December 2021 NEC Report
NEC Report – Meeting on 1st December 2021
This report of the NEC meeting on 1st December seeks to inform members of the discussions in the meeting and decisions taken by the NEC. We are publishing it on Time For Real Change social media to ensure that it reaches the widest audience in the union. If any points are unclear or if members have any questions, please contact us via the Time For Real Change Facebook page or Time For Real Change on Twitter or at tfrc.unison@gmail.com.
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The meeting started in the same vein as all UNISON meetings during the pandemic have started: with huge technical challenges. It is unclear why – when we are routinely told UNISON is the biggest and best trade union in the land – that UNISON still does not have the capacity to run effective online or hybrid meetings. Roughly half the NEC reps met in London, with the other half on Teams. Echo/reverb and sound loss was consistently bad throughout most of the meeting. There is a project to resolve this but 18 months into the pandemic, UNISON still awaits a working system. Roughly 20-30 minutes of the meeting was lost at the outset to technical problems, and these continued through much of the meeting.
We then moved to obituaries. One obituary resulted in a ‘final message’ from a deceased UNISON member being read out by an NEC member. This message was to the effect that all the members of the NEC were as bad as each other: ‘you’re all a pack of bastards’. It is extraordinary that an NEC member would feel it appropriate to begin what was always likely to be a difficult and tense meeting, based on previous experience, with such a confrontational and inappropriate message.
General Secretary report
1. The Scotland local government pay offer was accepted by 76% of members.
2. GDPR affects our ability to phone bank. We were advised that Unite got a big fine, but one NEC member pointed out this was a different case on different issue (i.e. not a ballot phone bank). ‘Why are we letting it limit our phone banking in ballots?’ the NEC member asked. Phone banking advice had not yet been sent to branches and the scripts, though ready, had not yet been circulated.
3. The Industrial Action Committee made a decision to increase strike pay to £50, payable from day one. This would then go to Finance Committee and then come to NEC. The question was asked ‘Will we pay £50 from day one in the NJC pay dispute’. The Chair of the Industrial Action Committee was not available to answer the question as, happily, he was on strike himself at a Higher Education institution. The answer came from the Vice-Chair, being ‘no’. All that has happened is the Industrial Action Committee has agreed to increase strike pay: the same systems of approval remain in place. Strike pay could not be afforded if 370,000 members were on strike, and so the NJC Committee had already been advised of this. The delegate’s outrage that the ‘union might be bankrupted’ was easily rebutted by the vice-chair. The request for strike pay by the Scottish NJC was approved as it was always intended to be targeted at smaller numbers of members in limited occupational groups who wished to take strike action. Despite the outrage voiced by a number of delegates, it was pointed out that no NEC members on the Industrial Action Committee had voted against the increase, with only 2 abstentions. That 7 of 12 regions have no industrial action planned at all is a real problem that the new NEC is trying to help by increasing strike pay (strike pay has not gone up for years, is way below other unions and is a factor in decisions by members whether to strike, especially those who are low-paid).
4. Court cases on term time only pay had been heard: we await the outcome. Unite case on collective bargaining at Supreme Court – congratulations as a great precedent had been won re collective bargaining and inducements to break collective agreements.
5. COP26. UNISON had a good, small socially distanced meeting. But COP26 outcome generally way below what is needed. More action to be planned.
6. 2022 is the year of Disabled Workers, we need to look at what we can do in all areas of the union.
7. Discussion about how many activists UNISON has: a recent data cleanse means we are down to just 13,850, without any double counting. This is likely to end up as low as 12,000 when the exercise is complete, which is a worry for a union of 1.3million members and likely the product of many years of decline and positioning of the union as a servicing one.
8. The new NEC have requested and organised a ‘Fight for Fairness Rally’ open to all activists, reps, members. A first step to build and organise and listen to a bigger number of activists. This will be on Wednesday 15th December, 5.30pm online, registration out soon, so please sign people up.
Presidential Team report
A new agenda item was heard to aid accountability of the Presidential Team and its decisions between meetings for review by the NEC.
The Presidential Team has met with the National Black Members committee, as a result of correspondence. All agreed this was a positive meeting with good outcomes.
On Communications, the Presidential Team sought to sign off reports and minutes of relevant NEC meetings e.g. the NEC, given that an anonymous and partial account of the meeting on 6th October had been released without the knowledge of the Presidential Team. The Presidential Team reported they have had useful, positive discussions with the General Secretary but are still asking for Presidential Team sign-off on NEC reports before they are sent out to members by staff.
The General Secretary’s response in the meeting was there was no standard practice of chairs signing off minutes. The union has professional corporate methods of communicating. It is normal day to day business, and she would not be agreeing anything today. The Vice President addressed the meeting and outlined that in all other areas of our work, sign off by chairs is standard, and the NEC meeting is no different.
