- Conference
- 2020 Higher Education Service Group Conference
- Date
- 25 September 2019
- Decision
- Carried
Conference, clearly it is in none of our interests that we conduct a ballot we potentially lose by a long margin if we do not have the pulse of the membership before we move to an industrial action ballot. That will only serve the interests of those who want us to lose the ballot weakening our overall industrial strength. So it is understandable that we are cautious and gauge the membership through indicative ballots before we decide to move to a full ballot of members. The default position seems to be a three week (at least) consultation ballot, the results of which are scrutinised before a decision taken to move to a full ballot. The timing of a full ballot means we wait at least 12 weeks, 3 months from the decision of the service group Executive before the ‘real’ ballot papers land on our member’s doorsteps. By this time the members often question us to say that they thought they were already balloted and some months before which creates confusion at best and immense frustration with us at worse. In the meantime our sister unions seem quite willing and able to move to a full ballot without consultative ballots. Furthermore, consultative ballots play into the hands of the employers who whilst they do not need to be notified of any result inevitably do get to know the result and this can undermine local bargaining on other issues.
Conference, there is no legal requirement to conduct an indicative ballot before proceeding to a full industrial action ballot and whilst it might be in the union’s balloting guidelines we feel these need to be reviewed.
We believe we can be more responsive to our members in a timely manner by abandoning the default to always move to a consultative ballot. One way for example could be for the Service Group Representatives to gauge the pulse of the members through regional consultation exercises through the Regional Service Groups and Branch Secretaries.
We call on the Service Group Executive (SGE) to consider alternative methods to gather the mood of the membership rather than indicative consultation ballots in future pay consultations.