) in the UNITE General Secretary Election, against Jerry Hicks a genuine left winger.

With all of these factors in mind it was a very easy decision for us to make to recommend support for Paul Holmes as our preferred candidate for the General Secretary position. Paul is secretary of Kirklees branch of UNISON (which is in Yorkshire ); the branch has 10,000 members and a membership density of 80%. Paul has been a steward for 35 years and is a committed socialist who has agreed that he is prepared to accept only the wage of a skilled worker rather than the £127,000 salary currently enjoyed by Dave Prentis.

Paul is committed to a ballot for one political fund for the union and for the whole union in Britain to affiliate to the Labour Party instead of the partial affiliation and two existing political funds. As a member of the NEC who was elected by the entire Local Government membership (including the Northern Ireland Region) Paul has demonstrated that he can turn his obvious popularity in the union into votes.

The key task for the next period has to be to maximise the number of nominations for Paul. To get on the ballot paper he needs a minimum of 25 nominations. We call on all of our supporters and readers in UNISON to campaign for Paul in their branches and in the regions. Meetings of activists should be called and Paul should be invited to attend, with a view to reaching the maximum number of UNISON members and activists. Every UNISON branch should be contacted and we must ensure that we help get Paul’s programme and ideas over to the maximum number of members. We think Paul has an excellent chance of winning and laying the basis for a fighting and democratic UNISON which can fight for the interests of members on either side of the water.

· One left candidate

· Back Paul Holmes

by sp member Wed Feb 17, 2010 19:13

Roger Bannister Socialist Party (CWI England and Wales) is standing for the general secretary of UNISON and is best placed left candidate to win.

Read more visit: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?v=info&ref=nf&gid=330447686071

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!

Read Roger Bannister's blog at http://rogerbannister-unison.blogspot.com/

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).

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%.

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