Camden Unison AGM took place on Wednesday 6 March 2024 at the Conference Suite, Crowndale Centre and on Teams.
Guest speakers included Ian Mitchell, NUM striker 1984-5 and Camden UNISON traffic warden reps.
Camden Unison Vice-Branch Secretary, Jacqui Wallace, introduced the meeting and the representatives and committee members elected this year. She then
reported how, since 2021, we have held our AGMs either online or as a hybrid meeting and decided we would be hybrid again this year as we knew that some members have regular working from home days so find attending via Teams easier.
Jacqui then presented the first guest speaker, Ian Mitchell, a NUM striker between 1984-5. The miners’ strikes was the country’s biggest wave of post-war industrial action.
Ian recounted how, four decades ago, tens of thousands of miners stood up to Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative government over plans to cut 20,000 jobs and shut nearly all mine pits.
Unfortunately, the strike slogan ‘Close a pit, kill a community’ eventually become a reality for many mining towns.
Ironically, the film shown at 5.30pm after the AGM entitled “The Enemy Within” far from stigmatising the miners, as Thatcher intended, is an accurate description of the role played at the time by the right wing of the labour party and its leader, Neil Kinnock, in sabotaging the strike inside the TUC and elsewhere.
In an era where no alternative and social media were available to the working class and its allies, a mixture of a coordinated media campaign and organised police brutality eventually defeated the miners after they bravely fought through 1984 and 1985.
Never the less the magnitude of the solidarity (among which our own Unison branch) and the duration and intensity of the campaign remain a working class achievement to our day. Ian ended his contribution among the applause of all the members present and of the member online.
Before introducing the next guest speakers, Camden Unison Branch Secretary, Liz Wheatley, remind us of the best thing that happened in the branch last year: our traffic warden members took on the private company NSL. They balloted over pay and, when negotiations failed to get an offer that was anywhere close to acceptable. The result of the official ballot was a turnout of 73.11% and a YES vote for strike action of 100%!
The Traffic Wardens Unison representatives gave the meeting a brief history of the unionization of Camden Wardens and of earlier strikes, which made Camden Unison Traffic Wardens the vanguard of the movement in the UK.
They then explained how on Monday 24 July, our members walked out on indefinite strike – and they stayed out for 59 days until they went back in to work with a pay increase of 18.1% or £5,000 for this last year, then good increases the next 2 years. Whilst on strike, they had big, lively picket lines, they protested outside 5PS, they went up to the company HQ in Birmingham (where we were joined by local trade unionists) and they regularly marched through Camden. They eventually won with a massive win considering that what they achieved was one of the few above-inflation pay rises for any group of workers in 2023. When this newly-achieved pay settlement ends, so does the Council’s contract with NSL, so they are already starting their campaign for the service and our members to come back in house.
Camden Unison Branch Secretary, Liz Wheatley, reminded us that there was an official ballot for our pay claim in the rest of the branch for members on what are called NJC pay (those directly employed by the Council and most schools). In order to take any strike action nowadays, you have to get over 50% of members to cast a vote in a postal ballot – this was one of the central parts of the Tory anti-union legislation brought in a few years ago. We came frustratingly close – our result was a turnout of 42.2% with a YES vote for strike of 84.6%.
She also insisted that even after settlement agreed nationally by UNISON, the Cost of Living crisis is still not going away. As the Tories make out that they have got the economy under control because inflation has gone down, they fail to mention that prices aren’t actually reducing, they’re still increasing but at a slower rate than last year. However, in general, our wages aren’t catching up.
We have been at the fore of the argument that there is plenty of money in society for good public services, and decent pay for the workers that provide them, and UNISON is going to be launching a campaign on the funding of public services in 2024 that Camden Unison will be supporting and promoting.
Our challenge for this year is how can we build on our previous ballot result and get over 50% if and (most likely) when the negotiations for the next pay settlement will not match our demand.
The result we did last year was largely due to having pay ballot reps, and we need more of you to volunteer for the next round! ‘sign up’ sheets were handed at the AGM and will also be sent to members with the regular emails as every vote can make a difference!
Liz continued by saying that the Tories constantly argue that there isn’t enough money, whilst also looking at how they can divide us so that they can continue to rule us. They have mainly been attempting to deflect anger away from them using racism and bigotry. The racist Rwanda deportation scheme is all about trying to blame asylum seekers and refugees, people fleeing war, poverty, the climate emergency and seeking a safe home, rather than the Tories and their friends in the city for the cost of living crisis.
As a branch, we have tried to actively organise to challenge this racist scapegoating. We have supported the campaign led by the PCS union against the Rwanda scheme, joining their rallies at the High Court. We have had branch delegations to a number of anti-racist conferences this year where we have been part of discussions about campaigning for anti-racist workplaces, and we will be joining the Stand Up To Racism/TUC protest on 16 March starting at the Home Office.
At the UNISON national conference last June, we organised a fringe event on organising against racism where the speakers included Gary Younge and Care4Calais, followed by a fundraising gig. We raised over £5,100 for Stand Up To Racism to help with their campaigning.
