.

National Minimum Wage
Support Comp E and build
support in the wider movement

Dundee City is part of Composite E which provides a banner demand of £5 in line with current policy, annual uprating, extension to exclude age groups, greater enforcement measures and a campaign under the TUC, which 60 says should be carried into one of the areas worst affected.

This course of action will gather support of the wider union movement which Comp F with its direct action demand, will struggle to secure.

Why we should oppose Comp F

a) Why should Gordon Brown use taxpayers money to fund increases in the National Minimum Wage. Surely employers should pay, not the taxpayer.

b) Raising taxes to 60%. This has already been defeated under the taxation debate. If we want to be taken seriously is it the best thing to argue that anyone earning a taxable income of £28,000 should have a 50% tax hike (ie from 40% to 60%). This could affect a significant number of our members - members we are trying to recruit and retain.

c) Point (i): It is inappropriate for National Delegate Conference to set wage demands. Service groups have autonomy under rule to agree wage claims.

d) Point (ii): It is up to individual service groups to decide on whether or not industrial action is the best way to win a wage rise - not Delegate Conference.

e) Point (iii) & (iv): The Low Pay Commission is widely recognised as the only body that has the clout and status to impact on the Government. We need to work with them - as we have done quite successfully through our submissions - not attack them.

f) Point (v): UNISON has already organised a mass postcard campaign to Blair.

Lobby
Our policy is not for £5 rising to £7, neither is it the formula accepted by the TUC or individual affiliates.

TUC delegation
In one motion and one amendment UNISON could use up all of its submission rights, ie no other matters could be raised in a UNISON motion.

Demonstration
The NEC has already proposed a demonstration in the North West in Comp E.

Lobbying the Labour Party Conference
1) Why lobby at the start of the Labour Party Conference? By then it is far too late to affect change. The discussion at the Labour Party Conference will be based on ongoing policy consultation that Labour Party branches and affiliates have had over the last two years, culminating in the National Policy Forum in July.

2) Given security restrictions around the Labour Party Conference, it will be extremely difficult to approach delegates in any focussed and sensible way to try to promote our policy.

3) As Bob Revie pointed out yesterday, a UNISON delegation will be in the Conference pursuing our policy which will be based on our submissions that have been to the National Policy Forum.

Therefore the lobby would be
Ineffective
Irrelevant
Probably Expensive.

UNISON will be INSIDE the hall arguing our case. As so often happens a lobby would just provide a veil for other agendas and other political groupings.

Remission will avoid danger of ‘outing'

Glasgow City has agreed to remit its amendment to Motion 112 on Stephen Lawrence.

The branch was concerned that the motion's call for statistics of UNISON negotiators included in the category "sexuality". This would require gay men and lesbians to 'out' themselves to union colleagues. Publicly admitting your sexuality is a difficult issue for many individuals and few will do it.

After the Souter campaign, Scottish delegates will be well aware of homophobia in our society and will understand this reluctance.

We understand the Black Members have accepted that sexuality should not have been part of the motion. Glasgow did not wish to be oppositional and have agreed to remission to allow the NEC to sort out the issue.

Back 190 for lay control over your own communications

Edinburgh's 190 addresses lay control of strategic planning in UNISON, particularly our communications. It sets out important markers as debated at Scottish Council.

The motion results from campaigning since UNISON's inception to uphold its own policy of lay control and involvement in our own union communications, our own propaganda.

The reason the motion is here at all is because there has been only lukewarm commitment to these polices from the NEC over the years.

The first proposals on reviewing lay structures had no lay control or involvement at all and rightly the NEC rejected these.

The NEC now supports 190 (even the principles they opposed last year) but wants to amend it.

Their reason is that they do not want to be prescriptive before there is consultation with branches and Regions.

However, Motion 190 is intentionally not proscrpitive about what kind of structures may develop. It is prescriptive about the issues of

• lay control
• partnership between lay and full time officers
• devolution to Regions but also a co-ordinated national structure to ensure the union can campaign with consistency and unity

We need those principles to underpin any future consultations.
Support 190
Oppose 190.1

Back public control but no blank cheque for action

Two major composites today will set policies on the future of public services.

Comps B and C and Motion 28 and their amendments set out a clear division between an re-nationalisation strategy and more immediate and effective forms of public ownership.

Scotland policy backs public control over services and utilities as rehearsed in the Utilities Report at Conference 1999.

This position offers a realistic chance of protecting members and bringing control over services now, rather than the at best long term and at worst purist re-nationalisation strategy.

The Scotland position reflects the union's current policy.

Motion 16 will also come into this section and should be opposed because of the blank cheque for industrial action which Scotland has always resisted. Comp C and Motion 28 will form a grouped debate.

Support Comp B
Oppose B.1
Support B.2
Oppose B.3
Oppose B.4
Oppose Comp C
Support 28 only if amended by 28.1
Support 28.1
Support 28.3
Oppose all other amendments.
Oppose 16

Asylum

The emotive issues surrounding Asylum & Immigration have been clearly and constructively debated at previous conferences.

Motion 106 should be supported amended by 106.2 and 106.4.
Oppose 106.1 and 106.3 which introduce an unrealistic position of scrapping all immigration controls.

Housing Transfers
This issue was dealt with at length at the Local Government Service Group Conference which overwhelmingly rejected donations to the National Defend Council Housing Campaign and Conference should do the same.

The decision came from the campaign's apparent lack of a constitution and its opposition to Scotland's policy of considering Quasi Housing Associations to keep housing under democratic control.
Oppose 37.1

Rape crisis centre risks closure after Tyson legal action
Branch calls for bucket collection

The Glasgow Rape Crisis Centre is facing financial ruin and possible closure due to their unsuccessful legal attempts to prevent the Mike Tyson boxing match going ahead at Glasgow's Hampden Park.

The GRCC believes that allowing the match to take place would portray Tyson, a convicted rapist, in an heroic light to the young men of Britain. The decision made by Jack Straw to allow him into the country was financially motivated and ignores the feelings, dignity and emotions of the many rape victims across Britain.

The Centre now faces a legal bill of £10,000. In addition, Frank Warren, the fight promoter, will be suing GRCC for his own legal costs in defending the action raised.

South Lanarkshire Branch has written to the Standing Orders Committee requesting a bucket collection.

Please give generously.

Be careful out there

Delegates to Conference will be alarmed to hear that a gay colleague from a Gas branch was assaulted late on Monday night and had to be treated in hospital for his injuries. He has since been discharged and has returned home to recover from his ordeal.

In an unrelated incident, a youth (not a delegate) was stabbed with a screwdriver in a park, also on Monday evening.

While all delegates and visitors should be free to enjoy their precious spare time at Conference, sensible precautions such as not walking singly might help prevent a repetition of these attacks.

Communications fringe meeting

Branch Communications - a key tool in branch development
Wednesday 12.30pm Purbeck Lounge

Come along and find out how your branch fared in the Communications Awards. There's some great stuff this year.

Enjoy 10 minutes on branch websites with John Stevenson

Awards presented by Rodney Bickerstaffe.

Rules - guidance available from Mike and Mary

The Scotland meeting on Monday night heard that there was a briefing outlining all the elements of Comp I on the rules - and we agreed to try to get that out in a briefing.

Since then we have discovered it runs to a mere 15 pages! Even chainsaw Stevenson could not summarise this briefly for a bulletin so we have run off a number of copies. If any branch wants access to this, contact Mike Kirby or Mary Crichton.