UNISON NEC Candidates 2011: For a fighting, Democratic UNISON

This is the updated list of candidates on the left that are seeking branch nominations for UNISON's NEC elections, 2011. The following are all supported by the UNITED LEFT, and alongside comrades in the Socialist Party, we are standing under the umbrella slogan: 'For a Fighting, Democratic union.'

Nominations are open now until 5pm, 18th of February.

Go to UNISON's website here for nominations forms : http://www.unison.org.uk/elections/pages_view.asp?did=12231

Click on the names below to read their nomination requests. If you have the backing of UNISON United Left, and your name is on this list below but your letter calling for nominations is not yet online, then please email us : unisonunitedleft@gmail.com

For a fighting democratic union.

NEC CANDIDATES 2011

NATIONAL Black Members

Female seats April Ashley and Bola George
Male seat Hugo Pierre

National young members

Kieran Grogan

REGIONAL SEATS

Eastern region
Male seat Martin Booth

East Midlands region
Female seat Jean Thorpe Sharon Vasselin

Male seat Richard Buckwell

Reserved seat Ann MacMillan-Wood

Greater London region
Female seats Marshajane Thompson and Helen Davies

Male seat Jon Rogers

Reserved seat Emilse Ocampo Medina

Northern region
Female seat Hannah Walter

Male seat Dave Walkden

North West region
General seat Tony Wilson

Female seats Bernie Gallagher and Karen Reissmann

Male seat Roger Bannister

Reserved seat Sophie Smith Rudge

Scotland region
General seat Jim Mcfarlan

Male seat Duncan Smith

South East region
Female seats Diana Leach
Emma Macbeth

Male seat Mike Tucker

South West region

Male seat Nigel Behan

Cymru/Wales region
Male seat Jamie Davies

West Midlands region
General Seat Clive Shakespeare
Female Seat. Vez Kirkpatric

Yorkshire & Humberside region
General Mike Forster
Female seats Angie Wallor Helen Jenner

Male seat Jim Broad
Reserved seat Victoria Perrin

SERVICE GROUP SEATS

Health Care service group
Female seats Kate Ahrens and Shona Greig

Male seat Len Hockey

General seat John Malcolm

Higher Education service group

Female seat Carole Hanson

General seat Max Watson

Local Government service group

Female seats Kathy Smith and Phoebe Watkins

Male seat Paul Couchman

General seat Paul Holmes

Water Enviroment Transport
General Seat John Jones

Community

General seat
Alec McFadden

Jamie Davis UNISON NEC Elections 2011, Wales Region

Candidate Name: Jamie Davis

Membership Number: 5767061

Dear Colleague

RE: UNISON NEC Elections 2011, Wales Region

I am seeking the nomination of your branch for the Wales Male Regional seat in the forthcoming NEC elections. My name is Jamie Davis, I am currently Treasurer of the Vale of Glamorgan LG Branch. I have been active in this Branch for the last two years. The eight years prior to this I was active in the Police Sector of UNISON.

I am standing around the platform of "Reclaim UNISON", a rank and file pressure group set up three years ago to galvanise and transform our union into an organising, fighting one.

The election of the "ConDem" Government last year has presented us with by far the greatest challenge that the trade union movement has faced for decades. Their ideological agenda to destroy the public sector and the welfare state within the next five years has to be met by the full might of our trade union, in conjunction with all other trade unions and wider community groups. This must involve the calling of coordinated and generalised industrial action in defence of jobs and services. I believe the leadership of the union have a responsibility to organise and plan such action, and not to leave branches to fight alone to stave off the worst of the cuts.

As I write this letter, almost one quarter of all councils in the UK have issued their staff with compulsory redundancy notices, and the Government is proceeding in England to sell off our prized asset, the NHS, to privately led consortiums. And in Wales the Assembly government is proposing to significantly cut health spending. In South Wales the public services are the largest employment sector, and spending cuts will devastate entire communities unless they are stopped. Unless we stand up and say "NO".



