Features

Fighting for pensions justice in Unison

13th June 2012

Marsha-Jane Thompson, Chair of Unison United Left and LRC national committee member, looks ahead to Unison conference, which starts on Sunday 17 June.

Unison’s main national delegate conference in Bournemouth, from Tuesday 19 June, may be somewhat of an anti-climax as it will follow the Local Government conference at which a vigorous debate over proposals for the Local government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is anticipated.

Following the failure to get Health members to vote for the pensions deal, it is clear that Unison’s officials are worried about the outcome of the ballot in the LGPS, and are doing their utmost to ensure that the conference does not instruct the executive to recommend rejection of proposals that fall far short of our objectives when we took strike action last November.

Conference will also consider all the other aspects of the attacks on our movement and public services from this coalition government.

However most motions even ones critical of the leadership are being supported by the platform who are keen to present a unified face to the world at the first Unison conference to be streamed online. They are not however streaming Local Government conference which will be much more contentious.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis will have his best ‘left wing but realistic’ face on in his keynote speech on Tuesday and delegates can expect to hear him fired up about our pay freeze, though he might not remind conference that last year he told us the defence of our pensions would take more than a single day of strike action ...

If you’re a Unison delegate or based in Bournemouth, come to the LRC and Unison United Left fringe meeting on Wednesday 20 June
Read the Guardian letter by Marsha-Jane and George Binette on fighting for pensions justice in Unison