Recently I went on a visit to the UNISON office in Greenwich Council Headquarters with Gloria Hanson. Gloria is of course the longstanding elected UNISON Regional Convenor for London while I am part of her Regional Council Officer team as the elected Finance Convenor. Both of us are lay activists and by co-incidence have worked in local government in East London for many years.
The Greenwich Local Government branch was a few weeks ago put into what is called “supervision” by the UNISON National Executive Committee. This followed in part the finding of a UNISON NEC discipline panel that the Greenwich branch secretary (and 3 others in separate London branches) should be suspended from office for two years due to misconduct. These charges had been investigated beforehand by lay UNISON NEC members who had recommended that there was a case to answer. After the exhaustive disciplinary hearing elected lay NEC members decided that the case was proven and that the members should be suspended from holding any UNISON office for 3-4 years. There was an appeal which was heard by elected UNISON lay members from Service Group Executives who upheld the decision but reduced the suspension from 3- to 2 years.
The former Greenwich branch secretary had taken part in an Employment tribunal case against UNISON with the others and claimed that the union had discriminated against him over this matter due only to his “Marxist/Trotskyite beliefs”. After two separate exhaustive hearings and thousands of pages of evidence and witnesses the tribunal unanimously found against the Greenwich branch secretary and the 3 others. The tribunal completely dismissed all their allegations against the union. Not only that but the tribunal found that the applicants politics beliefs to be fundamentally (section 130) “undemocratic” and to hold authoritarian views which were (section 131) “incompatible with human dignity”. They also held (section 133) “extreme or repugnant views” and (section 135) these views were “not worthy of respect” in any democratic society.
At the Greenwich office Gloria and I were briefed by local UNISON area and regional officers who are supporting the branch during its supervision. There has been some weird and wonderful misinformation put about this supervision. Therefore we carefully checked all the desks in the UNSION office but could not find any Greenwich HR directors hiding underneath listening to all conversations. All the PC's and their hard discs seemed in place. Dawn in Greenwich took place this week at 6.04am (GMT) not 7.50am or 1.30pm
I also had the opportunity to speak to members about the supervision and any concerns they may have. To be quite frank none of the members I spoke to were even aware that the branch was in supervision and were just concerned about the employment issues they were facing and making sure they got good advice and representation. Other members I met were really pleased to meet their elected regional Council officers and asked why hadn’t Gloria and I hadn’t been and visited them before?
I told them that in the past any invite to us must have been eaten by the dog.
Strangely enough neither of us have a dog?
17 comments:
Excellent report John, and I'm not at all surprised that Greenwich members were so welcoming.
The extremist left-led branches are all about isolating themselves from the rest of the union except when they want something that their Trotskyist party central committees have told them to get - usually some underhand way of getting their own petty campaigns funded and supported.
It must feel good for members to know they are no longer in the Stalinist grip of these toytown revolutionaries, and are once again part of a larger and more influential organisation that is about improving their day to day lives in the workplace and beyond, and not one which shrieks demands for general strikes and ridiculous contradictory demands for revolution at the same time as reforming the market.
Welcome back, Greenwich, we've missed you!
Martha
think of all the lies and slanders that these people have told about UNISON why were they all not expelled?
Some of us hope that Lambeth will be following Greenwich where resources are used for activities (office space) supporting non affiliated parties. Has someone lost the file?
Hi John,
Who elects the regional officers running the branch now then?
Jonboy
can we have a picture of the new branch secretaries girl friend on the back of a bus
it was socialist party policy in Greenwich
Jonboy,
Have you practised being an idiot?
Regional officers aren't elected and a bloody good thing too. If they were do you think the union's NEC's could direct the resources of the union approriately? Do you think the General Secretary could tell staff what to do? What if national conference decides policy X against the policy of Region Y, why should the regional officer go with the national decision? Can you imagine staff elected by a region being told to focus on priorities of the union overall? What about their need to court the big branches at the expense of the smaller ones to ensure they get re-elected?
A recipe for chaos.
Come on boy, think it through will you!?!
Based on your Stalinist arguent, why do we elect any officers? Surely better to employ all officers (on an average £39k per year, a real workers wage!) and go around running the union like a union in China?
What next, gas chambers for people who don't pay into the Labour Link?