I welcome the call by the newly elected General Secretary of the UNITE union, Len McCluskey, for joint coordinated action by all trade unions against this onslaught, which must be the clarion call for us all. We must also hammer home the clear message that there IS an alternative to the cuts agenda:

* Cancel the national debt owed to huge banking interests
* Tax multinational offshore companies - corporate fraud and tax avoidance costs the treasury £80billion per year
* Cancel the Trident replacement programme
* NO to bankers' bonuses
* The answer to the fixing the economy is to create jobs, not to cut them - Ireland has shown how public spending cuts can cause massive damage to a national economy.

The protests by young people to prevent the rise in tuition fees and the cancellation of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) have shown the trade union movement how we need to organise. In Wales the protests and occupation of Cardiff University played a part in the Welsh Assembly's concessions over fees and EMA. We should be linking up with these young people, user and community groups, and other interested parties to forge local "anti-cuts" campaigns. In our region this work has already started, with the formation of the "Cardiff Against The Cuts" group, initially called together by Cardiff Trades Council, and responsible for a sizeable "all-Wales" anti-cuts demonstration in Cardiff last October.

Our message should be clear and simple:

* We are opposed to ALL cuts in jobs and services
* We are opposed to "backdoor" privatisation and outsourcing
* We are opposed to ALL cuts in pay and conditions of service

It is the responsibility of the NEC to unite our union around this set of demands.

As well as opposing the ConDem Government, I believe we should not flinch from criticising those Labour MPs and Councils who choose to attack public services rather than stand up to the Government's diktat, including the Welsh Assembly Government. WAG may try and "soften the blow" by saving the cuts until after the Assembly elections next year, but we all know what happens to promises after the ballot boxes have closed! It should be up to the membership of the union to decide whether or not we continue to fund New Labour, where it is apparent they cannot or will not support the defence of public services.

I will also work to stop the unnecessary and divisive "Witch-hunt" of left-wing activists within our union. Too many good representatives have been suspended or expelled from our union at a time when we need to stand strong, united, and with all our resources to defend public jobs and services.

I wish to see our union genuinely "member-led", which is why I also advocate that all elected officials in UNISON should be on the average wage of the members that they represent. I practice what I preach.

Thank you for your time, and I hope that you will support my nomination.

Jamie Davis

Kieran Grogan - request for nomination for UNISON NEC

Kieran Grogan - request for nomination for UNISON NEC



Young Members NEC Seat


Dear Friends,


I am writing to you to ask for your nomination for the Young Members seat on our National Executive Council.

I am standing for the Young Members seat because I believe I can effectively campaign on the issues affecting our young members most:

Against pay structures which discriminate against young workers

For a living wage for all workers, including young apprentices

Against the rise in tuition fees and the scrapping of the EMA college students' grant

For free and fully funded education

For young members to be as involved as possible in our union

Questioning why we continue to give money to New Labour, which even in opposition cannot bring itself to stand up for our members and the issues which matter to them

These are just some of the issues that are important to me and the young members in our union. I hope you will decide to nominate me. Should you have any questions, I would be happy to speak at your meeting/committee.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,



Kieran Grogan (9395795)

Bolton UNISON (6540)

Young Members Officer

Mob: 07776031406


Kieran81@msn.com

Kieran.grogan@msn.co.uk

Shona Greig, NEC 2011, Health Service Female seat

16th January 2011.

Dear Unison Branch Secretary,

This is a request for your branch’s nomination for one of the Health Service Female seats in the Unison National Executive Council (NEC) elections.

Currently I am on full time release as Staff Side Secretary in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

My substantive post is Psychiatric Support Worker in an acute setting. I have been a Unison member for approximately 14 years, an activist for just a long and a Steward and Health and Safety Representative for slightly less.

I believe our members’ voices are loud and clear, they are fed up with doing more with less. They are extremely fed up facing transformations, streamlining or re-aligning of services - all of which lead to re-written job descriptions (as opposed to changed jobs) which subsequently, mostly downgrade AfC bandings. These changes are demoralising, considerably reduce opportunities of promotion and potentially lead to increased hardship in the long term.

