A letter to Laurence

Dear Laurence

I have read your blog with interest.

It confirms news reports that you are seeking nominations for the position of Joint General Secretary.

I do not question your right to stand for office, but am not convinced it is either principled or prudent.

I would like you to answer a number of questions.

Who's asking?

A concerned member, 15 years your senior, reluctant to parade battle honours, and hopefully beyond vanity or ambition.

But if my intervention is to be taken seriously, I'm afraid it's a case of "you've shown me yours, so I'll show you mine".

Workplace representative 38 years.
National Executive Member - 24 years.
Chair of Finance Committee - TASS & MSF.
Rules Commission - AEEU MSF merger.
"Left" adherent
Believer in open campaigning rather than conspiracy.

My views on the present turmoil in Unite can be found at
http://yunite.blogspot.com/
and I will be posting this there.

I too am impatient for the speediest possible full implementation of the merger,
but believe that a contest now in an unsought election would be an impediment not a help:
and say

"The best possible outcome would be that the incumbent Joint General Secretary is the sole valid nominee."

Q1 - Do you applaud the complainant's actions including the threat of further legal challenge?

Q2 -Do you accept that, if the complaint were to be upheld, both Joint General Secretaries could be removed from office.

Q3- Do you accept that the arrangement for one General Secretary to extend his term of office by one year, and the other to go a year early, was part of the agreement negotiated between Amicus and the TGWU, and was endorsed by membership ballot.

Q3 - Do you accept that if either Joint General Secretary is acting as an impediment to the implementation of the programme for merger, that the recently elected Executive Council can issue either or both with appropriate instructions.

Q4 - If you are contemplating running for General Secretary Designate, could you reconcile that legitimate ambition with the duty imposed on both Joint General Secretaries “to oversee the election of the General Secretary Designate of the new Union”

I look forward to your response
Bob Hardie

Another stone in the water

Some day I'll get round to putting a caveat in a prominent place.

In the meantime I'm happy to affirm that the ramblings on all my blogs represent my opinions. [At least at the time I wrote them]

When other people's work, or thoughts, or decisions are used I try to acknowledge the source.

Now and again, as in the main thrust of the previous post, I have tried out the ideas with comrades, and can claim a degree of assent.

The polemic is likely to be mine alone.

I used to jest that, with my luck, the final collapse of capitalism would happen the week before I retired. It didn't work out that way, but since then thousands have seen their pensions snatched away. Then, simultaneous with the current world economic crisis - not quite Armageddon but too close for comfort- the left in Unite splits.

The members need a Union that is both effective and accountable.

The merger of Amicus and the T&G could be that if we get it right.

Each grouping will embrace that aim and claim that they are the answer.

Away from the hubbub most activists will acknowledge that people policies and structures are all important .

I've been around long enough to know that which bum is[or on occasion how many bums are] on which seat matters.

But right now who is going to be next General Secretary is not the important question.

Thoughts on the attack from within

An expensive and damaging distraction from the work of your union

In 1971 the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers

was launched on a wave of optimism after a successful campaign under the slogan

“One Union in Engineering”

overcame the craft sectarianism of both white and blue collar workers.

There was near-unanimous support for a venture

which should have been the first step

in eliminating the pointless competition

between competing unions that had been identified as

nine tenths of our weakness in the previous century.

But the AUEW suffered a long slow death in acrimony and litigation.

Significantly one critical legal judgement

hinged on the presence or absence of a comma

in one sentence of the Rule Book.

The prospect, slightly more than 40 years on in January 2012,

of a successfully merged Unite,

with policies, determined by members in Conference,

setting the boundaries for a newly elected Executive Council;

a revised and improved Rule Book, and one General Secretary,

offers the best hope of setting old failures behind us.

Today, with capitalism’s contradictions threatening all our futures,

for anyone to initiate action that will distract lay members,

officers, and staff from responding to the immediate threats

to the livelihoods of thousands of our members is a betrayal.

--------

SO WHAT HAPPENED ?

