Sunday, May 23, 2010

UNISON Ballot Paper: Election of General Secretary 2010

Yesterday I received a text from UNISON national office reminding me to vote in this election and then latter a recorded telephone message on my home line, with a similar message.

I am pleased that UNISON is trying to encourage members in this way to vote in this important election and try to increase turnout.

It will be interesting to see if the texts and the phone messages have any impact.

Anyway, it wasn't needed in my case since I had only voted for Dave Prentis and sent my ballot form off!

See copy left (double click to bring up details).

There is time still to vote (Friday 11 June) and the result will be announced at the UNISON National Delegate Conference (NDC) the following week.

Check out Elect Dave Prentis

13 comments:

Andy DM said...

Interesting, I haven't had a text or phone message from UNISON. Maybe it matters who you're likely to support.

John Gray said...

Hi Andy

Don't be so paranoid. There are 1.3 million UNISON members out there.

Being a fellow new media geek you should be pleased that UNISON is doing this stuff:)

Anonymous said...

has Holmes condemed the SWp breaking up trade union negotiations yet

town hall revoluntionaries on full time release

if they actually worked on the job it would be believable truth is they have been full time for years

paid for by the bosses

Dave said...

Hi John,

I was approached by a Unison member today and asked who I thought was the best candidate in the Unison election.
I suggested Dave Prentis. Always happy to do my old union a favour.
However what I really found of interest was in the election addresses- though I didn't read them in detail. Both Roger Bannister and more explicitly Paul Holmes (who argues there should have been no nationalisation)state that there should have been no assistance to the banks.
This of course was the position of the Tory party who like the Republicans with Lehman Brothers would have let the invisible hand of the market operate and the banks go to the wall. The consequences would have been thousands more viable firms going bust and millions more on the dole.
Socialists argueing against government intervention in the economy>
I suspect the problem is that they have difficulty differentiating the backside from their elbow.

Dave Draycott

John Gray said...

Hi Dave

It’s all la la politics and sloganising - sadly enough I suspect that Paul and Roger know it.

Anonymous said...

Andy - is your phone number on the membership system? That might explain it? - Max

Bill said...

Dave,

socialists do indeed argue against government intervention in the economy - it can only intervene on behalf of the ultimate beneficiaries of the capitalist system: the capitalists.

The government needs to be abolished along with the wages system.

Dave said...

Hi Bill,

I was going to suggest that we are on different planets, but on re-reading your post it's clear you come from a 'galxy far far away.'

Non-intervention by the the government short of your anarchist utopia would mean:no NHS or welfare state just for starters. Mainstream socialists have always seen the use of the state to protect and advance the interests of working people as central.

I would repeat the position taken by yourself, Paul Holmes and Roger Bannister for non-intervention in the economy by the government is identical to the Tories and Republicans in the States. It is classical free-market liberalism.

The idea that the state can not intervene on the part of working people flies in the face of reality and the struggles of the labour and trade union movement over the past hundred years plus.

Dave Draycott

Bill said...

Dave,

the welfare state is just redistribution of poverty. The continued existence of the wages system means that what is given with one hand is taken with another - capitalism can only be run in the interest of capitalists, and the continuation of capitalism, such as the Labour party stands for, means the necessary continuation of poverty and inequality: that's what you are supporting when you support Labour.

John Gray said...

Hi Bill

How on earth are we supposed to take such views seriously?

Stop wasting your life with such silly nonsense.

IMO

Bill said...

John,

because it makes more sense than supporting the continued existence of poverty, like the Labour Party does. Fighting like demons to put tiny sticking plasters over gaping wounds.

You cannot have capitalism without unemployment and pvoerty, the labour party supports capitalism, so supporting Labour means supporting poverty and unemployment.

Dave said...

Hi Bill,

I feel like this discussion is sucking me into a place I don't want to be: your arguments make the SWP seem balanced.

So the welfare state, trade unions ( merely negotiating the terms of our wage slavery? me? I'd rather be a wage slave on better money )are irrelevant:so short of the new millenium we roll over and have our tummies tickled (or should that be kicked.)

As Homer Simpson would say: "duh."

You know what they say about the political spectrum it isn't a straight line: it's a circle.

I think I'm out of this discussion at this point: it's tooo crazy for words.

Dave Draycott

Bill said...

Dave,

and I'd rather not be a wage slave at all - the capability to end the wages system outright lies within our hands, and it is a waste of time to fight for morsels.

Now, unions cannot abolish the wages system, so it makes sense to use *them* to fight for the best terms we can make here and now, but the ballot box can make that change, so it doesn't make sense to use it for anything else.

I don't know why you'd waste your lives on the fultility of the left.