Created on Thursday, 04 February 2010 19:41 Written by UNISON IMT Supporters
The UNISON NEC has decided to call for a snap General Secretary election. The nomination period opens on 4th February and closes on 1st April. The election comes at a crucial point for thousands of UNISON members in the north. The bail out of the banks and the cost of mass unemployment mean that savage cuts will be imposed on the public sector regardless of who sits in 10 Downing Street after the General Election as evidenced by Sammy Wilson’s statement recently about the forthcoming cuts in the Assembly budget.
UNISON as a whole organises 1.3 million people and as well as being the decisive trade union in the NHS and Local Government it is also a major contributor to the British Labour Party. The union leadership are intimately connected with the Labour Party leadership and a major factor in the current economic and political situation in the public sector in Britain has been the tendency for the union leaders to “hold the line” for Labour, even at the cost of the members. Indeed much of the leadership’s and the full time officer’s time has been spent in “policing the membership”. There have been a number of expulsions of important left activists in the union and a number of disciplinary hearings are in progress.
With these factors in mind, and the imminent arrival of swingeing cuts throughout the public sector, both in Britain and here,with attacks on pensions and wages and conditions, it is no surprise that there will be a left challenge to the incumbent Dave Prentis, who is associated by many of the active layers of the union with the union’s industrial strategy and also with the attacks on the left in the union.
The history of the left in UNISON hasn’t been one of harmony and goodwill to all men and women. In fact the biggest concern among the left has been the risk of failing to agree a unified campaign around a single candidate. The last time that Prentis stood for election he faced two candidates, one Jon Rogers an active member of the British Labour Party and the Labour Representation Committee and Roger Bannister from the Socialist Party of England and Wales .
In recent years the left organisation split and then last year a joint “Reclaim the Union ” slate was agreed for the NEC election. The International Marxist Tendency comrades in UNISON are keen to support a single unified candidate, but we also recognise that the differences between Paul Holmes and Roger Bannister the two main left candidates in the union which will make that very difficult. On January 30th a meeting of the UNISON left took place in London where the left tendencies in the union were represented as well as the left NEC and Service Group Executive (SGE) members. The debate perhaps inevitably centred around the issue of Labour Party disaffiliation. The meeting agreed that in the event of more than one left candidate receiving the required 25 nominations a meeting of left activists could be called to vote on a single left candidate. However, it was agreed that this would only work, in the event that both candidates agreed to abide by the decision of the meeting and stand down if they lost. We have to say, that the Socialist Party’s confused sectarian attitude towards the Labour Party means that this is very unlikely to happen. Meanwhile they support Len McCluskey (a loyal Labour supporter) in the UNITE General Secretary Election, against Jerry Hicks a genuine left winger.
With all of these factors in mind it was a very easy decision for us to make to recommend support for Paul Holmes as our preferred candidate for the General Secretary position. Paul is secretary of Kirklees branch of UNISON (which is in Yorkshire ); the branch has 10,000 members and a membership density of 80%. Paul has been a steward for 35 years and is a committed socialist who has agreed that he is prepared to accept only the wage of a skilled worker rather than the £127,000 salary currently enjoyed by Dave Prentis.
Paul is committed to a ballot for one political fund for the union and for the whole union in Britain to affiliate to the Labour Party instead of the partial affiliation and two existing political funds. As a member of the NEC who was elected by the entire Local Government membership (including the Northern Ireland Region) Paul has demonstrated that he can turn his obvious popularity in the union into votes.
The key task for the next period has to be to maximise the number of nominations for Paul. To get on the ballot paper he needs a minimum of 25 nominations. We call on all of our supporters and readers in UNISON to campaign for Paul in their branches and in the regions. Meetings of activists should be called and Paul should be invited to attend, with a view to reaching the maximum number of UNISON members and activists. Every UNISON branch should be contacted and we must ensure that we help get Paul’s programme and ideas over to the maximum number of members. We think Paul has an excellent chance of winning and laying the basis for a fighting and democratic UNISON which can fight for the interests of members on either side of the water.
· One left candidate
· Back Paul Holmes
UNISON IMT Supporters