UNISON HE Service Group shifts left in 2012

Congratulations to those left candidates who stood and won in the Higher Ed Service Group Exec elections, 2012, and in particular those who stood for contested seats, namely: Sandy Nicholl, Molly Cooper, and Matt Raine. The other explicitly left candidates who were elected unopposed (Shona McCulloch, Andy Beech, Emilse Medina) on the HE SGE will be joining a larger, stronger, younger and more diverse group of rank and file activists who will surely bring a breath of fresh air to our SGE. Commiserations to those others who fought and lost - Mark Smith in the East and Ivan Bonsell in the SE - or in some cases had their papers get lost in post on the way to UNISON's Euston Towers in 'that London' ... Extra 'hard luck' to Ivan Bonsell who came within a handful of votes of taking up the long-held SE gen seat. I'm genuinely excited about the fact the HE SGE now has many new faces and far fewer empty seats. I look forward to working with some 'candidates of struggle' and energetic, younger activists who really do believe we can continue to build a resistance to the vicious assault on the public sector which we face and who aren't afraid to lead a fight back. We are a new generation for a new era. Sorry to read others are a bit down in the dumps about the overall results - I hope HE brings, as ever, a beacon of hope as the left increases our influence in our quirky part of the largest public sector union in the UK. I do share the disappointment with low number of contested elections and of course a low turnout. And despite improvements there are still too many vacancies. Why have we bucked the trend in HE and made gains on the left in UNISON? Maybe members in our sector have spent too long being advised they should cross picket lines whilst our sister union the UCU went on strike every year, and became frustrated with a lack of national leadership over similar issues? Maybe the student radicalism of the winter of 2010 had an effect? Maybe the right wing of the labour movement are not so well entrenched in our sector or as organised as they are elsewhere ie Local Government, with strong local parties more heavily involved? Maybe the beginnings of a genuinely united left putting differences aside meant our small (but perfectly formed) organised left in our sector is starting to blossom? Having taken a lead in the Living Wage campaigns in London also meant we could easily have encouraged a dozen candidates amongst low paid women to stand; so Emilse winning her seat was not a problem. Who knows what it is, but we are clearly making a difference. And I think it is clearly a left vote. Take London, where Sandy and Molly stood on a left slate, and received remarkably similar votes, despite Sandy probably being more recognised as a well established, long standing and respected branch secretary at SOAS plus he is the incumbent. It was a consciously left vote - a political vote for a fighting leadership. So, keep up the good work folks, and keep building from the bottom up. As Molly told me over a celebratory pint: "It's about making your politics concrete and meaningful to ordinary members." Now you know who your SGE reps are, keep them to account! Having won an election in 2010, I know it's good to have a mandate for a change in direction. See you in Bournemouth for #uNDC12 to celebrate and prepare for the year ahead? We have a pay freeze to break, continued attacks on our pensions to resolve, and job cuts and wide-scale privatisation proposals. With this new team, I think we're now in a much stronger position to tackle all these issues head on.

June 30 - fiesta to celebrate London Living Wage finally being paid at Senate House Plans are underway for a big celebration to mark the University of London finally starting to pay the London Living Wage to all employee from the start of July. There will be a fiesta of Latin American music, food, drink and dance at SOAS from 4pm on Saturday 30 June - all welcome!!!! Just give (danny.millum@sas.ac.uk) a shout if you fancy coming along or if you want to help out. More details to follow....

Fight for decent public sector pensions is part of a broader battle guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 June 2012 21.00 BST Your editorial (Public sector pensions: Downhill racing, 6 June) wrongly suggests that "the dinner ladies have settled". In fact, there is an offer that thousands of GMB, Unite and Unison members, including school meal workers, across England and Wales will soon be balloted on. While national union officials may be keen to see swift acceptance of a deal branded "LGPS 2014" (Local Government Pension Scheme), ballot results on similar proposals in other pension schemes – among lower-paid health workers as well as doctors, civil servants, teachers and college lecturers – all indicate that "dinner ladies" and council workers may reject the deal. These current offers not only sound the death knell of final-salary schemes, but signal an acceptance of a link to the state retirement age. This means a likely contribution increase over a working life in return for a potentially worse payout on retirement. Meanwhile, there is now the real prospect of workers currently under age 37 facing retirement at age 70. Contrary to the editorial's conclusion that mass sackings across the public sector are making pension schemes more "affordable", the impact of job losses could well be the opposite as hundreds of thousands cease to contribute to schemes and thousands of those made redundant start to draw their pensions early. The Tory-led coalition has indeed seen the erosion of final-salary pension schemes as a central plank of its more general offensive against the public sector and its workforce in anticipation of accelerating privatisation. The fight around pensions has therefore been part of a more fundamental battle, which is not yet resolved. This battle over essential inequality is not between public and private sector workers, but between the vast majority of the population and a small minority of corporate bosses – and their political allies – whose pensions remain unassailable. With all this in mind, many Unison activists are determined to work alongside fellow trade unionists to ensure that the pensions fight is rekindled. George Binette Branch secretary, Camden Unison, Marsha Jane Thompson Branch secretary, Havering Unison