In a general election year, though, it seems that the scapegoating will continue and potentially be worse than previously. We have already had the disgraceful £1,000 bet made by Rishi Sunak with Piers Morgan that he would deport people to Rwanda before the election, so we will keep up our campaigning.
Recent Tory outbursts have made it clear that the other people who are likely to face attacks are the LGBT+ community. As a union, UNISON has very good policies on LGBT+ rights and in our branch, we have actively taken those forward, including members speaking at conferences on fighting for more rights for LGBT+ workers, as well as women workers and disabled workers. We marched on London Trans Pride with the Camden UNISON banner, and plan to again this year. When we fight together, we can all win.
We have of course still been campaigning against austerity, low pay and other attacks from the bosses. We have been proud to stand with strikers on their picket lines and welcomed them on to ours during our NSL strike. As the Tories bring in more legislation attacking our union rights, branch members were pleased to march with the banner in Cheltenham on the TUC demonstration against the Minimum Service Levels Act, a law that they want to use to try to make us break our own strikes.
On strikes, we have continued to send solidarity to other workers fighting back, as well as receiving it for our own strikers. We have visited picket lines of other UNISON workers, and those of other unions, and have had strikers such as the Barnet social workers and the Brighton UCU college workers speak at our regular members meetings. Solidarity is the lifeblood of the trade union movement, and we are keen to play our part in helping others to win.
In the last few months, we have been on every national Palestine Solidarity Campaign ceasefire now protest with the branch banner. We have marched with the trade union bloc as more branches and banners have joined the demonstrations, and we have regularly talked about Palestine in our members meetings. We have also joined local protests and taken part in a nation workplace day of action. As the situation in Gaza becomes more and more desperate, we will continue to be part of the campaign for a ceasefire and to end the occupation of Palestine.
Liz did not want to take too much space from the debate on the floor so she referred members to her written report* to the AGM:
*
- Our Camden UNISON banner made a lot of appearances, and it has stayed famous! As well as the marching on the COP28 protest, we’ve been outside Barnet Town Hall supporting UNISON members on strike, in Parliament Square and in Cheltenham against new anti-union laws, outside the Royal Courts of Justice and in Parliament Square joining the rallies opposing the Rwanda deportation scheme, and outside the US Embassy and in Parliament Square demonstrating for abortion rights. We have joined protests calling for justice for the Uyghurs and for ethical investment and supply chains.
- During our pay ballot campaign, we had meetings with guest speakers including UNISON General Secretary Christina McAnea, and RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch – lots of members attended and they definitely helped get the vote out!
- The branch has given solidarity to other groups of workers taking action – we’ve regularly been on picket lines showing solidarity with strikers in the RMT, PCS, UNISON, BMA and more. We’ve invited speakers to our members meetings to talk about their disputes and find out how we can support them.
- We have continued to support campaigns such as Stand Up To Racism, Campaign Against Climate Change, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Abortion Rights and more
- We still have the weekly UNISON members meetings online that we started in March 2020. We update members, discuss what issues branch officers should be raising with HR and also discuss important issues like pay, solidarity and problems that members raise
- We’ve produced a weekly ‘update’ email with information on important topics, dates of meetings and events and where we can show solidarity with strikers or take part in campaigns
- We’ve organised shop meetings with members to discuss restructures and other issues relevant to their section, making sure that we have a collective response that plays to our strengths
- Throughout the year, branch stewards have continued to represent numerous individual members in hearings, with some great wins
- We have worked closely with Camden Black Workers Group to continue to push the issue of systemic racism and how it can be challenged. This has involved both raising bigger political issues – why our predominantly Black care workers should be in house, paid and treated as they deserve to be – and detailed negotiations about career development, recruitment and restructuring processes and more. In particular, UNISON has been raising that structural changes need to be about more than progression at the top of the organisation – we want to see that improve, but as a trade union we want to see pay and conditions improve for our Black members who are low paid/on private contracts
- We have increased the number of stewards over the year, including in new areas – but we still have vacancies so do consider getting involved and becoming a steward for your section!
Our branch has continued to have a high profile on a regional and national level because of the campaigns and action members have been involved in. We currently have one member of our branch elected on to UNISON’s National Executive Council and one member elected on to the Local government Service Group Executive. A number of members play a leading role on other regional and national bodies. Members have attended and spoken at UNISON conferences on motions and in fringe meetings.
None of what we do would have been possible without all the effort put in by our fantastic stewards and branch officers over the year – they’re the backbone of our branch and deserve big praise!
We will continue to campaign against austerity and racism and fight for our members and a better world over the next 12 months and beyond.
Last year, Chris Smalls was part of a group of workers who took on Amazon and won the right to have a union at the Staten Island centre. They started the Amazon Labor Union (ALO) and since then have been campaigning for recognition across the US, and supporting Amazon workers globally in their fight for union rights. Earlier this year, he met with Amazon strikers at Coventry, where they have recruited hundreds to the union and been taking strike action for decent pay.
