We want £4.61!
We want £4.61!
UNISON annual conference showed the union to be in a fighting mood. Tony Dale, Manchester UNISON, reports.
UNISON conference took a major initiative in voting to organise a national demonstration on the demand for a minimum wage of at least £4.61 per hour. The union's Executive tabled a two page emergency motion criticising the Low Pay Commission's recommendations for a minimum wage of £3.60 per hour with a lower rate for young people. Rodney Bickerstaffe, UNISON's General Secretary declared: "£3.60 at the end of the 20th century in one of the richest countries on Earth cannot be fair, cannot be right and cannot be our future".
The union reaffirmed its commitment to the half male median earnings formula which at present translates into £4.61 per hour. The NEC committed itself to campaign vigorously for this figure and specifically stated that the union's Labour affiliated section (the Affiliated Political Fund) would be used to "lobby the Labour Party in support of UNISON policies on the National Minimum Wage".
An amendment calling for a national demonstration over the minimum wage was victorious despite being opposed by the National Executive. Now all sections of the union need to mobilise to make it as big and effective as possible. UNISON's leadership should name the date for the demo as soon as possible. All trade union and Labour activists should take up UNISON's initiative to build a powerful movement with broad support to demand a change in direction for the Government.
On the Government's Fairness At Work proposals, the NEC was instructed to campaign for "replacing the unfair, unworkable 40 per cent voting ballot threshold with a simple majority of those voting in union recognition ballots."
Conference agreed to lobby and campaign for the repeal of all anti-union legislation, voted down proposals for a national demonstration on union rights and agreed to affiliate to the United Campaign for the Repeal of the Anti-Union Laws.
The rights of members to campaign within the union was a major debate. In recent times, there has been a worrying increase in the number of disciplinary investigations launched against members and branches affiliated to the Campaign for a Fighting and Democratic UNISON. Conference voted to ban branches funding "organised factions within the union". However a motion which welcomed the action taken by the NEC against the CFDU and SWP was defeated. The right of branches and regions to campaign for policy change was also reaffirmed and the Hillingdon strikers had all their membership rights reinstated reversing an NEC decision. Changes to the union's disciplinary procedures were debated. Concern over the number of disciplinaries against activists resulted in the NEC's proposed changes being voted down.
The NEC succeeded in stopping branch donations to the CFDU but conference reaffirmed the right of branches and members to organise and campaign within the union.
Liz Davies spoke to a UNISON Labour Left fringe meeting about the left slate for the Labour NEC elections. The meeting displayed that the growing links between union activists and the Labour left are fundamentally important if a broad Labour and trade union alliance is to be put together to build campaigns for properly funded public services, a decent minimum wage and full union rights.
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