Nursing mothers now allowed at UNISON conferences (#babyban success)

It's always nice to report good news and small steps forward are important, so I'll start my NEC report on a high note. At the start of the meeting we endorsed a report of a review into 'Children and UNISON Conferences' given to us this morning. The recommendations are that whilst children should not be allowed to enter the conference floor for health and safety reasons (there is a creche facility), but with the exception of children who are breast feeding, who can now access all areas of UNISON conferences. This is great news and follows an incident at HE conference this year which I raised at last NEC (see here). This small but important success for nursing mothers is hardly the top priority for most members so I'm not going to bang on forever about breast feeding babies on this blog and I'll return to occasionally reporting here about other issues on the NEC and the Higher Ed Service Group and more generally reporting on issues of interest to UNISON members in HE. Incidentally, this also comes as a relief to myself as the Chair of a branch who missed the deadline on amendments to motions for NDC, which was submitted on the correct date but after the midday deadline (hmph!). That ruled out amendment to Motion 82 had proposed an NEC review into our policy on access for nursing mothers - which has now already happened - with a view to altering the policy, which is now our position. Before moving on (to Breaking the Pay freeze, settling up on Pensions and Winning the Living Wage, Palestine is still the issue), I think it is right to thank those many activists who did support Gail after she had been removed from the conference hall during the fringe meeting on the Living Wage. It was a distressing and distracting afternoon, so the solidarity and sisterhood displayed by those activists – some of whom we had never met before - really helped to reaffirm those strong beliefs we hold dear in our union and was really welcome and appreciated. I look forward to meeting those delegates again - hopefully at NDC 2012 – to share with them this good news and to thanking them personally. Solidarity forever, sisters!

Sun shines on students and staff at Sussex Uni as we say no to privatisation

Sussex Uni staff and students on campus today protesting against privatisation of support staff. Good to see UNISON, UCU and UNITE stood shoulder to shoulder on this one. Management had scuttled off to a new location whilst the sun shone on the righteous ... These Tory neo liberals are relentless - but we can and must keep fighting them. From Barnet to Brighton, solidarity with all those facing and resisting privatisation in the public sector. Sign their petition here.

Protests against privatisation at Sussex University - Tuesday 22 and Thursday 24

- please spread the word! Staff and students announce protests against University of Sussex privatisation Staff and students at the University of Sussex will be protesting against plans to privatise university's support services next week.  Campus trade unions today (Friday) announced there will be protests on Tuesday (22 May) and Thursday (24 May) at 1pm at the university's library square (see notes for directions).  On both days potential bidders will visit the campus to assess ways they could take over the running of the affected departments. Yesterday (Thursday 17th May) staff and students packed a lunchtime lecture theatre to hear from union reps about management plans to privatise catering, estates and facilities management at Sussex University, transferring 235 workers, more than 10% of the workforce, from university employment to private contractors. Employees from caterers, to cleaners, to academic, administrative and maintenance staff, were furious to hear about proposals that threaten pensions, pay, conditions and job security, not to mention the quality and price of services, including in sensitive areas like security, and health and safety. Students attended and the Students Union joined the three trades unions, Unison, Unite and UCU. Union reps reported that alternatives to outsourcing appear not to have been openly considered and the idea that privatisation can improve quality and reduce costs seems to have been uncritically accepted despite abundant evidence to the contrary. Spokesperson for the three unions, Maureen Winder (Unison branch secretary), said "If staff become employees of a private company their future pension rights and working conditions will change significantly, and we will have a two-tier workforce, as new staff will be employed on different terms and conditions. The plans were sprung upon us with no discussion about finding solutions in-house. The university seems determined to outsource regardless of the impact on quality or future costs, and this is devastating for the whole University community." Sign the petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-our-services/ http://tinyurl.com/c7z38eo - directions to library square Statement by the trades unions: http://www.sussex-ucu.org.uk/?q=content/privatisation-estates-facilities-management-and-catering-services Letter from the Students Union to the Vice Chancellor: http://www.sussexstudent.com/news/index.php?page=article&news_id=270243

EXCLUSIVE: UNISON NEC member for Higher Ed reveals all the elected HE Service Group Exec members currently know about the ongoing LGPS negotiations...