UNISON is a disgraceful organisation, i'm glad i'm not an LG worker!
anon you don't seem like any sort of worker to me. the only work you lot do is for the tories by attacking trade unions.
Bob from Unite
Well, John, the idiot count is certainly running high on the blog today!
The only elected paid official in UNISON is the General Secretary - Dave Prentis. He has to be elected under the Tories anti-trade union legislation. There are no other elected paid officials in UNISON.
What the Trots want to do is get more people elected because they don't think the Tory laws went far enough.
I don't imagine the SP/SWP'd be too keen on having the elected regional GMB Barons though!
And frankly, Anon at 08:36, I can't imagine anyone who would be glad of you as a local government worker as such jobs require competency.
Rod
I don't imagine the SP/SWP'd be too keen on having the elected regional GMB Barons though!
GMB regional secretaries are not elected. They are interviewed and appointed by the Regional Committee.
And do you really think that the only people who think elections are good are Tories and Trots?
I'm afraid I have to defend my good friend John yet again.
Apparantly he is now a 'Stalinist' and it appears a 'Maoist' as well??
It's a good job sensible people like John exist in UNISON otherwise we would all have Branch densities of 8% whilst lecturing the rest of the Union on how it should be run!?
Oh dear, does saying such things make me a Stalinist too???
I suppose (to some) anyone who does not believe in 'democratic centralism' is an evil 'reformist' or 'acting against the interests of the Working Class'!!??
And if any ordinary member out there reading this (and remember it's your votes they are stealing) just read the tosh they put on the back page of the Socialist Worker!
Thank goodness for John Gray and the London Regional Office!
Hi Ranjit from Southwark
I’ve deleted your comment for your cowardly attack on those who cannot answer back. Attack me by all means but not those who cannot! but anyway I know you guys have difficulty understanding concepts such as truth but I understand that for some reason the bureaucracy in Greenwich never had any actual contested elections (all major posts were “unopposed”), while the discipline process in the union is led by real elected NEC and SGE lay activists. They were the ones who decided what action was appropriate.
No-one else. While the elected regional leadership have been kept informed and updated about developments.
You are just using any excuse to indulge in union bashing and you should be ashamed of yourselves. IMO.
You must be very proud of yourselves using Stalinist dawn raids to attack 'Trotskyists'. And to claim criticism of yourselves is 'union bashing'! Oh, the irony of it all!!!
Well done for using Stalinist dawn raids to attack 'Trotskyists'. And to claim any criticism is 'union bashing'! Oh, th irony of it.
Percy - don’t think that 7.50am or 1.30pm is “dawn”? but a lot of middle class toytown revolutionaries don’t know what it is like to get up in the morning for a proper job.
What else do you call people who think they can attack black union activists with racist images, tell lies about their union, set up websites slagging off the union and take their union to court?
Union bashers!
Hi there
I'm an ordinary member of Greenwich Unison. Interesting that you were so welcomed. Since our branch has been taken over, there have been no branch meetings. I've asked if our constitution says how many branch meetings we are supposed to have and have not got an answer. We were told that the take over would improve communication. I've had one newsletter with no local news. Apparently there is a surgery every week. That's it - hardly collective action. Members are leaving and we are facing 40% cuts. We are in a mess. And this is the branch that kept all our conditions and rights in the single status battle. I heard there was a Labour Link meeting but I wasn't told about it. Why don't members know that their branch has been taken over? Maybe because we don't hear anything about anything now.
Ann
It seems "Ann" (i guess who) wants to hide her identity. well so will I. I am a real ordinary member of Greenwich unison and i am so glad that we have a proper branch at long last which wants to look after members not treat them as strike fodder. I suppose having surgerys means nothing to Ann since representing individual members and their concerns will not bring about the revolution and is therefore a waste of branch time. They should be plotting strikes and the over throw of the government.
If I have a problem now at work I know that I can ring the office up, speak to someone and if necessary get an appointment to see someone who is trained (a first!)and will actually help me with a problem not lecture me on why I am a sell out s**t cause I won't go on some demo.
Yes, there are massive cuts pending but in Greenwich the branch was so insular and anti anything and anyone who didn't toe the party line that it could not fight it way out of a paper bag.
Everyone knows that until recently management were openly dismissive of the branch. A bunch of self obsessive extremists who no one could take seriously.
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