UNISON Conference 2006

By Gray Allan, Secretary,
Falkirk Council Branch 07340 (personal capacity)

The final agenda for UNISON Annual Conference and for the Annual Local Government, Water, Energy and Transport service group conferences is the usual glossy broadsheet containing some 147 motions, not to mention all the amendments. Many of these motions and amendments will not be debated due to lack of time. Even more will be swallowed up in the compositing process.
It is difficult for delegates and members to identify the motions that will be debated but it is easier to get a feel for the issues that Conference will focus on.
In Local Government it is clear that a debate on pensions and on the current dispute will take place. With strike action knocked into the long grass by the national committee it is obvious that they will try to avoid any criticism. Two motions are, however, on the agenda, and are certain to be debated, not least because the national local government committee has not put a motion in its own name on the agenda. The conduct of the dispute aside, a key issue to be resolved is the two-tier pension scheme. At the moment it looks as though the Union leadership are prepared to concede a much poorer pension scheme for new, young employees as long as existing pension scheme members are protected. There are powerful arguments against this line, not least of which is the basic unfairness of it.
From a Scottish standpoint it is interesting to see motions on the agenda calling for a national campaign to win decent pay for nursery nurses. A strike battle was fought for nursery nurses in Scotland 2 years ago. While not a conclusive victory important increases in pay levels were won.
The Turner Report on Pensions features on the main agenda. Motions point out the implications of forcing people to work longer before retiring. None, however, say that this is a class question. Poor working class people have a much shorter life expectancy. The Turner proposals are a death sentence for many workers - work till you drop will be the brutal reality for many.
A motion from Cymru/Wales deals with the scandal of ill-health dismissals where Council employees with decades of service are sacked without access to their pension because they are too ill to work but not sick enough for the bosses' medical "advisers" to certify them permanently unfit. You need that certificate before you can get your pension early.
14 motions and amendments on global warming, the energy crisis, and the environment make it certain that this issue will be debated. Most deal with the issue from a liberal-environmentalist standpoint and do not address the needs of workers presently employed in the nuclear industry. As a result we see amendments from the Nuclear Generation Branch calling for a mixed solution to the energy gap that includes nuclear power.
The most dramatic change in the agenda this year is the increase in number of motions on Venezuela. It is clear that events in that country have electrified layers of the Union. 13 motions and amendments make it certain that Venezuela will be debated. This will allow not only support for Hands off Venezuela to be decided but also the lessons the Bolivarian Revolution has for workers in Britain.
Perhaps this is the source of the Glasgow City motion 77 calling for an end to capitalism and the building of democratic socialism! Unfortunately not likely to be debated.

“We Waited Years For Labour To Be Elected :
Nine Years Later, We Cannot Wait Any Longer”

by Pam Woods, shop steward, Islington UNISON (personal capacity)

