branch circular
The ballot of council and school members covered by the NJC in England and Wales, on the pay offer for 2023, closed on 4 July. Regions have been sent the full results, and branches should now have the ballot results for employers in which they have members. As this was a ballot of 345,000 members in more than 4,300 employers, the process of getting results out has been a complicated one, and branches are thanked for their patience.
UNISON’s NJC Committee met on 11 July to consider the full results of the ballot. Due to the Tory anti-trade union laws, we can only take industrial action in employers where we achieved a turnout of 50% or more (with a majority voting for action). We passed this turnout threshold in a number of employers, but most of these were smaller employers. Given the legal restrictions placed on action, the NJC Committee agreed to await the ballot results from our sister union Unite, whose ballot closes at the end of July, before confirming publicly our agreed next steps.
We appreciate this causes some delay for members in moving on from the ballot, but under the circumstances we know branches will understand and bear with us.
We would like to thank branches and regions for all of your hard work and determination in getting the vote out. We will conduct a full review of the ballot very soon, so that we can learn from those areas where we did well, and work to do even better everywhere.
We’re aware that there have been some IT problems which are making it difficult to get results out to members. As a result, branches may wish instead to suggest that any interested members contact the branch to ask for the ballot result for their employer’s result.
Contact information: NJCpay2023@unison.co.uk
Mike Short, National Secretary, Education, Local Government, Police & Justice
Plymouth returned a result very much in line with regional averages in our pay ballot
About a third of members cast a ballot, of which the vote in favour of action was 2-1
Nationally some other regions were a little stronger but the anti-union laws means that only a small minority of members are in a position to take action and none of those are in our branch.
In reality there is a real groundswell of feeling from members in favour of fighting for better pay. We have doubled our turnout from previous ballots and if this trend was to continue we would be very much in the frame to deliver action in the future despite the anti-trade union laws designed to stop us.
National Joint Committee will now confer with sister unions before making a final decision to accept the pay offer or not. Unite have still to complete their ballots and GMB have not yet balloted.
Unison is mindful of the views of members who did not want to wait too long for a rise that should have come in April.
