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Hi all just thought we would give everyone a brief overview on what Karen Owens, Kevin Treweeks and Kate Lattimore were doing last week, and the things that were discussed in Unisons National Delegate Conference . Can we just say we were not sunning ourselves on the beaches of Brighton as some will have you believe lol .

We could spend ages talking about the internal politics of Unison however, but we do not believe this is something to dwell on right now. There is a statement from the NEC that you can read here https://www.unison.org.uk/news/article/2022/06/statement-by-unisons-nec/

We believe what is important is feeding back on motions we debated that will affect you as colleagues in the workplace. After all said and done the members are the union , our role is to empower you to have a voice .
The list of motions to be discussed was endless and most of course were never debated. If anyone does have any questions about those that were, then we are happy to answer them via email or at branch committee.
Below is a list of just some of the highlights for us:

Fair representation and proportionality within Unison (Motion 9 was in particular asking UNISON to ensure that it had black representation across all parts of the national union structure)

Campaigning for a national care service (Motion 58 was in part a response to crisis in care and to Labour’s policy review process)

Decarbonisation within public services https://www.unison.org.uk/news/article/2022/06/this-union-is-a-green-union-unison-commits-to-decarbonise-public-services/

Kevin also went to a fringe meeting on this subject and raised the issue of how we get our pension funds out of dirty industries that may become worthless if the world does wake up to the need to change.

Menopause and Maternity. (Actually there were several motions covering what might be considered women’s issues including a call for the adoption of CEDAW in motion 80 which involves a women’s bill of rights and was brought to the attention of this branch by one of our retired members)

Public sectors pay, taxation and the cost-of-living crisis. (Bit of a warm up for Saturday’s #DemandBetter March)

Comp B spoke of co-ordinated action across sectors, support for disputes, information to underpin campaigns etc

Combating discrimination and harassment through education (of our activists on how to challenge it)

Vaccine inequalities across the globe (Motion 69 called for the waiving of patents. Nobody is safe until everyone is safe)

Reviewing the equalities 2010 act and the disability employment charters within the workplace

The future of the national minimum wage (Motion 46 on working with others towards is uplift)

Sick Pay for all https://www.unison.org.uk/news/article/2022/06/delegates-back-calls-for-improved-pay-and-sick-pay/

The Right to disconnect ,(was brought by our young members in the South West) and covered ground related to the changes in working practices that were so accelerated by the pandemic. This broader issue came up in other motions too that chimed with things that we have been saying in this branch

And right at the end we managed to win a position this branch has supported for some time to move our democracy away from first past the post towards a more inclusive voting system (Motion 102) which we can now take through the Labour Link

Unison’s general secretary Christena McAnea of course made a speech that you can watch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjOr-k1WMEk&feature=youtu.be

Karen also attended the fringe meeting an after conference closed for the day with Angela Raynor Labour shadow education secretary

‘The work you do saves and transforms lives’ – Angela Rayner

So you can see last week was a busy one for us all, and even when we weren’t in session we tried to network with colleagues from all over the uk and share experiences to bring things back to the work force in PCC, Livewell and the other Plymouth area employers.

Finally on the Saturday we were joined by David and Nita Dodd and a small number of other activists who marched through London to show our support for the RMT and to #DemandBetter over the cost of Living Crisis . By the way the small number of activists was a tongue in cheek comment , if you see the national news this march was supported by many thousands of activists who share our distaste and anger at the current cost of living crisis .

Hopefully this gives you a flavour and maybe given you some food for thought and you are considering how to get active within the union yourself.
Plymouth in Unison are always keen to hear from others who would like to get involved no matter how small a contribution you feel you can make.

 

You can read much more on the Conference at https://www.unison.org.uk/events/2022-national-delegate-conference/