UNISON’s Conference Week – Beginning the Debate and Sharing Experiences

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UNISON’s Conference Week – Beginning the Debate and Sharing Experiences
Day One of UNISON’s National Delegate Conference
UNISON Calls for Inquiry into Accountants' Vested Interests

Workers at General Motors Plan Strike

UNISON's 9th National Delegate Conference is taking place at the Bournemouth International Centre from June 18-21. Two thousand delegates are in Bournemouth for a week of discussion, debate and decision-making.

National and international speakers are set to join the debates and share their experiences.

UNISON’s general secretary Dave Prentis had this message for delegates: "Members are the union – and I greatly appreciate their honesty when I meet them. This conference is about making their working world better. The threat of privatisation looms larger than ever and we dedicate this conference to fighting it and all it brings.

"Our members deserve to be treated with respect and fairness, to be given the resources to do their jobs properly so they can succeed in what they do best – caring for the public."

Fringe meetings will include: Bargaining on equality; The struggle in Palestine; UNISON and the Labour Party; Why we need to organise in the community and voluntary sector; Stress – what next for UNISON branches.

The issue facing a trade union national delegate conference, especially a major union like UNISON, is how the leadership and the rank-and-file can rise to the occasion. Will the conference be subordinate to the interests of the workers, or will it simply go through the motions of democracy? The delegates have high hopes of the UNISON national conference, and that it will rise above the scenario where "left" and "right", "militants" and "moderates", are pitted against each other in a framework of bureaucracy.

WDIE wishes UNISON's 9th National Delegate Conference every success in reaching decisions on crucial questions facing public sector workers and fully engaging in the deliberations on developing a programme which serves their interests and those of society as a whole.

At the opening session of UNISON's National Delegate Conference, National President Veronica Dunn addressed conference. Taking up the theme of the conference, she spoke about her pride in her term as President of the "unity and purpose of working together to shape our future". She said that the 2002 had been a challenging year – in view of the second term of a Labour government and their "handing of private provision of public services". She said that the government was not the first to say that public services need modernising but that did not mean that people should pay the price. She gave the view that the union should continue to be about gaining concessions from government and that the union needs to do more to convince the government but she added, "It has been difficult to understand how we could be so far apart."

She asked why thousands of UNISON members working for local councils were existing on "poverty pay". She said that 277,000 UNISON members on the lowest pay scales would receive between 14p and 15p an hour if the 3% were accepted. "Why do we have thousands of our members existing on poverty pay in local government when private companies with contracts to run those services rake in massive profits?" she asked.

Speaking about the international situation after September 11, she received warm applause when she said people should not be attacked for their political beliefs and opposed the people of Korea being treated as criminals. She concluded that the union should move forward and "together we can shape our future".

The first debate of conference was on the composite – Elected Assemblies and Regional Government in England. The motion re-affirmed "UNISON's support for directly elected regional government is dependent on the democratisation of central government functions and agencies rather than the erosion of local government powers". In a short debate in which the question was put after only a few speakers, the motion and speakers welcomed the White Paper but criticised it for not going further than it did. The real consequences of the White Paper Your Choice: Revitalising the English Regions as a plan to strengthen the executive and political arrangements so as to better serve the interests of central government and big business was not brought out.

A second motion was then debated on the Comprehensive Spending Review proposing that UNISON's position should be:

1) Increasing spending on public services and staff to secure world class services;

2) Increasing capital investment without using Private Finance Initiative/Public Partnership (PFI/PPP); and

3) Reducing poverty and inequality.

An amendment that said that Conference does not believe that the way to achieve this is by increasing the tax burden of the ordinary workers through the 1 per cent National Insurance increases fell according to the rules because the branch delegate moving it was ill. However, in the debate on the main motion two delegates spoke making this point and received warm applause from the delegates.