The view expressed by many members is that the plans to further decimate our health services are going to mean the toughest fight that many of us will have seen. Members are asking where is the ballot that was promised by Unison’s General Secretary if they come for members’ pensions. We are a large body of people across many public services, members are asking how are we fighting back to protect our living standards. They do not believe "we are all in it together" - members believe they are being scapegoated by the government through the media as being a drain on society. They are asking why are bankers are being paid huge bonuses, when ordinary people are seeing even their smallest nest eggs shrink and being asked to contribute more to have what for many will be a meagre pension. Members are asking why is our country still spending untold amounts of money on a "war against terror" - when they feel the war is here at home, is about having to work harder for longer, being kept in fear, living often under tremendous stress, worrying about increasing bills or whether they will still have a job this time next month never mind next year. They wonder why are governments not doing more to stabilise prices, they fear rent increases, interest rate increases, the VAT increase alongside the current pay freezes.

Yes members must organise themselves, but they should also be heard at all levels of Unison – and they need elected representatives who will be active in leading a fightback, not just making paper promises. The proposal to freeze incremental pay rises in exchange for a "guarantee" of no redundancies in bands 1-6, was met with disbelief by members here. They feel insulted, undervalued and members’ response was a resounding NO to the proposal - it is viewed as not workable and divisive - setting workers against workers. Many are asking what now? They viewed the proposals as an attack, not only on basic standards of living but an attack on their pensions. Members are actively looking at ways to fight any further attacks on their pay and pensions. They are fed up bearing the brunt of the Tory led coalition, or any government that seeks to put money for health from the public purse into the pockets of the marketeers. Members’ views are that health care is an ever evolving science and our health service will always be adapting and changing as knowledge increases and practices change based on sound evidence.

I am no academic, but I do read - I recently dipped into a review called ‘Fair Society Healthy Lives’. This is a very short excerpt:
"People with higher socioeconomic position in society have a greater array of life chances and more opportunities to lead a flourishing life. They also have better health. The two are linked: the more favoured people are, socially and economically, the better their health. This link between social conditions and health is not a footnote to the ‘real’ concerns with health – health care and unhealthy behaviours – it should become the main focus. Consider one measure of social position: education. People with university degrees have better health and longer lives than those without. For people aged 30 and above, if everyone without a degree had their death rate reduced to that of people with degrees, there would be 202,000 fewer premature deaths each year. Surely this is a goal worth striving for."

Well ,I couldn't agree more, but how can this go hand in hand with pay freezes and price increases - how can this go along with reducing contracted hours for more work, to maintain profits, how can this go along with the increased devolution of the National Health Service, how can this go along with the cuts to funding future generations’ education? Members are saying we need to begin using our combined weight as Unison members and workers to defend ourselves against the few that would slash and burn, that are targeting our most vulnerable and against the few who are not in this together with the rest of us.

I am active locally in the Cambridgeshire against the Cuts campaign, attending lobbies and demonstrations and distribute petitions to increase knowledge and awareness about what is happening to our health services and workers and attend many other national and regional events that support members’ views. I would like to be elected to the NEC and the Health Service Group Executive so that I can be active nationally on behalf of members as well as locally.

The nomination period runs from January 11th to February 18th. I'd like to call on your branch to nominate myself, Kate Ahrens, John Malcolm and Len Hockey to the Health seats in the National Executive elections.

I am happy to answer any question anyone may have about why I am standing for the NEC elections.

In solidarity

Shona

Shona Greig
Membership Number:- 4010400
Branch:- Cambridge Health Branch - 01270
tele: 07972 803358
emails: Capskirk3@hotmail.com or Shonagreig@gmail.com

Duncan Smith, Unison NEC Elections 2011, Scottish Region Male Seat

18 January 2011

Dear Colleague

Unison NEC Elections 2011, Scottish Region Male Seat
Request for Nomination

I am writing to inform you that I intend to stand for election to the National Executive Council of Unison this year.

At present I am Chairperson of the City of Edinburgh local government branch.

I would like to request that your Branch consider nominating me for the Scottish region male seat and I have attached a draft of my candidate’s statement which explains why I am standing.

Please note that nominations must be submitted to the Member Liaison Unit by the 18th February. Branch Nomination forms are to be found in Appendix F of the NEC election procedures. This can be downloaded from the website at www.unison.org.uk/elections. To complete the form my Unison RMS number is 1427439.

If you wish to contact me please e-mail dr_smith52@hotmail.com or phone me on 07890 422 048.

