UNISON NDC 12: Kicking the Far Right out of the Union

During the rules debate on Thursday afternoon I was really pleased that Conference finally agreed to change membership rules that will enable the union to expel existing members of far right political parties and refuse admission.

(It did help on this occasion that members of the People's Front of Judea finally showed enough gumption to publicly tell the Judean People's Front to stop their completely untruthful sectarian scaremongering and squabbling).

The new LGPS 2014 (and the old Miserablists)

On Wednesday I went to a presentation/Q&A by UNISON to London Region on the proposed new Local Government Pension Scheme 2014. It was on the whole a fairly good humoured and constructive meeting.

I think that the points that struck home with the audience was that 90% of scheme members will pay the same in the new scheme (or less). Only the very high paid will pay more (and they will be gain by higher rate tax relief)

Members within 10 years of retirement will be fully protected (so-called Grandparent Rights).

It will be a fairer, non-discriminatory scheme.  It will improve the build up of benefits for everyone but in particular will mean a better pension for low paid women workers who have average service who will pay less and gain more (70% of our members are women).

There will be a new temporary 50% cut in the cost of staying in the pension scheme (with a corresponding cut in benefits). This will help stop members leaving when they have temporary financial problems. One of my top stewards recently admitted she had to leave the scheme to pay for childcare. Something she had always regretted.

More room for flexible retirement age (still from age 55). I cannot count the number of members I have met who want to "downsize" when they get older and take less stressful roles but cannot under the present scheme since if they if they do so towards the end of their career their final pension will be massively cut.

Workers who depend on non contractual overtime and other earnings will finally be able to protect their full income when they retire.

While the preservation (against huge opposition) and extension of “Fair deal” will protect workers who face or have been out sourced. They will be able to keep their pensions! This is a significant improvement. Which nobody who really cares about the future of working people should put at risk.

The scheme is different and complex but not impossible to understand. There were a number of good questions and points made in the Q&A (even by some of the usual suspects). Yet the miserablists were also present. Barracking, muttering, carping, misrepresenting and scaremongering. Making grossly inaccurate statements and indulging in self important grand standing.

I made the point that as a member of the LGPS for 19 years I was pleased that we now finally have the prospect of a truly long term affordable and sustainable pension scheme. The LGPS 2014 is a world class guaranteed scheme. Which we should now be arguing that all employers, private and public, should either join the scheme if eligible (and many will be) or use as a benchmark to set up a similar scheme to give their workers decent pensions.

To illustrate the value of the scheme I pointed out that where I work those UNISON members who have no access to the LGPS and have to pay into a non guaranteed personal pension scheme would have to save over their career, a saving pot of £300,000 to get a similar £10,000 per year pension. This savings pot would also potentially go up and down due to the vagaries of the stock market. So who knows what you will retire on.

The current average lifelong personal pension saving pot is £32,000. Do the maths.

Everyone is perfectly entitled (and expected) to query and challenge. I can understand those who say that they don't yet understand all what is being proposed yet or even those who genuinely think that we did have the bargaining power to get an even better deal.

I am forced to conclude that the miserablists however don’t give the proverbial about what are the best interests for members. They are driven by their ultra left sectarianism. Nothing would satisfy them. As a longstanding pension activist I can say with certainly that they had no interest whatsoever in pensions before they saw the opportunity to "strike chase" on the backs of ordinary workers. They are extremists who want to hijack the dispute to indulge in their toy town gesture politics.

Ironically it is the Tory right who are spitting the most blood and crying "betrayal" at our deal.
This week I came across, let us say, a "leading opponent" of public sector DB pensions. Who told me that the Government had "surrendered" to the unions. When I told him that there was some opposition to the proposals, he was genuinely shocked and said "don't they really realise how good it is"? I said yes most of them do, but they pretend otherwise.

UNISON has been clear from the beginning that once we have a final offer then it will be put to the members to decide in a secret ballot.

Let us also make clear that LGPS 2014 is potentially a bloody good deal won by our negotiators and our collective action. A perfect deal? No deal is ever perfect but this is really as good as it gets.

But the members should decide.

(Youtube video of leading lights of UNISON united left HotAir guitarists plotting world domination)

Those who think that words speak louder than action

While I am not at all surprised I am still somewhat puzzled about the call for a special UNISON local government conference on Pensions. This is of course only a couple of months after the 2011 UNISON Local Government and National Delegate Conferences.  When pensions were discussed and debated in depth and a number of motions passed.

So why should our precious facility time, resources and money be spent on yet another “conference”? When what we should be actually doing is real practical things in our branches: such as organising and mobilising our members? 

The union position I think is crystal clear. Unless it gets a deal supported by members, the most far reaching and coordinated strike action seen in generations will take place. However, the union will not call for strike action purely to satisfy the fantasies of the ultra left. That way will only result in yet another “Glorious Defeat”. No thank you.

I am also amazed about the sudden “about turn” by many of those who are calling for this conference. Only a little while ago they were arguing for co-ordinated action over pensions across the whole public sector. Now it seems that they want not only individual unions to go their own sweet way but unions could even be split internally over action? This would potentially be disastrous.

My esteemed NEC colleague for Knowall suggests here that I would be opposed to this "conference" idea because I think it would be “divisive” and yet he encourages me to ask my service group to hold a separate conference? 

I have been a member of the Local Government Pension scheme for nearly 20 years. There are many thousands of members in my branch and in our UNISON Community Service Group who are also members of the LGPS.

So our views are valid but what would happen if we did indeed hold a conference and we arrived at a different position from the local government service group? Or if the Health Service Group had yet another position?

While I am sure that there are members who genuinely think that calling for an (unnecessary, divisive and expensive) conference is the right thing, I cannot agree. The time for making speeches and passing motions has ended. We should now not be diverting our time and resources on conferences, motions, amendments, points of order and speeches. Branches should be focused on updating RMS, mapping the work place, educating members, supporting and recruiting new stewards and organising for possible action.

If we don’t do that we could not only lose any ballot but we will inevitably fail to deliver any effective industrial action that really matters.

So please comrades for the sake of our members "actions not words".