In the afternoon, the debate concluded by adopting the motion and the conference moved onto discussing the care of the elderly. Motions 79 Care of the Elderly, 78 Care of the Elderly with amendment from the NEC and 77 Positively Public Campaign and Public Residential Care Homes for Vulnerable Older People were all passed unanimously. In the debate it was said that the "way people are treated is a measure of civilised society". Amongst the many moving speakers, one delegate described the New Labour government's stand to the elderly as "treacherous". She described their about turn on the Royal Commission report which they themselves had commissioned and then refused to implement in terms of free personal and free nursing care for the elderly. She described a situation where, having denounced it in opposition, the government was still forcing elderly people to sell their homes. Even relatives who were carers where losing the parental home. Elderly people who had been promised cradle to the grave care were once again subject to measures reminiscent of the poor laws. Today it was the "assets process, only today they don't ask you to sell your piano but they tell you to sell your house". One speaker pointed out that the most fundamental of all human rights is for care in old age, and that the treatment of the elderly in Britain blatantly discriminated against elderly people. Speakers condemned the massive closure of residential care homes that is presently taking place and the recommendation of all the so-called "best value" commissions in recommending the privatisation of the remaining homes. In one area a delegate described that 35 of the 44 homes were to be closed with the remainder privatised. The debate was marked by a striving for the NEC and proposers of motion 77 to come to agreement on the need for the union's important work on this front. After the defeat of the NEC's amendment which toned down the action on the substantive motion, the NEC changed its stand on the substantive motion to one of support.

Following this debate, General Secretary Dave Prentis addressed conference. Among other things, Dave Prentis urged delegates and branches to support in practice decisions they take this week and make what he described as "workable decisions". He stressed a lot the need for the union to "keep its influence" in discussions with the government. He said to warm applause that the government would be judged not on the funds they are using in their "war games" in Afghanistan but on their promises to deliver funding for better public services. (He also opposed the New World Order, but characterised it as Blair's befriending of Berlusconi.)

The first day of conference ended with debates on Composite C on Integrated Public Transport, Composite B on NHS funding and motion 135, which was on the Chhokar Family Justice Campaign. They were all passed by conference.

UNISON is calling for an inquiry into an apparent conflict of interest by accountancy firms involved in more than £54 billion worth of public sector projects.

The big five accountancy firms have a vested interest in the public finance initiative (PFI) and public private partnership (PPP) schemes, according to the union. The same firm is acting as financial adviser on a public sector project and auditor of at least one consortium member bidding for a project, UNISON charges. The union says PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andersen, KPMG, Ernst & Young and Deloitte Touche Thomatsu have been driving government policy developments on privatisation. UNISON says the accountants have published reports which ministers have relied on to defend PFI and PPP.

UNISON has published a report called A Web of Private Interest. It says that the same firm has been the adviser to the public sector and auditor to a consortium member bidding for a project in at least 45 cases.

General secretary Dave Prentis said: "These companies are running the Government's privatisation agenda and charge massive fees as advisers and auditors. There must be a huge question mark over the independence and impartiality of the advice these firms are giving on PFI and PPP. You need look no further than Arthur Andersen to see the dangers of an accounting firm acting as both auditors and management consultants."

Dave Prentis emphasised: "We must never lose sight of the fact that public funds are involved in PFI and PPP deals and that the public are not getting value for money."

Van workers in Luton held mass meetings yesterday as part of a campaign of industrial action as the workers resist attempts to lower wages.

Workers at the General Motors (GM) IBC factory took time off shifts to discuss the dispute over a three-year pay deal. They have rejected a deal which would give increases of 2.75% this year and the rate of inflation plus 0.5% in each of the following two years.

Workers at the plant, which builds up to 86,000 vans a year, are due to stage a 24-hour strike on Monday.

A spokesman for the company said: "We deeply regret the decision of the unions to go ahead with industrial action. The company is very concerned that some employees might still fail to see the gravity of the situation. IBC is losing money, GM in Europe is losing money and the situation cannot continue. The long-term threat to production from European competitors is very real."

He said that the company is urging all employees to "consider their position very carefully".

A spokesman for the Transport and General Workers' Union said the pay offer was tied to changes in holiday arrangements.