Regards


Duncan Smith

--

Unison
NEC Elections 2011
Scottish Region Male Seat
Duncan Smith


The attacks on working people by the Conservative- Lib Dem government require determined leadership from the NEC as never before. The measures announced in the budget and the Comprehensive Spending Review last year represent a wholesale attack on the public sector and the services we work in, use and depend on everyday.

A business as usual approach just won’t do anymore, the leadership of our union needs to change. I am standing for the NEC because I believe I have experience of trade union organisation, campaigning and the political understanding for this demanding role.

With over a million members what Unison does matters, if we act together with other unions we have the collective power to halt the government in its tracks. Anyone on the STUC demonstration in Edinburgh in October knows how empowering marching with 20,000 others was.

We have seen protests by students really shake the Coalition. Imagine what we could all achieve together!

I believe in a strong member-led union with an accountable national executive capable of organising the fight back we need.

My experience is as follows:

• 1980’s Senior steward in NUPE South Hospitals Branch and then convenor of the joint union group in Edinburgh City Hospital. Faced with attempts to privatise the ancillary services I helped fight this through organising strike action.
• 1990’s I moved to the Council in Edinburgh where I became Housing Convenor in NALGO then Unison.
• I played a leading role in the Edinburgh Against Stock Transfer campaign and spoke for Unison at numerous neighbourhood meetings across the city. Despite a massive propaganda campaign from the pro-privatisation camp the tenants voted to keep their homes public.
• 2007 I was elected Chairperson of the City of Edinburgh local government branch
• Subsequently I became a delegate to Unison’s Scottish Local Government Conference.
• Last year our employer announced that £90m cuts and privatisation of services were necessary to “balance the books”. I believe Branch Officers should lead from the front and I have been petitioning on the streets of Edinburgh for Unison’s ‘Our City’s Not For Sale’ campaign.

Linking with other unions and community groups at a local level is vital if we are to defend our public services and I am working hard with others to build the Edinburgh Anti Cuts Alliance.

But unity at a national level is essential also. While we have formally agreed to work with unions like the PCS we need to turn these words into action. So for example Unison should be putting every effort into building the TUC national demonstration in London on March 26th.

If elected I will work to:

• Build national alliances with other unions to co-ordinate action to challenge these cuts

• Support a national strategy , including industrial action, that does not leave branches to fight alone

• Oppose ‘social contracts’ with employers that trade pay or service conditions for dubious guarantees of no compulsory redundancies.

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Emilse Ocampo Medina - request for nomination to unison NEC London reserved seat

Emilse Ocampo Medina - request for nomination to unison NEC London reserved seat

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UNISON National Executive Council (NEC) Elections 2011

Nominate Emilse Ocampo Medina for Greater London Region Reserved Seat

UNISON membership number: 9290781



All Greater London Region branches can nominate for the reserved seats and all Greater London Region members can vote in the election for this seat.



My name is Emilse Ocampo Medina and I writing to ask that your branch consider nominating me for the Greater London Region Reserved Seat on the UNISON National Executive Committee.

I am of Latin American origin and was born in Colombia.



For the past 10 years I have been working as a cleaner at Birkbeck College, University of London, I am currently employed by the private contractor Ocean.



I have been an active UNISON member for several years fighting to ensure that my colleagues - predominantly low paid, outsourced, migrant workers - are treated like human beings with the dignity and respect that they deserve.



I supported my branch in the successful campaign to win the London Living Wage for all outsourced workers in the College and have participated in the Bloomsbury Living Wage Campaign that has resulted in a number of notable victories, most recently at University College London.



At a time when the public sector is facing unprecedented attacks we should be campaigning in defence of the services we deliver and the workers who deliver them. I believe that a trade union such as UNISON must stand up for the most vulnerable in our society.



I want to see our union involve low paid workers, particularly migrants, in a campaign to defend our rights and to defeat all kinds of discrimination we face in our jobs.



Low paid workers and migrants are certainly not "all in this together" with millionaires like Cameron, Osborne and Clegg.



I believe I have the commitment and ability to represent low paid workers and migrants who I believe are looking for someone who can voice their concerns and issues at the heart of our trade union.



I would like also like to encourage more low paid workers and migrant workers to join UNISON, and I think that seeing a migrant worker elected to the NEC would help in this aim.



I believe UNISON should be leading in the struggles that low paid and migrant workers face.



