Organising for a future that works

Stephanie Herd

Organising to break the pay freeze, organising to protect our NHS and our public services and organising to turn back the vicious impact of ConDem policies on our members, on the poorest in society, on the disabled, elderly and our children. A daunting list of tasks but one UNISON’s National Conference was up for.
 

This year's conference was all about equality and social justice. It was about communicating, organising, campaigning to get our message to our members, prospective members and to the public at large. There is an alternative!

Neville Lawrence: ‘'UNISON has stayed with us'

Interview with Neville Lawrence before his moving speech to UNISON Conference on 21/6/12:
It's a question you dread asking Neville Lawrence. He must have been asked it a million times yet he answered with the thoughtful respect and honesty we've come to know over an inspirational and dignified 18 year campaign.
It is horrific enough for a parent to lose a child. To lose a child in the circumstances in which he lost Stephen is unthinkable. What keeps him going?

"To be honest, I don't know", said Neville. "When I came to this country I had the belief that if you were in trouble you would be helped... It was wrong that something can happen like this just because of the colour of someone's skin."

Scottish Labour – redefining core values?

The weekend’s Scottish Labour Conference heard UNISON seek to redefine the party’s focus onto the basic issues of unfairness and inequality, somehow lost in the normal anodyne New Labour media-speak.

Conference Review: Everybody agrees it was consensus

UNISON National Conference 2011: Organisation, dispelling myths, winning hearts and minds to defend over 60 years of a civilised society that our people fought for and won.

That’s what this week was and rightly should have been about. Consensus on the need to defend the founding principles of our NHS. As Bevan said, it will be there so long as we have the faith to defend it.

Consensus on the need to defend care of the most vulnerable; the welfare state; education for all, not just the few; a voluntary and community sector that enhances rather than competes, underpinned by properly resourced public services.

Goldberg: I now have a million brothers and sisters - comrades too I hope..

It is always hard to write a report of Denis Goldberg speaking. You can rush at it in the height of the emotion or you can wait a bit and analyse. We've waited a bit.

There must be something that has half of the Scotland delegation at UNISON Conference 20101 unashamedly in tears. What is it?

Is it the straightforward honesty we treasure in Scotland, although we tend to approach it with a tad more bluntness?

Is it the knowledge that you are listening to someone who has given more to the cause than any of us will ever know?

Go back to your branches and organise for the fightback

UNISON Conference 2010: You get Conferences that inspire. Conferences that divide with destructive quasi-political infighting. And you get 2010.

A quiet and serious resolve characterised the contributions and responses as almost 3,000 delegates set out a range of strategies to prepare for the biggest attacks we have ever seen on our services, our pensions, our pay, our health and safety and our hard won rights and equalities.

It was time to get down to work and organising is the key.

Local government funding

UNISON Conference 2010: We are talking about services here Conference. Services relied on by people. People who pay their general tax, their council tax and are now paying higher charges on top to buy the services they need. 

Because that’s what happens when you freeze the Council Tax.

Flawed though it is, it is far fairer than forcing those in most need to pay the most in charges.

In Edinburgh, day care charges for 1500 pensioners almost doubled a few weeks ago.

Practical strategies to defend and invest in public services to bring us out of recession

UNISON Conference 2009: It was a Conference that took itself seriously. Most of the time.  

Detailed and practical strategies to defend public services and invest in them to lift us out of the recession took centre stage.

An inspiring call to take the movement forward from American trade unionist Tom Woodruff enthused Conference as we went on to launch a programme for action around ‘a million voices for change’.

Brighton 2007: Fundamental decisions, so why was it so boring?

UNISON Conference 2007: A straw poll suggests many delegates found the rules afternoon the most exciting of the week. Now that just about says it all.

How could a Conference that made fundamental decisions about a co-ordinated fight for pay, a trade union wide fight against privatisation and decisded key policies on pensions seem so dull?

Say no to Trident

Moving motion at 2007 UNISON Conference on behalf of City of Edinburgh, Scotland, Lanarkshire Health, the NEC, St Mary’s Paddington and York City: As long ago as 1996 some of the judges on the International Court of Justice concluded that the use of nuclear weapons was inadmissible in any circumstances.

That is our position in UNISON.

Longer ago in 1976, the Vatican told the UN – “The arms race can kill – though the weapons themselves may never be used – by their cost alone armaments kill the poor by causing them to starve.

Consensus Conference - well, most of the time

Thabitha Khumalo

UNISON Conference 2006: Consensus and a common purpose was the theme of this year's Conference. A good thing when we have huge fights ahead of us on pensions and defending public services.  

However it does make for a bit of a dull Conference.

Lively debate broke out on the public services, pensions and international debates but the defining point in the week was the moving and inspirational speech by Thabitha Khumalo of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

It's been a good day this week

UNISON Conference 2003: It's been a good day this week. Wednesday saw the best of Conference with a real debate on the political funds. But after that, it did get a wee bit shaky.

However, the passion of Stephen Lewis' contribution as UN special envoy on HIV/AIDS will live with many of us for a long time.

As usual Scotland played a major part in all the big debates. Jane Carolan, Mike Kirby and Pat Rowland to name just a few. Karie Murphy and David Connor played major roles on opposite sides of the political fund debate.

Child Protection Act

Conference 2003: This is just a brief contribution to ask that the NEC consults with the Scottish Region and the Scottish Trades Union Congress before issuing the guidance the motion asks for.

While the legislation in England & Wales broadly mirrors that in Scotland, there are significant differences between the 1989 Children Act and the Scottish 1995 Act. There is also a brand new piece of legislation in the Scottish Child Protection Act.

Pass the banner and make it shine more brightly

At this year's UNISON Conference, retiring General Secretary Rodney Bickerstaffe gave a special interview to SiU editor John Stevenson. In it, one of the most significant union leaders in the last 35 years, shares his analysis of the past and his vision of the future.

We stand on giants' shoulders, said Rodney Bickerstaffe as he spoke of how the trade union movement had got to where it stands today.