- Conference
- 2012 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 1 January 2012
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that the public and private sectors are in the midst of the most sustained attacks on our members on the services we provide under the guise of efficiencies.
Conference notes the January 2012 launch meeting of the Trade Union Reform Group whose stated aim is that public bodies should not pay for time spent by employees on trade union activity.
Conference believes that the establishment of this group indicates a serious Tory intent to step up the attack on trade unions and protection for people at work. It is increasingly clear that the Tory target is to end agreed paid time off enabling trade union representatives to undertake day to day representation and support for staff at work. Although a backbench bill to scrap legal rights enabling time off and secondments has recently been defeated, led by John Healey as well as being voted against by some Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs, it is clear that the Tories are still looking seriously to consult on new draconian proposals along these lines.
This is just the latest group following on the heels of the constant attacks by the Tax Payer’s Alliance and at last year’s Conservative party conference, Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, described “tax-payer funded union officials as a “non-job” and Francis Maude MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office, announced that the government intended to address the number of union reps in the civil service on full time release to perform union duties
Conference believes that this latest onslaught is designed to put unions on the defensive. With weaker workplace representation and organisation, moves to break up national conditions and careers would be made much easier in all essential public services such as local government, the NHS, police and education.
Trade union facility time is a crucial union resource and if seriously undermined could seriously jeopardise the ability of the unions to represent members effectively. We know that we will have many struggles on pay, pensions and other members’ rights and benefits in the months and years to come and we need to be able to defend our members’ interests across the public sector.
In these circumstances, it is essential that UNISON continues to campaign around the need for adequate and improved facility time agreements.
The TUC, in its October 2011 report “The Facts about Facility Time for Union Reps” stated that “Despite the fact that a number of union representatives do receive paid time off, this is often insufficient to allow them to carry out all of their trade union duties and many union reps use significant amounts of their own time. In a survey carried out by the TUC in 2005, 16 per cent of union reps said that less than quarter of the time they spent on union duties was paid for by their employer. The BERR survey referred to earlier also found that reps in the public sector contribute up to 100,000 unpaid hours of their own time each week”.
Conference calls on UNISON at national level to mount a robust public defence of trade union facility time, highlighting the positive and legitimate role of trade union stewards and branch officers with regard to consultation and representation.
Conference notes the publication of UNISON’s branch Guidance on Facility Time and welcomes its advice on negotiating time off for reps, use of email and IT facilities, dealing with FOI requests etc.
Conference calls on the National Executive Council to build on research by the TUC and fellow trade unions and mount a robust campaign with all appropriate bodies to stop the attack on facilities time and to:
1) urge the UNISON Labour Link to continue to take up this issue within the Labour Party and with Labour MPs;
2) build a campaign to support the work of local trade union representatives to lobby across the spectrum of political representation in the United Kingdom;
3) publicise all guidance for local representatives in order to ensure that any cuts to facility time are not unilaterally imposed on branches;
4) promote to the public the benefits of the provision of facility time;
5) monitor closely the activities of governments and employers for any attempt to deny or undermine such provision, and to publicise the vicious and undemocratic nature of Tory policy in this respect;
6) defend the statutory right of union representatives to facility time; and
7) defend current facilities agreements;
Conference also calls on UNISON to do everything possible to defend activists facing attacks on facility time including taking legal action against employers