This year's Unison conference will be the tenth since the election of the Labour Government.
Who can forget the morning of May 2nd 1997? At last, the hated Tory government had been brought down. We had watched in despair as they wreaked havoc on British manufacturing industry, pauperised the valleys of South Wales, the mining villages of Scotland and the north of England, turned inner city council estates into slums, and destroyed the greatest trade union in British history - the National Union of Mineworkers. 
At last, we had our revenge. How we rejoiced as we sat up through the night watching one, and then another, constituency swing to Labour. On an uncharacteristically sunny, warm spring morning we reflected that even the weather seemed to be on our side.
Of course, few of us had any illusions in Tony Blair. He was not one of us. He was an ex-public schoolboy, the son of a Tory, and had expressed his admiration for the odious Thatcher.
But we had a Labour government, and surely now things would change. This is what the union leaders had been telling us for years. Nothing could be done, we were told, about privatisation, the Tory anti-union laws, the lack of public housing, the crisis in the NHS. We would have to wait for a Labour government. And so they made us wait. And so they did nothing.
Another Tory 'brainwave' loomed on the horizon: the Private Finance Initiative. In our department of Islington Council, the refuse collection and street sweeping department, we were told that we were to be the first to experience PFI - although this time it would be a new form of privatisation: a 'joint venture'. Joint in the sense that both parties, public and private, would co-operate in a partnership - that is, the public sector would hand over its assets free of charge, and the private sector would gratefully accept them.
Islington was then a Labour council, run in the main by Blair supporters serving their apprenticeships in local government in preparation for better careers ahead. Why now, we argued. Surely we'll have a Labour government in six months' time and PFI will be ditched? How wrong we were, it turned out. We struck for five days, rubbish piled up in the streets and dustmen mounted a 24-hour picket. There was huge public support. Workers understand that private companies will never act in their interests. If the national leadership of the GMB had fully backed the strike instead of attempting to undermine it at every turn, I have no doubt it could have been won.
The result was that those workers whose terms and conditions were guaranteed under TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings, Protection of Employment) found themselves subjected to bullying, petty scrutiny and disciplinary action for the most minor misdemeanour. Some were sacked, and many left because they could not stand the new regime. In the meantime, vacancies were filled by new workers on much worse terms and conditions, unprotected by TUPE legislation.
And, of course, Labour soon lost control of the council, it goes without saying.
This is a salutary lesson. When Labour acts against the interests of working people it invariably loses votes.
The media are full of stories of a 'handover' from Blair to Brown. Since when, precisely, has the Labour Party been  the private property of any individual, to be 'handed over' as and when they see fit? Blair must go, that is clear. But we all know Brown offers no alternative. He has supported all Blair's loathsome measures: the brutal and rapacious bombing and occupation of Iraq, PFI, tuition fees, NHS 'reforms' and so on.
Yes, Blair must go, and the sooner the better. But his departure must be the beginning of a serious and vigorous policy discussion at all levels of the Party. It must also signal the start of a democratic leadership election. We must encourage and support the emergence of a left contender prepared to lead the Party in a reversal of the Tory/Blairite policies we have endured for the past 27 years and act in favour of working people and for socialist policies.

The Labour Link …
A Vital Weapon

Terry McPartlan, Sunderland Local Government Branch (personal capacity)

After three years of war, attacks on local government pensions, the continuing financial crisis in the health service, and the threats to its long term future, it is no surprise that some UNISON members question the current relationship between the union and the Labour Party.
Following the local election results the crisis and divisions within the Blair Project are plain to see. It is understandable why some members might feel that New Labour offers them very little or nothing at all.
The question of disaffiliation from the party or the use of the affiliated section of the political fund to fund other organisations has been raised in the past. Socialist Appeal supporters in UNISON have consistently argued against these positions.
Disaffiliation from the party is essentially a short cut to nowhere. The APF Labour link structure within UNISON potentially represents a very important weapon in the hands of the union, in the fight to defend workers pay and conditions. On a local basis it allows UNISON members to put pressure on local councillors and elected mayors, and also to campaign through the local general committees and local government committees. At the same time the Labour Link operates through national campaigns and the party conference where UNISON commands a large proportion of the Trade Union Block Vote. The importance of this was illustrated last year where the platform was defeated on a number of issues.
Outside of the Party UNISON would have far less influence, and could easily be bypassed. This would no doubt please Tony Blair as well as the Tories (who of course have been trying to break the Trade Union Link for decades).
And to which groups would the union affiliate? Even at the high point of Blair's unpopularity the various sects and alliances, phantom mass parties and coalitions on the fringes of the labour movement are little more than shadows. A shift to the left in the Labour Party would see them vanish.
At present the national bureaucracy of the union has an extremely cosy relationship with the Labour leadership. This has certainly had a negative effect in terms of issues around Agenda for Change, Pay and most recently the Cumbria Equal Pay victory. However, any serious left tendency in the union must regard the struggle to democratise the UNISON labour link and to deliver UNISON's programme within the party as a vital part of the struggle for a Democratic Fighting Union.

· Reclaim the Party
· Don't Break the Links
· For a Labour Government with a Socialist Programme

“You cannot manage healthcare like a business”

by Pablo Sanchez

Socialist Appeal spoke recently to Michael Swinbourne, Joint branch secretary North Tees and Hartlepool Branch of Unison.

SA: Could you tell us a little about what you do?

MS: I have been 25 years in the Trust in the operational department, mine is a clinical role. I am the joint branch secretary of the North Tees and Hartlepool branch of UNISON.

SA: I believe that you are in a dispute over redundancies, could you give us some background?

