Lambeth Unison Branch meeting motions

I am publishing the motions for the special branch meeting which is taking place on the 4th.

Branch Meeting Tuesday 4 October

The pensions dispute and the "Co-operative Council" (or "Cop-out Council") are two of the main topics for discussion at the UNISON Branch meeting at 12.30pm on Tuesday 4 October, for which both Lambeth Council and Lambeth Living have confirmed paid time off. We will have two guest speakers at the meeting, each of whom will introduce a particular debate. The first speaker will be Max Watson, a member of UNISON's National Executive Council, who will explain what is happening with the pensions dispute and why UNISON is balloting for industrial action. Max's speech will be followed by debate on two motions about the pensions dispute (see below). After the debate on pensions we will take our second guest speaker, Independent Labour Councillor Kingsley Abrams, who will speak about Lambeth's "Co-operative Council" project. Kingsley's speech will be followed by debate on a motion developing UNISON's policy in response to that project.

The text of the motions to be debated on Tuesday is set out below, for your information;

Motion One - Defend Our Pensions – Vote “YES” for action!



This branch meeting;



Condemns the Coalition government’s very serious assault on the local government and other public sector pension schemes, including dramatically increased employee contributions, a rising retirement age and abolition of ‘Fair Deal’ protection for outsourced workers.


Welcomes the decision of UNISON’s national leadership to ballot more than 1.1 million members across the local government, NHS and civil service pension schemes following the Government’s refusal to make any meaningful concessions during seven months of fruitless talks


Notes the encouraging prospect of united strike action involving more than 3 million workers covered by public sector pension schemes on 30 November.


This branch meeting resolves to:



Campaign for the largest possible ‘yes’ vote in the ballot opening on 11 October and closing on 03 November through leafleting of workplaces, face-to-face conversations, lunch-time meetings and use of social media;


Recruit a substantial number of new members on the basis of the pensions issue, encouraging members to become actively involved in the Union;


Work closely with sister unions, particularly the NUT, GMB and UNITE, in building for industrial action on Wednesday 30 November, and to co-operate with Lambeth Trades Council;


Empower the UNISON branch committee to act as a local strike committee in the first instance;


Use the local press to advance our case to the wider public, encouraging all members to assist with this.


Proposed- Ruth Cashman, Assistant Branch Secretary


Motion Two – Developing the Pensions Campaign Further



This branch meeting believes:



The pensions dispute is of fundamental importance in its own right and could well determine the fate of the Government’s more general offensive against the public sector workforce and social welfare provision.


That to win this dispute the trade unions must be prepared for further action beyond a single day.


Any negotiated settlement to the current dispute must ensure the following:


No further increases in employee contribution rates
No rise in the standard retirement age
The restoration of the link between the Retail Price Index and the annual uprating of pension payments
The safeguarding of current levels of pension payout, and
Restoration in full of ‘Fair Deal’ protection for workers on outsourced contracts.


Any proposed settlement of the dispute should be subject to the
widest possible democratic debate and that no service group within UNISON should withdraw from action until there is an acceptable framework agreement covering all of the public sector pension schemes.



This branch meeting therefore resolves;



To endorse the Branch Committee’s decision to call for a special conference of UNISON’s local government service group to enable a discussion of tactics and strategy in the dispute and democratic scrutiny of any potential basis for settlement;


To call upon all appropriate UNISON bodies to work to ensure that plans are made for future industrial action beyond 30 November, and that ideally these plans are publicised before 30 November. As a contribution to the debate in the trade union movement about the tactics for this dispute, we recommend that there should be further national all-out strike action before the end of 2011.


Proposed – Dan Jeffery, Assistant Branch Secretary



Motion Three - Defend Public Services - Say No to the Cop-out Council



This branch notes with concern the repeated pronouncements from the Council leadership that Lambeth will become the first "Co-operative Council" claiming that “the project aims to strengthen the relationship between our residents and the council”.


