A few short weeks after the annual conference, at the first meeting of the new National Executive Council, key conference decisions were overturned or ignored .
The National Minimum Wage set at half the median male earnings has been a key demand of UNISON since its foundation. However, the leadership ignored that policy when the Low Pay Commission announced its derisory rates. They claimed it was a historic victory for UNISON.
They soon dropped that line when they saw the angry reaction of members. That anger turned towards the leadership when it was announced that the decisions of the Commission were unanimous - the Commission included a prominent member of UNISON’s leadership.
At the Conference in June, the leadership supported calls on the Labour government to improve the minimum wage, but bitterly opposed practical proposals to put pressurise them.
The key debates focused on a call for a national demonstration on this issue, which Conference twice supported overwhelmingly. The first vote was overturned by a procedural sleight of hand. The second was carried, despite an impassioned plea from General Secretary Bickerstaffe to reject.
Conference called for the demonstration to be organised before Labour’s Conference in September.
There was legitimate concern over the time scale, so supporters of the Campaign for a Democratic Fighting UNISON (CFDU),on the NEC proposed that the demonstration be organised in October 1998.
The leadership pushed through a delay until March 1999 –and will no doubt follow that with further attempts to delay or scrap the decision.
Conference also voted to support the heroic Hillingdon Strikers, calling on the NEC to restore them to full membership of the union and reopen negotiations on their behalf with the new employers – Granada has taken over the contract from Pall Mall. The NEC side-stepped that decision by referring it to one of its sub-committees.
UNISON Direct is a new high-tech communications project being piloted in a number of branches. But it has been developed by an outside contractor, Capita - a notorious union-busting firm. Conference overwhelming called on the NEC to end its links with Capita. The NEC decided to ignore that call.
The leadership not only ignore the policy they oppose, they also ignore the policies they pushed through conference themselves. The leadership won the vote on a witch-hunting motion which banned branches from affiliating or contributing to ‘factions’ and ‘outside political organisations’. The policy’s aim was to stop branches affiliating to the CFDU, an internal campaign including members of different parties and groups, as well as independents.
Bickerstaffe made an hysterical appeal to conference to support that policy. He told conference that Labour should be the only outside political organisation to receive money and that money could only come from the Affiliated Political Fund.
The General Political Fund – which is banned by rule from making contributions to any political party – recently donated £25,000 to the Association of Liberal Democratic Councillors.
That decision was taken by a sub-committee of the NEC. We will wait with interest to see if the NEC brings disciplinary charges against those who voted for it.