MS: There is a hospital with a deficit of £13.5 million and we have been told to start off with 70 redundancies. This should never have happened. It is not a local issue, it is an NHS issue. There has been a steady decline in the morale of the workforce and a deterioration of the services. In recent times there was a proposal to merge the two hospitals (North Tees and Hartlepool) and the Save Our Hospital Campaign stopped the possibility of a PFI Hospital. So that is what they have come up with. There was an evaluation about 4 months ago and then a job freeze. With the increased capacity in an important working class area with huge needs this means a dire threat to essential services.

SA: Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt was here at the UNISON conference yesterday,  what did you make of her speech?

MS: Patricia Hewitt’s speech appalled me. I was shocked and scared. They are trying to manage health like a business and it cannot be done. You cannot manage the health system like a business. There are too many pressures.
As soon as it is privatised we all lose, staff and public. When the service is private they will only care about making profits. The private system works with a programme of cost/effect. Who is going to train good doctors? A private hospital has to be cheap and maximise profit. In public hands research chooses the best option, in the private sector money decides, they choose the cheapest option, regardless of the lives of people, that is why private health cannot be cost-effective. Why don't we have politicians that can accept when they are wrong? It is all spin. I am not a political steward, I am for the workers I want to represent the members, I want them to be treated fairly.
There has been a substantial increase in investment in the NHS, it is true. The problem is that this money is not going where it should. Everything that is given is ‘filtered’ before it gets to the shop floor where the money is really needed. The money is wasted in red tape and bureaucracy. Hence, the workforce has to work harder. For instance, we are told that it is necessary to make seventy workers redundant, but the managers are employing someone to coordinate the task!

SA: Do you think that Agenda for Change has solved, or is going to solve, the problem?

MS: People have had minor improvements, but nowhere near meeting their expectations. Because we were told that Agenda for Change would solve equal pay deficits and disparity with public sector employees and that just has not happened.
There is a lack of vision in this situation, they have to save money because of the huge debt that the hospital has amassed, but, at the same time, money is being skimmed from the public (via car park fees at our hospital, for example) and the workers. These may seem to be two separate issues, but they are closely linked. They did not negotiate the implementation of Agenda for Change and now financial pressures are mounting.
PFI means that you throw money into a capitalist company. There is no forward thinking, instead of investing thinking about the future, they have resorted to a quick fix. In the long run PFI will be more expensive and less efficient. They do not have any vision for the future.

SA: The Government has announced 13,000 will go, do you believe that there is overstaffing in the NHS?

MS: The workforce say we are not overstaffed. The National Evaluation system says that we are (at least in our hospital). The problem is that that evaluation system is based on information fed to it by precisely those people who are proposing the cuts. It is very easy to feed manipulated information into this system.
The evaluation system itself lacks clarity and transparency. In any case, if there were overstaffing it is not the workers fault. This is supposed to be the managers' responsibility, yet it will be the public’s services and the workforce who will be made to pay the price. It is always the lowest paid sector that pays the price.

Save Lanarkshire Casualty Units!

By Kenny McGuigan

Comrades will know from previous articles, Lanarkshire Health Board Trust propose to close the Accident and Emergency unit at either Monklands Hospital, Airdrie, or Hairmyres, East Kilbride. Locals are furious. The 12 "consultation meetings" (all packed) saw angry condemnation of the plans. With the consultations over, local campaigners, led by North Lanarkshire Trades Council (Lanarkshire Health United) arranged a march from Coatbridge centre to Airdrie for Saturday, 22nd April. They demanded the 3 casualty units in the area remain open, services be expanded and an independent investigation into the Trust who were savaged in last year's audit for financial mismanagement. The Trust are over £20million in debt, spending £50,000 of public money hiring a PR firm during the 6 week consultation period.
At the 11th hour, the Labour politicians for the constituencies, MP's John Reid and Tom Clarke, and MSP's Karen Whitfield and Elaine Smith organised an alternative demonstration for the same day. Their campaign was heavily backed by the media while LHU were ignored. On the day reports put New Labour's figures at 1,000 in attendance, while LHU drew around 350.
The Trust were wilting early in the process with condemnation from all sides. Monklands is one of the busiest casualty departments in Scotland. Then, at the Airdrie meeting, John Reid told the Trust, "If one of the hospitals closes, it must not be Monklands". Thus the lead was given to his colleagues who instigated and ran a parochial campaign to save Monklands and their political hides, with indifference to the plight of Hairmyres. The Trust will report to Lewis MacDonald, Deputy Health Minister in June. Socialist Appeal supporters handed out hundreds of leaflets and sold 30 journals on the day.