We further note that when this idea was first advanced, more than 18 months ago it was little more than a vague and meaningless soundbite and a "rebranding" of various existing services. However, over the past year the Council has diverted hundreds of thousands of pounds previously earmarked for "invest to save" into turning the soundbite into proposals for change and some of these are now being prepared for implementation.


In ACS, the Lambeth Resource Centre (LRC) was identified as a “pathfinder pilot” to create a public service mutual lat year. In CYPS the following services are intended to be transferred to new, as yet non-existent "Co-op Council" entities by April 2012;

4 Youth Centres
Living Space
7 Adventure Playgrounds (APGs)
12 Stay and Play One O'clock Clubs (OOCCs)
Young and Safe Service
Crown Lane Children’s Centre


UNISON believes that the proposed transfer of these services is likely to amount to nothing more than the outsourcing of service cuts to the community, as services are moved to the voluntary sector with insufficient and declining funding. We note that this is precisely what has happened to the Adventure Playgrounds (APGs), where management proposals to cut hours to achieve a 70% budget reduction forced the great majority of staff to take redundancy. The Council has now outsourced the APGs to the voluntary sector with totally inadequate funding to provide the service which local people want. We believe that this is the "Cop-out Council", accepting responsibility neither for the continued provision of important public services nor for their reduction or closure.



We endorse the ideals of the co-operative movement, which grew up as part of the labour and trade union movement in the nineteenth century. The co-operative movement was part of our movement when, in the twentieth century we created the Welfare State and the network of public services now under attack from the savage cuts of the Coalition Government. This branch reaffirms UNISON policy that public services are best provided by the public sector, under the overall control of democratically elected local Councillors. The Welfare State is the best way to ensure everyone in society has access to social, health services and other public services and no-one gets left behind.



We resolve to campaign in defence of public sector provision of public services whilst simultaneously organising to build our strength and bargaining power and negotiating to get the best for UNISON members in every situation. In particular we instruct Branch officers and the Branch Committee to implement the following specific points;



1. To promote our policy that public services delivered by the public sector provide the best and most accountable model of service delivery, by issuing regular "Cop-out Council" bulletins to update members;



2. To organise meetings of staff in all areas identified as "adopters" of the Council's "Co-op Council" and to aim for 100% trade union membership in every area;



3. To demand involvement in discussions from the earliest stage in every case in order to seek to ensure that at the "options appraisal" stage the Council gives serious consideration to retaining services in-house;

4. To demand that, whenever the Council is considering any form of outsourcing, including as part of it's "Co-op Council" project, there should be an in-house "bid";


5. To seek to negotiate a "secondment option" with the Council so that staff providing outsourced services can remain Council employees, seconded to another provider with their current pay, conditions and pension rights;


6. To demand that the Council only even consider outsourcing in future to bodies which are "admitted bodies" in the Local Government Pension Scheme, so as to protect the pension rights of staff;



7. To seek to negotiate "TUPE plus" agreements in the case of any members facing transfer from the Council, so as to build upon the limited legal protection available in these circumstances. In particular we should seek to agree that new starters are employed on comparable terms and conditions post-transfer to avoid a "two-tier workforce";



8. To demand that Lambeth Council agrees a protocol for the use of volunteers based upon TUC guidelines (as we have agreed with Lambeth Living) and insists upon the application of such a protocol by all partner organisations. Volunteers must not be used to do the work that had been done by someone in paid work and should be done by someone in paid work.;



9. To seek the support of all other Council trade unions for this policy and work with them to implement this;


10. To seek the support of Lambeth Trades Council for the policy expressed in this motion;


11. Through "UNISON Labour Link", to campaign in support of the policy and demands set out above in local Labour Parties, and to lobby Labour Councillors and Members of Parliament for support;

12. To seek the support of our allies in "Lambeth Save Our Services" and other community organisations for the policy expressed in this motion, and to publicise this policy widely to the people of Lambeth.

13. To instruct the Branch Committee to apply for funding for this campaign as necessary from the General Political Fund of UNISON.

Proposed - Jon Rogers, Branch Secretary

It is important that every member attends the meeting, time off has been granted.