- Conference
- 2024 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 20 February 2024
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes that the cost of living crisis across the UK continues. While the rate of inflation has begun to fall, the prices of food, energy and housing continue to increase. Because the prices of essentials are rising faster than other goods, it is the lowest paid who are affected the most by continued inflation.
At the same time, the councils and schools that employ most UNISON members in local government are experiencing a funding crisis. UNISON’s own research revealed a £3.57 billion funding gap in local government in Great Britain for 2024/25, while councils and schools are being increasingly forced to make incredibly difficult decisions in order to set balanced budgets. When councils’ budgets are in such a bad state that Section 114 notices are needed, there is a very real threat to our members’ jobs.
In Northern Ireland, members have been forced to take industrial action in response to the failure to implement the pay and grading system that is essential if members are to be paid fairly.
Conference believes that the employers we negotiate with must make decent pay offers, and the government must step up and fund them.
Conference further believes that when we deliver on pay, we recruit more members and activists. To do this, we need to ensure we are strong in negotiations and are prepared to take effective action, within all relevant legislation and the UNISON Rule Book.
Conference welcomes the successful national industrial action ballot results achieved in the SJC and CQC sectors in 2023. In both cases this led to improved pay offers that members voted to accept. Conference also welcomes the increased national turnout in the NJC ballot, despite the failure to pass the 50% turnout threshold in most significantly-sized employers. The ‘Movement’ system for member contact clearly has massive potential to assist our efforts in reaching 50% turnouts in more places, alongside face to face organising. Conference also strongly welcomes the variety of work being done across UNISON on improving ballot turnouts.
Conference calls on the Local Government Service Group Executive to:
1) Ensure our sectors have a strong voice in the ‘Winning for the future – industrial action in UNISON’ project, designed to improve our ability to use ballots and collective action within our bargaining cycles;
2) Work with the sectors within the Local Government Service Group to build balloting-to-win strategies, which we can use to inform decisions about how we run ballots and take lawful action, in line with all relevant legislation and the UNISON Rule Book. This should include options for how we structure our ballots and disputes and consideration of occupational or service targeting, and working through each sector to optimise the use of mobilisation methods and tools including the Movement digital canvas system;
3) Support sectors, regions and branches in submitting pay claims which seek to achieve real terms pay increases for members and demand that the real value of pay begins to catch up following years of deterioration;
4) Lead a strong campaign for more council and school funding specifically for pay from central government, seeking to work with Labour Link, the Local Government Association, the Welsh Local Government Association, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Northern Ireland Local Government Association to help broaden the appeal of this campaign;
5) Continue to work with sectors, regions, the Service Group Liaison Committee and the ‘Winning for the future – industrial action in UNISON’ project to explore all possible ways of achieving successful ballot and negotiation outcomes;
6) Where we do ballot for action, in line with the UNISON Rule Book and all relevant legislation, work with sectors to ensure the Movement member participation system is optimised, and ensure that they consider a range of options with regard to balloting, including whether to target particular groups, whether to ballot on an aggregated or disaggregated basis, and using consultation results to help inform decisions about balloting.