I hope that your branch will consider giving me your nomination.



Emilse Ocampo Medina



To be valid, nominations need to be made at a quorate meeting of your branch or branch committee during the nomination period. The nomination period will open on 11 January 2011 and close at 5pm on Friday 18 February 2011. Copies of the nomination forms will be available on UNISON's website at http://www.unison.org.uk/elections/pages_view.asp?did=12231

Helen Davies - Request for nomination to UNISON NEC

Helen Davies - Request for nomination to UNISON NEC



Dear Colleague,



Request for Nomination of Helen Davies to UNISON NEC as a London representative in the female seat.



I am a social worker for London Borough of Barnet, nicknamed "easyCouncil" and I am the Chair of the local Barnet UNISON branch as well as the local Trades Council. Barnet is a flagship Tory controlled local authority. It is looking to privatise all of its services on top of the cuts to vital services. It is actively encouraging all schools to take on Academy status. It has produced a budget which will see the end of the youth services and most Children's centres closed. There will also be redundancies of social workers in the Mental Health Service this year with more to follow in the next 3 years across Adult Services. We can expect massive cuts to care and support for the most vulnerable in our communities. Libraries will also be closed. We will be facing a total of some 800-900 job losses. No protection for frontline services then.



These plans of devastation are being visited in one form or another across the UK throughout the public sector.



In Barnet I have played one of the leading roles with people in my branch and other unions to organise some highly successful lobbies of the local Council and in alliance with other trade unions and community activists we have begun a campaign to resist these cuts. With other activists I have been on stalls every weekend talking to residents about the Council's plans and trying to mobilise them for the lobbies. I have also been holding numerous meetings with colleagues in day services explaining why they need to oppose plans to turn them into a Local Authority Trading Company. I will be working hard to have a good turnout on our local demonstration 30.1.11 and to be sending a good contingent to the TUC demonstration 26.3.11 but also to be encouraging our members to take industrial action. Needless to say as Chair of the Branch and of the Trades Council I have worked hard to try to make sure all parties feel comfortable working together in the Alliance.



If we are not successful our branch will not exist in the next 2 years as most of us will be working for the private sector.



I am seeking nomination to the NEC from all of those who think like me. The welfare state is something to be proud of as even in its imperfect state it takes some of the fear out of the economic consequences of becoming ill long-term, of becoming unemployed, falling on hard times. These were things which haunted previous generations. The welfare state is our inheritance and it is something I think we are rightly committed to as union. The economic crisis – something not created by public sector workers – is the fraudulent reason being given for a massive redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich and a reorganisation of our society, which sees no place for a welfare state.



Local responses to the cuts are necessary and will hopefully be successful but I believe it is the job of the NEC and all of our national bodies to make sure the fights are linked up where possible and also to offer some national fightback. The Government, although weak, is well organised and coordinated in its attacks. The recent student demonstrations drawing on the support of other trade unions, including ours, show the Government can quickly be unnerved. As Brendan Barber (TUC General Secretary) expressed recently, the student demonstrations are probably just a prelude of things to come. I believe we need to make sure those demonstrations are a prelude and not the end of a fightback. This requires coordination and a national response to organise the fightback.



I believe I have the necessary experience to take this job on. In this country and in Germany I have always been a member of a Trade Union. In Germany I was one of the initiators organising residential workers, where I worked, into the Trade Union and part of a group from this which organised the first ever demonstration against our voluntary sector employer. Returning to London I first joined UNISON whilst being a temp in Lambeth and recruited other temps to the union. In Hackney I became a steward just as the Council went bankrupt and led in my section (Adults Services) over the cuts. I organised a successful boycott of interviews over a restructuring in our department. In Barnet I became a steward and then went on to become Branch Chair 2005. I have played an active role in all of our campaigns. I would want to put some of this grassroots organising experience into the NEC. On the NEC I would be part of, I hope, a majority on the left who want to give everything to ensuring our Welfare State remains part of our heritage and something we pass on to the next generation in an even better state.



I would also urge you to also nominate Marshajane Thompson who is standing with me in the other female London seat; and Jon Rogers, excellent current incumbent standing in the male seat.



Yours sincerely,



Helen Davies

Membership Number: 1224335

Email: ayupchuck@googlemail.com