UNISON conference: Leadership’s wishful thinking

UNISON’S ANNUAL conference, taking place in Glasgow so soon after
Labour has returned to power, is as you would expect, full of
self-congratulation by the union leadership.

Bill Mullins, Socialist Party Industrial organiser

Pauline Grant, this year’s president, made an opening speech along
those lines. For example, she only referred in passing to the battle
over pensions, when the union’s members in local government voted to
take national strike action, along with other unions like the civil
service union PCS.

Her only reference to ballots was the re-election of Dave Prentis and
the 85% vote to keep the union’s political fund.

She gushed support for the government and its commitment to the
unions’ so-called Warwick agreement. When she listed the commitments in
the agreement, many had already been broken.

She didn’t mention the attacks on public-sector pensions or New
Labour’s veto of the European limits to the working week. Much of her
speech seemed to be a sales pitch for the union’s insurance company, UIA,
which she chairs.

One of the first resolutions due to be heard is from the national
executive council, welcoming the election of a Labour government. It
follows the same sort of wishful thinking as in the president’s opening
address.

Blown away

Hopefully these illusions will be blown away by the resolution from
Knowsley which exposes the Warwick agreement for what it is.

The local government conference met before the main conference and
gave an indication of what to expect. It discussed resolutions on the
remodelling agreement. This agreement was supposed to recognise the role
of teachers’ assistants in schools. In reality it’s being used to push
many of these people to cover for teachers and get teaching on the
cheap.

Glenn Kelly and Roger Bannister both exposed the confidence trick
being conducted by the government. Glenn said that the hopes and
expectations of UNISON’s members on this issue are collapsing.

There’s been no united campaign by the union to stop UNISON members
being exploited.

"They’re asked to undertake a teacher’s role without teacher’s
pay. Last year we voted to withdraw unless the agreement was properly
funded. But instead we got a survey."

Roger Bannister said that even if reluctantly UNISON has to live with
the agreement, we should vote for national action instead of leaving
branches to fight alone. Unfortunately it was clear that most delegates
did not think the leadership would lead a national struggle in a million
years. They voted instead to do the best they could within the framework
of the national agreement.

Onay Kasab from Greenwich exposed the hypocrisy behind the hoopla
over the Jamie Oliver school dinners programme.

"Jamie Oliver’s new school kitchen has now been privatised.
Jamie made a lot of money out of the programme and he even charged the
Greenwich school for bringing in his own chef."

Angelika Teweleit from Hackney spoke on the campaign they have
against academy schools:

"We had a public meeting of 70 people drawn from the union,
the community and the parents. 50% of Hackney kids already have to go
to secondary schools outside the borough. The academy will only make
things worse."