- Conference
- 2003 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 5 February 2003
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference welcomes the 2002 Budget and Third Comprehensive Spending Review which committed the UK Government to sustained long-term investment in public services, thus reversing a 30 year trend of austerity, decline and public spending cuts.
However Conference notes with concern the increasing pressure in Bank of England, government, private sector and media circles in support of pay restraint for workers employed in the public services. Conference rejects the notion that fair and improved pay for public servants is at the expense of improvement and modernisation of services, instead it is our view that one is integral to the other.
Conference is dismayed at the actions of the Government over the Fire Brigades Union strike where calls for modernisation and changes to service provision were provocatively used as a device to undermine the union’s claim for a pay rise for their members.
Furthermore Conference notes that during 2002 regular pay growth in the private service sector continued to outstrip those in the public sector. Hence the importance of a national strategic approach to pay bargaining across all services in which UNISON organises to ensure that UNISON has a commonality of approach to furthering UNISON’S policies on:
1)consistent approach to long term agreements;
2)coherent approach to industrial action;
3)retention of overall job numbers;
4)an end to low pay in the public sector.
Conference believes that successive pay claims over the last few years show that where unions and their members make a consistent and determined stand, they can obtain substantial pay rises and improvements to their working conditions, without giving up job numbers or sacrificing other conditions of the service.
Conference further believes that consistency across the sectors in submitting pay claims strengthens our hand in each sector. Conference believes that to truly obtain the benefits of such common claims, there should be a far greater degree of discussion and co-operation between the sectors over the later stages of any disputes, particularly looking to co-ordinate, where practical, legal and authorised industrial action across more than one sector.
Conference directs the National Executive Council to consult with service groups and regions on this issue, in particular drawing on the lessons of recent national pay disputes in several services, both local and national, and by other public sector unions, with a view to developing a national cross service group strategy on pay and bring a report back to National Delegate Conference 2004.