Reforming UNISON’s legal services contract

The motion that’s so explosive Standing Orders Committee refused to even print it!

Ask the average UNISON branch secretary or convenor what needs to change about their trade union and though chances are you’ll still be talking to them an hour later, they will likely say quite quickly in the conversation ‘UNISON’s legal service contract’.

Every branch secretary, convenor, equalities officer and steward knows that UNISON’s core legal services contract does not work for branches or members, and the contract needs wholesale review and reform. Surely reviewing your main contract for legal services in a trade union would not be controversial, but merely common sense and good practice? In UNISON, according to our Standing Orders Committee, such a discussion should not be had with lay members under any circumstances!

Time For Real Change has the majority of elected representatives to UNISON’s NEC. We want to see wholesale change to our union. We want UNISON to be a fighting union, winning for members. Cooperating with our sister unions and not viewing them with suspicion as competitors. A union where activists can debate their differences without the instinctive recourse being to take disciplinary action against those you disagree with. A union which is, as our Rulebook demands, member-led and not led by a bureaucracy which is out of touch with branches and members and the real world of public service trade unionism we have to work within.

Part of Time For Real Change’s manifesto for change is changing UNISON’s legal services contract. It is the view of UNISON’s new NEC that the legal services contract is long overdue for reform. As branch activists we find:

·       It’s getting harder and harder to take cases for members because our legal services contract has thresholds for the probability of winning the case which have to be cleared. But sometimes it is really important to take a case, irrespective of this: to test an employer, or to test the law. We think that discrimination cases for Black members are particularly harmed by these thresholds.

·       The Regional Office is increasingly acting as a gatekeeper to legal advice, preventing branches from getting access to solicitors directly. This deskills our branch activists and is a barrier to both learning and timely, effective negotiation and case management.

·       Trying to get in touch with the legal services provider directly often takes too much time, and involves multiple calls and passwords; in addition, the 28-day turn round for written legal advice often means advice is not there when your member needs it or when activists leading employer negotiations need it.

The NEC believes few UNISON branch activists would disagree with this, and even if they did find the current service by and large met member needs, fewer would disagree that a review should be undertaken given how fast the landscape our branches work within has changed.

However, UNISON’s Standing Orders Committee has denied Conference the chance to debate this key issue facing our branches and union. They have ruled the NEC’s motion on legal services out of order: but more than this, they have gone even further and NOT PRINTED it on the laughable grounds of legal jeopardy! So the motion cannot even be ‘referenced back’ at the start of conference.

It underlines just how desperate our union is for real change, that so many within our union are seeking to resist that change by any means available to them. They will use the most draconian methods available to prevent honest debate and discussion, even of the most necessary and urgent change in the interest of members and the effectiveness of our union.

Both Time For Real Change and the NEC still want there to be a debate with branches at Conference, so the NEC has appealed the Standing Orders Committee’s edict. We don’t come from a starting point that we know everything or we know best – we want to understand more about the lived experience of branches to inform any review. So If Standing Orders Committee do not see sense, we will find other ways at Conference to find out what you think.

Support Time For Real Change if you want to change UNISON

We need your help to change our trade union, to overcome the resistance from the parts of our union that think it works just fine for them, and never want it to change. Sign up for our conference updates at: https://timeforrealchange.uk/get-involved

And if you want to drop us a line about the legal services contract now, you can contact us at conferences@timeforrealchange.uk

Meanwhile, you can read for yourself the motion that was so explosive, the Standing Orders Committee felt they had to ban it! You won’t read this on the preliminary conference agenda, but we print the motion in full below. What’s wrong with it? You decide. UNISON is a member-led union and members must be allowed to lead and change their union!

Legal support for our members and activists: getting it right  

This Conference accepts that the legal services available to our activists through UNISON’s main contract with a legal services supplier are of crucial importance. The quality, accuracy and timeliness of our legal support to members makes our reputation as a union, supports individual and collective gains for UNISON members, and helps to build power in our workplaces. 

However, Conference recognises that UNISON’s delivery of legal advice and support to our activists and members through this external contract is due for review. 

Conference recognises a general concern amongst activists that in regards to this main legal services contract:

·         It is getting harder to take cases for members and that merit thresholds can sometimes be a barrier  

·         Legal advice requests are more often than not steered through the Regional Office as gatekeepers  

·         When activists do try to access the legal advice helpline directly this can be a time-consuming process and not always be successful  

·         The 28-day turnaround to provide written legal advice can make negotiations and bargaining for members difficult at times  

·         Branch secretaries and other key activists have over time become deskilled, no longer having the requirement to engage directly with UNISON’s legal services or support members at Tribunals  

·         There is an ongoing need for timely and responsive legal advice to branch secretaries at key points of collective and individual negotiations  

·         Members increasingly expect to receive legal advice within their cases due to UNISON marketing this service as part of its ‘offer’ to new members. 

This Conference also notes there is increasingly a need to ‘have activists’ backs’. Our activists put themselves and their careers on the line for our members. When they are victimised or harassed by their employer for carrying out their trade union duties, activists need to know that their union will support them. The decision to provide legal support should be based on principle not probable success. Conference believes that there is a case to explore and review the criteria applied when deciding whether to provide legal support for activists who assert they are being victimised or harassed by their employer for carrying out trade union duties. 

Therefore, this Conference calls on the NEC to institute a review of UNISON’s legal services contract to see if more responsive and dynamic legal services can be developed, taking account of the above issues. This review should conclude by the end of 2022 and its findings and any actions taken be reported back to NDC 2023.