Our branch secretaries, Vicky Redwood and Nathan Street, are currently in Liverpool for UNISON’s National Delegates Conference (NDC).
Conference started today with Nathan on the delegate floor.
It began with a tense atmosphere with a number of delegates unhappy at having their emergency motions omitted from the agenda. We then received and voted through Unison’s Annual Report and Financial Statements.
Nathan was the only delegate to ask a question relating to the financial statements, asking:
“On page 21 of the 2024 Financial Statements, it shows a total General Secretary salary and oncosts package of £197,937 for 2024. Given this will mean very large pay differentials between the General Secretary and our lowest paid UNISON members, should UNISON publish its pay differentials in the Financial Statements, like local authorities have to?”
We then started to discuss and vote through the substantive motions:
Composite A Organising to Win and Delivering a Decade of Growth (pages 2-4)
Composite B The Far Right (pages 4-13)
Motion 34. Campaigning for a Bailout for Public Services (pages 50-51).
Nathan was the very next person in the queue to speak in favour of motion 34, with the intent of highlighting the needed for a bailout of Universities when conference voted to move the motion.
We recorded a video of what Nathan would have said if he’d addressed the whole conference:
The day ended with us voting through Motion 30. Don’t Take Our Winter Fuel Allowance Away!(pages 40-44) and Motion 59. Pay Compensation to the WASPI Women Now! (pages 89-90). We then attended a evening rally featuring a candidate for the upcoming General Secretary election (Andrea Egan) speaking.
