Proud to be Labour

Supporting the Labour Party can sometimes feels like a dirty secret, and it’s no secret that I have had some significant policy disagreements with the Labour Government.

But after a week at Labour Party Conference, a Labour Party Conference full of Labour activists committed to equality and social justice and where speech after speech has given real commitment to progressive policies many of which we in the trade union movement has been calling for, I’m certainly proud to be Labour.

From education, where school support staff have finally got a national pay structure to housing, where we not have a consensus about the way forward which includes local authorities being able to build new council houses.

Policy seminars were a good opportunity to put forward our point of view, which is then fed into the policy forum process. The first one I went to was in the sustainable communities section, where I was able to ask Hazel Blears about reviewing how effective the two-tier workforce code of practice had been and she gave commitment to working with UNISON to review the implementation and see what more can be done. In health I asked about bringing cleaning staff back in house to help improve our hospital cleaning. I was able to follow this up with her at our reception later in the week and they are seriously looking at cleaning contracts to see what can be done. I also attended the crime a justice seminar, where Pat Heatherton (Vice Chair of the National Labour Link Committee) was able to ask about the appalling statistic that around 95% of prisoners have a mental health issue.

Fringe events were really interesting. A highlight was the Women in Work fringe organised by UNISON where the Minister for Women spoke very encouragingly about what we want to see from the Single Equalities Act.

And the week has also been a great opportunity to talk to politicians in an informal setting. Talking to Anne Keen about contract cleaners in hospital, or discovering Alan Johnson’s cousin is married to my dads cousin (small world). I had a very useful conversation with Dawn Butler MP, the Labour Party’s new Vice Chair Youth. She seems to be a real activist at heart and we will be following up about supporting young trade unionists within the party.

There's a lot of speculation with the success of the conference as to whether Gordon Brown will call a snap election. I really don't know what he'll do, but whenever a General Election is called I'm sure UNISON will be right behind Labour delivering the 4th term.

Giving power to, or taking power away?

That's the question when addressing the party reforms being put forward by the new leadership of the Labour Party.

The Partnership in Power process focuses on engaging members on policy issues and coming to a consensus across the party. The reform proposals rightly point to the need to do more to engage with members locally which is welcome.

However there are some key issues which are problematic. The proposals would change the way that so called 'contemporary issues' are dealt with. At the moment affiliates (such as UNISON) and CLP's (the labour party in your constituency) can submit motions to the annual conference on issues arising after the policy forum process has been completed. It's these contemporary motions that has seen the government defeated on health last year and council housing before that. Under the new proposals we would still be able to submit things but instead of being voted on they would then just go into the forum process for the next year. This takes away the only real opportunity we have as the membership to democratically decide what the policy is.



The other issue is the proposal to put the final manifesto out to a ballot of all members. This take it or leave it ballot has few benefits and would create many problems. From our point of view it would cost us a fortune to conduct a ballot, and just before a general election this would be just what the party doesn't need. There are also some real risks for the party, what if there was a significant 'no' vote? Or even having the manifesto rejected? And what if groups of members or affiliates campaigned for a no vote, with a mass vote a messy row would be much worse there than at conference!


We really need to avoid a messy argument this year at conference, so I hope ongoing negotiations come up with a solution which avoids that. If we don't and it comes onto the conference floor it will make for an interesting time.

Labour Link Forum

I've just got back home after UNISON's Labour Link Forum, where I was a delegate on behalf of the National Young Members Forum.

We were supposed start off with Hilary Benn as our Key note speaker, but unfortunately as the new Environment Secretary (and Sheffield MP) he was busy dealing with the devastating floods across Yorkshire. We had the last minute replacement of Hazel Blears, who is now in a key position for UNISON as Secretary of State for Local Government and Communities.

Hazel also has ties with UNISON having been a branch secretary and chair in NALGO, one of our founding unions. She said some good things about listening to staff and always comes across as a decent politician when you see her in person (though we obviously have some significant political differences). On equal pay she was clearly overwhelmed by the underfunding of single status for local government, I hope that she will be able to tackle this issue which is so vital for our local government members.

I moved a motion which the National Young Members Forum had submitted on Young People and Labour. The motion sets out UNISON's support for reforming Young Labour and the key principles that this reform should take; UNISON's continued support for Young Labour and Labour Students (with the possibility of funding a full time Youth Officer for the Labour Party); and a commitment for Labour Link to work with UNISON's Young Members Forums to engage more of our young members in Labour Link and the Labour Party. I am glad to say that this passed unanimously and I look forward to working with Labour Link and young APF levy payers on delivering this policy.

It was a good event, with a relaxed atmosphere which meant it was easy to get to know other delegates. It was disappointing that there were not many young members there, with just our current NYMF chair Anne True the only young member there as a voting delegate. Hopefully the work on engaging young members in Labour Link will mean that this improves in future years.