There remains an impasse over the 6 resolutions which the NEC passed with large majorities on 6th October. Legal advice sought from Stuart Brittenden QC by the General Secretary on 6th October and released one hour before that NEC meeting had held the resolutions to be unlawful. The NEC was confident the resolutions were not unlawful as they were only clarifications on existing rules, and so passed them. Lord Hendy QC’s legal advice has subsequently confirmed all 6 to be lawful. (This legal advice was provided pro bono - free of charge - to the Presidential Team.) Whereupon the General Secretary sought further advice from a different QC (Michael Ford), which then found instead that only 2 or perhaps 3 of the resolutions were unlawful but would need to understand further the intentions of the Presidential team.
The Presidential Team had met with the General Secretary to try to resolve this difference, but this had not proved possible. The Presidential Team had asked the General Secretary to allow the two QCs to meet to see if they could find a way to agree, so that the intent of the NEC (agreed through the 6 resolutions on 6th October) could be put into practice by finding an acceptable form of words. Such a meeting would be normal and routine legal practice to avoid the cost associated with having to go to the High Court to get a definitive judgement. The General Secretary was unwilling to permit Michael Ford QC to talk to the Lord Hendy QC. Given it was the officers who had made the first approach to seek in writing the QC’s position, the NEC felt it was only right to now get the two QC’s to talk.
The resolutions remain important as they go to the heart of to what extent UNISON is a lay member-led union, or not. The Presidential Team had found their powers to be more limited than anticipated, and this arose due to quite different interpretations of the Rulebook between lay officers and staff. The Presidential Team felt this issue was now an urgent matter, given the rule book is explicitly clear within Section D, Powers of the NEC, 2.11.3, the NEC has powers ‘to interpret the Rules in event of doubt, conflict or dispute’ that we find ourselves in such a position.
An NEC member made a proposal from the floor that the NEC should vote to ask the General Secretary to allow this dialogue between the 2 QCs. This appeared a relatively simple proposition that the NEC could understand and vote on, but several NEC members insisted this would break access standards as the proposal had not been circulated in advance. In the end, a form of words was agreed and circulated during the lunch break for NEC members to consider.
“This NEC proposes that due to the risks of further delay to the implementation of the 6 resolutions from last NEC that the General Secretary works with the Director of Legal within the next 7 days to instruct Michael Ford QC to work with Lord Hendy QC to urgently endeavour to resolve the differences that remain outstanding.”
The General Secretary said she hoped it would not come to this. She could not see the point of asking them [the QCs] to resolve this for the union when we cannot decide ourselves. She would not be instructing any barrister to do this. She was general secretary and wanted to be in the room, and would not let 2 barristers take this away from her, it being her role to resolve issues. The matter might need to be settled in court instead.
Other NEC members suggested a) we accept the advice of Lord Hendy, and b) we ask the General Secretary and Presidential Team to continue discussions and try and find a way forward or else we will end up in court.
The Director of Legal Services was called into the meeting by the General Secretary. He felt the NEC was seeking to enact one of the resolutions by instructing him to get legal advice. He believed this would be a serious breach of his professional independence. He did not feel that getting them [the QCs] into a room would be the right thing for the union. To avoid external litigation, he felt we need to pursue a route to find a middle ground between the General Secretary and the Presidential Team.
It was agreed that whilst discussion will continue between senior officers and Presidential Team, we should ask the QCs to meet. The proposal was passed by 29 votes to 21 with 3 abstentions.
The General Secretary will not implement the resolutions as she considered them to be unlawful.
The Presidential team stated they are happy to be bound by the outcome of QCs deliberations.
Comments from NEC members: This NEC passed those motions at the last NEC, we are asking that officers respect this and move on. If blockages still exist, we need to find a solution. Asking barristers to meet is a possible solution, if it fails then we need to look at where next. There is not in fact a huge difference remaining between Ford and Hendy’s views.
The General Secretary said it was not a competent motion, trying to enact one of the motions which some considered to be ultra vires, but she agreed to go back and discuss with the Director of Legal Services.
Service Group Elections
New election procedures were agreed. The aim of the new procedures was to improve turnout and make the experience as engaging of and for members as possible. [Turnouts have been awful in the past, often as low as 5-6%. Previous changes to the rules to tighten them up and make campaigning more restricted had done nothing to improve engagement or turnout and attempted to address problems of ‘external interference’ which did not exist in reality. The Certification Officer has only in fact found against UNISON in recent elections when there has been inappropriate staff interference, rather than external interference.]
A request for verbal amendments to the tabled proposals to be taken on the day was defended by the same NEC delegate who had opposed on grounds of disability access a more simple verbal motion on whether the QCs should meet.
As all amendments raised through questions had been discussed and lost at the Development & Organisation Committee meeting held previously, and with time running increasingly short, it was agreed to take a vote on the proposals unamended. If that vote fell, we would return to amendments.
There was some conflicting advice with one officer suggesting that there was no need to take amendments and another stating there was.
The vote was taken and the new procedures passed: 33 For, 28 Against, 6 Abstentions.
Nominations by branches will run from 10th Jan to 11th Feb 2022
UNISON Staff pension scheme
The staff pension scheme continues to have a significant deficit, and this requires a recovery plan. The NEC agreed changes to make the staff pension scheme viable. The voting figures were unclear (‘60-ish’) with one abstention, so clearly carried.
Other items on the agenda were not reached so it is likely there will be another NEC in January, with virtual attendance.
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