The decisions of UNISON’s Special Local Government Conference (crucially the decision to try to reopen pay negotiations in the National Joint Council (NJC) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland this year) have attracted a range of online comment.I am indebted to my fellow member of the National…Read more…

The decisions of today’s Special Local Government Conference create a lot of further work. Our Service Group Executive (SGE) and our National Joint Council (NJC) Committee (which is accountable to our Service Group Conference) will both have to act on …Read more…

‎Today, delegates at UNISON’s Special Local Government Conference took a small but necessary step in the direction of a member-led union which fights for our members.
The headline decision, taken when the Conference voted by 60 per cent to 40 per cent to support Composite C, was to submit a claim…Read more…

I was very pleased this evening to attend the excellent eve-of-Special-Conference fringe meeting hosted by the Camden branch.The attendance at the fringe meeting was (in spite of the fact that so many delegates are not yet in London) more than enough t…Read more…

UNISON’s Special Local Government Conference is now just two days away. It’s only the second time in UNISON’s history that a Special Conference has arisen from a branch requisition.This occurred because the gross mismanagement  of the 2014 NJC pay dispute led us into the most catastrophic…Read more…

‎I note with regret that there are fewer motions on the Preliminary Agenda for our two day Local Government Service Group Conference in June than have been submitted to be discussed in four hours of Conference time next Tuesday.
The 42 motions on the agenda (a number which at least suggests that…Read more…

Len McCluskey is right that unions must be able to fight for workers even if it means breaking bad laws – see his article in the Guardian reporting an important decision of UNITE’s Executive;

http://gu.com/p/46zxh
The General Secretary of our sister u…Read more…

I blog enough about how bad things are working in the public sector (and local government in particular) and also have enough to say criticising what I perceive as the shortcomings of my own trade union.I think it is worth saying that not everything is…Read more…

There is, I suppose, a sense in which a “motion” which is “number two” in order of prioritisation may be considered to the same thing twice.An unkind person (unlike your blogger) might make this observation about Motion 44 on the agenda for UNISON’s Special Local Government Conference (titled “NJC…Read more…

‎Among the many things I rather admire about Ed Miliband is his pursuit of David Cameron over the latter’s refusal to face a fair, public debate in the General Election campaign.
It’s clear that an incumbent is always likely to resist such a debate (unless the consider themselves an underdog) but…Read more…

‎UNISON is a proudly progressive organisation and, though animal welfare is rarely a key priority compared to job security or public services, it’s good to know that protection for endangered species is a core value for important decision making bodies within our Union.
The Standing Orders…Read more…

Delegates to UNISON’s Special Local Government Conference next Tuesday have now received the Final Agenda (about which I shall blog further shortly).
As you might expect, the timetable for the day is set out in the documents. The Conference will open a…Read more…

I can do no better than reproduce the press release of the Barnet branch;UNISON, one of the UK’s largest trade unions, serving more than 1.3 million members, wrote to Barnet Council on11 March 2015 notifying them of our intention to conduct a stri…Read more…

‎Like many blog posts on this blog over the next few weeks this is one which has not been posted with any UNISON resources.
Voting in the elections for UNISON’s National Executive Council (NEC) opens on 7 April, but, the nomination period having drawn to a close, I can report that I am a candidate…Read more…

Apologies to those readers who noticed I had taken the blog offline for a couple of days.

I am trying to springclean the blog, which I hope to make a better and more effective vehicle with which to organise, comment, offend and outrage (as appropriate…Read more…