- Conference
- 2022 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 1 January 2022
- Decision
- Carried
This conference notes:
1) The pandemic has posed union organising new challenges, with activists learning new tools and means to engage members;
2) Engaging members working from home, particularly non-members, remains challenging;
3) Some employers used the pandemic to attack pay, terms and conditions, some using fire and rehire tactics;
4) That despite the challenges, last year witnessed a number of sectional disputes across the UK where unions organised to beat the 50% ballot turnout thresholds, with many disputes securing wins for workers;
5) The UCU held national ballots on a disaggregated basis, organising to surpass the 50% ballot thresholds in many Universities;
6) That sadly, UNISON’s national ballots fell well short of surpassing the 50% turnout threshold;
7) There are no UNISON training courses on how to organise industrial action ballots and win disputes.
This conference believes:
a) Nationally, regionally and at a Branch level UNISON needs to beat the 50% ballot thresholds if we are to win for our members;
b) Learning the organising methods from those ballots that do surpass 50%+ turnouts, from both local disputes and other trade union national successes is an urgent task for UNISON.
This conference resolves to request the SGE liaise and work with the NEC Industrial Action Committee to:
i) Request that the SGE establishes a working group to examine and explore the organising methods used in both local and national trade union ballots, within the local government service group, that have surpassed the 50% ballot thresholds in recent times. For this working group to undertake this task to make findings and recommendations on which methods of organising are key to holding successful industrial action ballots in local government;
ii) Request that the SGE seek to work with other relevant parts of UNISON to devise a UNISON training course for activists in local government on how to organise industrial action ballots and win disputes;
iii) Request that the SGE seek to work through UNISON’s structures to explore if there is a possibility of a co-ordinated all service group and UNISON wide approach to the actions in points i and ii.