NEC Report, meeting held on 12 February 2025
As is the case every year, the February NEC meeting was largely taken up with discussions around NEC motions to National Delegate Conference. The General Secretary sent apologies for the meeting.
Presidential Team report
Before we got to that part of the agenda, we received a report from the Presidential Team on the activity they have been involved in since the last NEC meeting. The Presidential Team of Steve North, Julia Mwaluke and Lyn Marie O’Hara continues to support the various service group and self-organised group conferences that make our union so unique and inclusive, while attending picket lines and demonstrations in support of UNISON members and other trade unionists across all regions. President Steve North was particularly proud to report that he had recently attended his own North West Regional Council, where a £10,000 donation was made towards his Presidential Project, Salford Women’s Centre.
Wes Streeting invite
In the discussion that followed the Presidential Team report, concerns were raised about the invite to Wes Streeting to address this year’s UNISON Health Conference. While recognising that the Health Service Group Executive had the right to offer such an invite, numerous NEC members raised serious concerns about the message this would send to Trans members, after an incredible successful Year of LGBT+ workers, and others highlighted Streeting’s support for privatisation and the lack of progress on delivering a National Care Service.
National Delegate Conference motions
The NEC by convention submits only 12 motions to NDC, so that conference retains proper space for regional and branch motions. Various NEC committees are able to bring forward motions to be considered as part of the 12 and this year a motion was raised for consideration by the Presidential Team at the request of the National Retired Members Committee.
The motions that the NEC will take to Conference are on the following subjects:
Organising to Win & Delivering a decade of growth
Learning develops our activists – promoting clear pathways and support
Building on our wins: how we resource our industrial action
Building for the future: how we resource what we do
Building support for a Palestinian State
Time for the UK to promote universal quality public services in the global South
Defending our NHS
Rise of the far right
Public services, living standards, and the economy after the 2024 General Election
Backing the Employment Rights Bill
Climate Change in UNISON 2025 – turning commitments into actions
A union of 1.5 million members is a fighting and winning union
The final motion, “A union of 1.5 million members is a fighting and winning union” was proposed by the Presidential Team and then agreed by the NEC. It aims to consider the vital role retired members play in UNISON and engage the whole union in a consultation on how we can secure their best possible involvement, given that many currently feel excluded from how our union functions. The motion seeks to explore how the union can better mobilise its substantial retired membership of 170,000 members into a campaigning force that can win for members and citizens alike.
Not all NEC members agreed with this motion or its place on the list of 12. Some NEC members voted against it, but a majority voted for it. Concerns were raised in the debate by some NEC members that having the retired members motion would mean the sixth ranked motion from the Policy Development and Campaigns Committee (PDCC) on migrant workers would not be debated.
It is probably worth explaining why the NEC decided to prioritise the retired members motion, given those concerns.
Firstly, during the discussion, it was reported that a number of branches, regions and SOGs intended to submit motions on the issues facing migrant workers. The NEC therefore recognised that the exploitation of migrant workers, particularly in social care is an issue that will be discussed and debated at NDC. Recognition that this matter will be discussed at Conference was reflected by the decision of the Policy committee to give this motion a lower prioritisation than others regarding consideration as to whether it should be one of the 12 proposed to Conference by the NEC.
Secondly, the motion on retired members was proposed following a vote by the AGM of the National Retired Members to ask the NEC to put this forward. National Retired Members Committee was not in a position to submit this motion to Conference themselves, having already determined their motions at their conference last year. Unlike with the issues that concern migrant workers, there was no other way for this retired members motion to proceed. Either the NEC proposed it or it wouldn’t be debated. The NEC felt that to deny the elected representatives of 170,000 retired members that support would further reinforce the idea that many retired members hold, that they are not valued by our union.
Thirdly, it’s worth bearing in mind that the Presidential Team that proposed the submission of the retired members motion, features a Vice President, Julia Mwaluke, who is herself a low-paid Black migrant care worker. Julia and UNISON President Steve North are both members of Salford City UNISON, the first branch in the union to secure support from a council leader to implement UNISON’s Social Care Migrant Workers Charter. Their commitment to this issue is clear and it is joined by the equal commitment of the other Vice President, Lyn Marie O’Hara, a low paid woman who has fought for years for justice for women workers in Glasgow, many of them migrant workers.
Conference will of course have the final say on all these motions. Once the motions were agreed, we looked at a few important rule changes that will come to this year’s National Delegates Conference. None were contentious and hopefully delegates will understand why the NEC feel them to be necessary once they see them published.
Service group updates
We then moved to Service Group updates where we were given a rundown of the current position regarding pay claims and, in the case of Higher Education, a live pay ballot. Questions were raised as to why we did not yet have a date for a national demonstration on Local Government funding, given the decision by Conference last year to organise one. The NEC was informed by officers that following a consultation with regions, it was felt it would be difficult to pull this together in the Spring. The NEC remains committed to making this demonstration happen because we know the impact on the ground of funding cuts and, as you will see from the motion we intend to take to Conference, we expect to see this by Autumn 2025, with the potential for a demo outside Labour Party Conference itself if our Conference agrees.
Organising to Win
Reports on Organising to Win from the Chair of Development and Organising Andrea Egan show that this work goes from strength to strength. Our union is growing, getting stronger and putting money into members’ pockets. This is something we can all be incredibly proud of.
Finance report
We moved on to the report from the Finance and Resource Management Committee Chair Dan Sartin who told the NEC it could be pleased that our income is growing as a result of improved recruitment and retention over the lest few years, but that we shouldn’t take our eye off the ball and must continue to ensure that members’ subs are used as effectively as possible.
Staffing Committee
The NEC then took a vote to replace an outgoing member of the Staffing Committee with a Black woman NEC member. Chair of Staffing Steve North explained that the vacancy was specifically promoted to Black women members as part of the Staffing Committee’s commitment to UNISON’s Black Staff Network to try and ensure Black representation on all interview panels for UNISON jobs. This is even more important now that sufficient progress has been made in the Staffing Review to move to permanent recruitment of Regional Organisers into what the NEC is assured will be genuine organising roles. Julia Mwaluke won the vote and was therefore elected to join the Staffing Committee. The NEC further agreed that even though the Staffing Committee was now one of the most diverse committees of the NEC, if it was still not possible to secure Black representation on a particular panel, a request would go out to other Black NEC members to see if they wanted to join. If this didn’t work, the Staffing Committee would relinquish one of the places on the panel to provide a place for a Black member of staff.
Services to Members
The NEC then heard from the Chair and Vice Chair of Services to Members, Mark Wareham and Christine Collins respectively on the work that committee has been doing to ensure UNISON’s contracts with external providers are compliant with our ethical commitments. This followed the fantastic victory in securing ethical commitments from the ACC in Liverpool allowing us to resume booking conferences with them going forwards.
Following final reports, the meeting finished bang on time to allow NEC members to get their trains to Women’s Conference in Edinburgh!