UNISON leaders betray pensions fight

Submitted by Matthew on 6 April, 2011 - 1:20

The standing orders committee (at Unison Health Conference, in sesssion as we go to press) agreed under pressure to allow a motion on the attacks on pensions onto the conference agenda.

We will be debating a motion submitted by Service Group Executive and Scottish Region on Wednesday 6 April. However at least one motion with a clear call for action has still been ruled out. Now conference will not be able to have a debate about how to defeat the biggest ever attack on our pensions.

Unison have been extremley slow to react to these attacks. One can only conclude that the leadership do not want to fight at all.

The government announced the contributions increases in the Comprehensive Spending Review way back in June 2010. Despite saying this was Unison's number one priority before the conference, union officials argued that the union should not pre empt negotiations with the government!

With no decision at this conference there is little chance of us joining the teaching union, the NUT, and other public sector workers taking action in June. This is a dreadful betrayal of hundreds of thousands of health workers and our brothers and sisters facing all kinds of attacks in the public sector.

Where do we go from here? We need to explain the need for action and push motions through branches and regions with a clear strategy and time table for ballot and action so that it cam be discussed at the next SGE in July.

In the meantime we should be building the campaign amongst our members and ensuring our membership records are ready for a ballot.

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