After an eventful trip across London (one delegate lost her tube ticket but had the receipt so had to negotiate at each set of turnstiles) we reached the Alexandra Palace in time to have a light lunch before we were allowed to enter the hall. Once inside we found a stack of paperwork on our seats setting out the order of business for the afternoon and details of composited motions (the result of merging several similar motions into a single form of words that delegates can vote on).
The formal business kicked off with a verbal report from Heather Wakefield about the current state of negotiations. She set out the improvements that had been achieved on the original proposals, where we had achieved what we wanted and where we still needed to negotiate. The latter includes the contribution rates of part time workers and thoe ex-manual workers on a protected 5% rate, ill health retirement, and protection for those formerly covered by the Rule of 85 to at least match that in Scotland.
There then followed a series of questions about the negotiations before conference was suspended for 15 minutes to give delegates a chance to go through the wording of the composites that they had just received. Compositing had resulted in there being two proposals:
Comp A: carry on the negotiations and then hold a ballot of all members to see if they are acceptable (and if not whether members would be willing to strike over them), produce a booklet explaining the new scheme to members (and stewards), and arrange training in the regions on the new scheme
Comp C: go for an immediate strike ballot for an escalating programme of strike action to begin as soon as possible beginning with a two day strike and a national demonstration in London on the second day
There was a lengthy debate, the best part of two hours with about 30 speeches in support of the two positions and attacking the opposing view. Some speeches were wittier than others and kept delegates awake, others were less than inspiring rants or speakers droning on with unfunny jokes (that must have sounded good in the head of the person writing it). At the end of the debate we voted. The vote on Comp A was taken first. If this was carried, Comp C and another motion would fall. The vote was done on a show of hands and from my seat at the back of the hall it looked about 2 to 1 in favour. Those that supported Comp C tried to call for a card vote but there very few of them and the President moved on to the next business. The branch delegation voted for Comp A in accordance with the mandate given to us by the members meetings held in County Hall and Mansfield in mid-February.
Many delegates left the hall at this point so did not hear the speeches on Comp B from the National Disabled Members Committee and Watford Branch that called for the negotiators to ensure that the new look scheme was not discriminatory against those with disabilities. Notts delegates stayed in the hall and voted in favour of this in accordance with the mandate given to us by the branch committee. The motion was carried.
The last item of business was a motion from Sunderland Branch about some technical matters relating to the proposed new scheme. The branch had not given us a mandate as it was not clear what the motion was actually about, so we had been asked to listen to the debate and make up our minds in line with branch policy. Initially we were supportive until our Joint Branch Secretary Chris Tansley (see picture above) got up to speak on behalf of the Service Group Executive (the national elected leadership of UNISON for local government). He pointed out problems with the motion because women and men live different lengths of time after retirement amongst other things. In light of this the delegates agreed to vote against the motion (as did many others as it was lost).
Conference closed at about 4 pm and we then headed back across London to catch our trains home, stopping off to take the delegates' picture at the top of this report.
UNISON's national website also has a report on the conference: click here for details