A complaint by one disaffected member has precipitated an unnecessary election for Joint General Secretary, disrupting the work of the union, and threatening the merger arrangements overwhelmingly endorsed in three ballots.

For the instrument of amalgamation

For the First Executive Council

For the new Rule Book

In particular the timetable for transition to a single Unite General Secretary,

and the interim duties and responsibilities of the Joint General Secretaries

were spelled out in the Schedule to the Instrument voted on in March 2007.

--------------------------------------------

"3.7
The General Secretary of Amicus and the General Secretary of the TGWU at the time of the registration of the Instrument of Amalgamation shall both serve asJoint General Secretaries of the New Union; each additionally being responsible for the section representing their respective predecessor union.

3.7.1

The Joint General Secretary of the Amicus Section will retire on his sixty-sixth birthday in order to provide continuity from the transition period into the new union and, together with the other Joint General Secretary, to oversee the election of the General Secretary Designate of the new Union.[my emphasis]

3.7.2

An election will be held for a General Secretary Designate of the new union, elected by all members of the union, in the last year of the term of office of the Joint General Secretary of the Amicus Section such that the election will be concluded within the last month of that term of office.3.7.3The remaining Joint General Secretary shall retire no more than twelve months after the election of the General Secretary Designate.

3.7.4

Upon the retirement of the last remaining Joint General Secretary, the General Secretary Designate shall assume the post of General Secretary of the new union.

3.7.5

All subsequent elections for the General Secretary shall be on the basis of a ballot of the whole membership of the new union."
------------------------------------------------

The formal documents have at every stage been supplemented by extensive supplementary publicity including a timetable which was a model of clarity.

To imply that members acted in ignorance is either disingenuous or deceitful, and insults their intelligence.

-------------

WHY? OH WHY? OH WHY?

The complainant sees himself as a defender of democracy,

and harbinger of a new society,

but tearing down the temple, as an act of revenge,

demonstrates a blindness more psychological than physical.

When he says

----------

“The enquiry represents a step closer to the prospect of an election for

General Secretary having to be called.

Under the rules of the merger with the TGWU

Joint General Secretary Tony Woodley could be forced to stand down early

and an election held next year for a new General Secretary

for all the 1.9 million members of Unite.”

---- the full extent of his self regarding folly is revealed.

"Mr Simpson’s decision not to show a personal presence "

becomes sufficient justification for wrecking the transitional arrangements

approved by the members.

---------------

HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND?

The Executive Council meeting on October 9 was faced with an unenviable dilemma.

They could press ahead with the immediate abolition

of separate Amicus and T&G sections,

and risk a future decision of the Certification Officer.

But this was unlikely before December 2009,

and could then disrupt the merger process

to an unpredictable degree for an indeterminable period.

They chose instead to lance the boil.
A combination of an election for Joint General Secretary

and a time limited delay in implementing the new Rule Book

which abolishes the separate T&G and Amicus sections

was judged the best available method of getting near

to the negotiated package approved by the members.

The immediate future is the hands of Amicus section members.

The best possible outcome would be that the incumbent Joint General Secretary is the sole valid nominee.

That is not an endorsement of every action of JGS Simpson, nor an invitation to align with any of the fissiparous factions, seemingly based on personal ambition, hopes of future preferment, geographical tensions, or a desire to scratch old wounds, emerging in the union.

We offered the members a road map, which they accepted.

We need to get back on route.

Once there the Executive Council should –

- Encourage prospective candidates for General Secretary Designate, to set out their stall and allow us all the time and space to assess their worth.

- Remind themselves and both Joint General Secretaries of the provisions of rule.
-

“The General Secretary shall be under the control of and act in accordance with the directions of the Executive Council.”

LAST THOUGHTS FOR THE AMBITIOUS

The obligation placed on both Joint General Secretaries

“to oversee the election of the General Secretary Designate of the new Union”

would almost certainly make you ineligible to run for the top job in 2010 were you to succeed this time round..

An admonition from the silver screen

o Oliver : What did Betty say?
Stan : Betty said that honesty was the best politics.

Biblical thoughts on the fate of Unite?

And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.