Clashes at Prospect conference

The conference (6-9 June in Brighton) of the Prospect union could have been, in my opinion, much more democratic. According to the Standing Orders Committee report, 155 motions were received and 64 of them were ruled out of order.

Prospect is a union formed by the merger of IPMS (Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists, a mostly-civil-service union), Bectu (broadcasting, film, theatre, etc), EMA (Engineers' and Managers' Association, mostly from engineering), and Connect (formerly Society of Telecom Executives).

A ‘reference back’ was ruled out of order because instead of saying “Conference instructs”, it said “Conference further instructs”. Even when an appeal was made to conference to admit this to the agenda, conference voted with the SOC. There was also no mechanism to make amendments to motions.

Many of the items ruled out of order were crucial. One of them was a ‘reference back’ seeking to query the NEC on actions taken to implement a motion to do with strike funds passed at the 2024 National Conference. We did not get to hear the answer. Another motion supporting the setting up of a strike fund was heard by conference (it was not ruled out of order) but fell by a significant margin.

Another motion that was ruled out of order sought to make Prospect launch a national fightback against employers forcing their workers back to the office. This is a topical industrial issue that workers care about as much as they care about pay – in fact they often care about this more than they care about pay. Despite rounds of appeal, this motion was not heard at conference. Other motions ruled out of order were motions that, in my view, were seeking to democratise Prospect by, for example, “allowing the election of sector heads (motion 137)”.

National conference only takes place every two years. We will have to wait another two years to attempt to get those motions heard at a national conference.

It was pointed out to me by another delegate that union officials were speaking on motions on behalf of the National Executive Committee. Because of being relatively new to the union, I was unable to verify whenever this was happening. But I disagree with union officials being able to do more than simply report facts to conference. They shouldn’t have the standing to argue in favour or against motions. That should be a right that only members have.

Conference often voted to remit decisions to the NEC instead of voting on the content of the motion. The NEC’s recommendation to remit or oppose motions seemed to have great sway over delegates, but there were some important instances where delegates voted contrary to the NEC’s recommendation.

One of the most important instances of this was when delegates voted against the NEC’s motion on trans rights. While this motion contained some positive provisions in favour of transgender people, it also contained a poison – an instruction to the NEC to press for continued legal protection for sex at birth. Conference rightly voted this down in favour of other, better motions brought by branches, which were unequivocally supportive of trans rights.

Conference also defeated a rule change motion by the NEC which would have removed the ability of branches to investigate and possibly dismiss complaints prior to them being heard by the NEC. In my view this rule change would have given the NEC too much power and defeating this was key to defending branch delegated authority.

The NEC recommended that delegates oppose motions on a two-way arms embargo with Israel and to end trade with companies involved in genocide. On these motions conference voted against the NEC recommendation, and the motions passed.

Motions were heard in relation to the union’s new IT systems. One of them pointed out that IT operating costs grew from a “reasonably steady level averaging around £0.6m in the four years to 2020 to approaching an average of £1.6m per year in the four years to 2024.” These motions, which supported an external review of Prospect’s IT project, passed on a ballot of all the delegates but fell on a card vote. It seemed to happen quite frequently that a motion would pass amongst delegates but fall when votes were weighted according to branch size.

It was interesting to me that the NEC supported a motion by EFRA branch instructing the NEC to 'establish a task-and-finish group to consider the current General Secretary and NEC election processes with a focus on all forms of bias, including incumbency bias.” Prior to conference I had heard Prospect members bemoan rules against campaigning for these elections, and I also felt this was outrageous.

However when a member of the union leadership rose to speak in favour of this motion, one of the arguments seemed to be that if the electoral process and electoral turnout were not improved, the union would be vulnerable to unrepresentative, well-organised groups and factions. It was positive that another delegate, also speaking in favour of the motion, responded to this and argued that factionalising with people who share your view is a democratic right, that it allows like-minded people to fully develop their ideas before bringing them to the wider collective, and helps make for more well-developed debate. They said that people should be allowed to campaign and factionalise out in the open.

Prospect members who are sympathetic to this view, should check out Democratic Prospects – a network of rank-and-file activists within Prospect seeking to transform it into a democratic, fighting union. This network has previously been mentioned in the Socialist, a publication by the Socialist Party. This seemed to make people think Democratic Prospects is a vehicle of the SP. In reality, this network is made up of various activists of different backgrounds and politics. Some of us are in socialist groups (a few different groups – not just the Socialist Party) and many of us are unaffiliated. The important thing to know about the people in Democratic Prospects is that we are working together to democratise our union and to make it fight the bosses.