THE CAMPAIGN for a Fighting and Democratic UNISON's conference on the Asylum and Immigration Bill was a small but important step in the fight against the Bill, gearing up the union membership in the struggle over policy at UNISON's national conference.
Just under 100 delegates attended. Most were branch or regional officials.
Although the conference was relatively small, clearly the UNISON leadership are worried, as it spurred the NEC to organise their own conference on the Bill just four days later.
Originally, Unison proposed a conference last October, then again in January.
They kept these conferences a secret from the membership, then cancelled them due to "lack of interest".
The opening plenary started with speakers from two campaigns against state act Bayo Omoyiola, a UNISON member, was given a written assurance from the Home Secretary that he would be allowed back into Britain if he went on an international inquiry into workers' rights in China. He has subsequently been refused re-entry to Britain by the Home Office.
Piara Power spoke on behalf of the Ibrahima Sey Memorial Campaign of how Ibrahima was killed by police, and more generally about the repression and brutalisation black people face at police hands. There were three workshops on the cuts in benefits and service provision, attacks on workers' rights and on drawing together a united approach to the various motions to UNISON conference.
There are more motions on the Bill glassed by one by defending himself with a knife. His attacker died of a stab wound for which he refused medical treatment.
Satpal lost his appeal at the end of 1995.
Since then, he has been subjected to continuous abuse, brutality, solitary confinement, a starvation diet and a series of forced and attempted rectal examinations. After one of four assaults by screws in March, he wrote a letter saying: "I now know what Joy Gardener must have experienced in the last mo-