11 Unison members’ complaints about UNISON General Secretary Elections
2015 hearing dates have been confirmed.
The following UNISON members have submitted a number of joint complaints
to the Certification Officer
1. John Burgess
2. Adam Tipple
3. Phil O Reilly
4. Patrick Hunter
5. Claire Dixon
6. Liz James
7. Alan Wylie
8. Hugh Jordan
9. Maggi Myland
10. Helen Davies
11. John Harris
We have had confirmation that All Certification Office hearings are open to the public to attend.
We have had confirmation that All Certification Office hearings are open to the public to attend.
There is a preliminary hearing followed by a case management discussion
to take place on Thursday 6 October.
The preliminary hearing and subsequent case management discussion will
instead take place at 10.00 AM on Thursday 6 October 2016 at the below venue:-
Melia White House
Albany Street
Regents Park
London
NW1 3UP
Details of this venue, including how to get there, please see the
following link: www.melia.com/en/hotels/united-kingdom/london/melia-white-house/meeting.html
The main hearing has been allocated and is due to take place on 3 and 4 November 2016
There are three other
complainants who have also submitted their own complaints to the
Certification Officer and these will be a part of the above meetings.
More news later…………
Background to the
complaints:
To understand some of the issues please listen and read the information
and links below which have been all online in the public domain for almost 10
months.
1. Whistleblowing tape – 21 October 2015
A damning audiotape emerged
in early December 2015 provided evidence that senior
officials of Britain’s biggest public service union, UNISON,
had allegedly acted in blatant breach of the union’s own rules
to secure the incumbent general secretary’s re-election.
The 23-minute tape
appeared on an Anonymous Blog here: https://uniondemocracyblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/rogue-unison-regional-secretary-breaking-unison-rules-in-election-rigging-scandal/
The audio file can be
downloaded online here:
The
audio recording repeatedly features the voice of UNISON’s London regional
secretary, who can be heard repeatedly thanking paid union officials under her
management for their work in securing branch nominations for the three-term
incumbent UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis.
“We have done very well and
I want to thank everybody and congratulate them on getting the nominations that
they have got. This is a list of the Greater London branch nominations for Dave
Prentis the deadline closed last Friday, I do not have a list of the other
candidates, and that will appear in due course but I haven’t got it. But we
have done very well, we’ve got almost 50 nominations here so that is excellent
and thanks very much, er Dave is very very pleased and he has related that to
me personally er it is very important because obviously this is going to be a
hard fought election.”
(UNISON London Regional Secretary to UNISON London Region paid
officials on 21 October 2015).
The
recording includes derogatory references to Mr Prentis’ three election
opponents (Roger Bannister, John Burgess and Heather Wakefield) and their
supporters along with a detailed discussion of what London regional officials
can do to bolster the Prentis campaign in the days running up to the start of
the postal ballot on 9 November. There is also an explicit warning not to get “caught out”, while mention of
the union’s election rules provokes widespread laughter.
2.
Team Dave campaign emails
The public were first made aware of the Team Dave campaign emails
when an article appeared in Private Eye in early February.
You can read the Private Eye article here https://www.scribd.com/doc/312252796/Private-Eye-p-38-Feb-2016
Here are some extracts from the above Private Eye article
“Leaked emails reach the Eye providing more
evidence that full-time staff of Unison mobilised to get general secretary Dave
Prentis re-elected in December making the union’s claim to be a “member-led”
look increasingly questionable.”
And
“The emails passed to the Eye from within the
Prentis campaign indicate that Unison officials were in fact the backbone of
“Team Dave”. The emails were sent by assistant general secretary Cliff Williams
in October and November. The bulk of the recipients were other Unison officials
– a rough count shows 45 of 50 addresses are regional secretaries, head office
staff and other unison staff.”
“One striking “Team Dave” note says: “it
may be in some circumstance you may be able to ‘circumvent’ hostile branches by
working with sympathetic employer contacts. I acknowledge that some colleagues
may feel this is ethically inappropriate but it doesn’t breach campaign rules;
it will have to be done with caution.”
It may not break campaign rules, but it still
doesn’t look good. Similarly, having Unison officials lead the Prentis campaign
doesn’t match the spirit of the union being “member led”.
The third extract above is in our view one of the most damming,
especially for those grassroots reps and members who have been fighting
employers who are either sacking, privatising or cutting the Terms and
Conditions of our members. The idea that paid officials would go behind the
backs of local branches is appalling and has no place in a trade union. To date
there has been no condemnation of these remarks or any investigation.
The “Team Dave” emails are further evidence of a national campaign
and provide a context to the content of the audio tape of the meeting in London
on 21 October 2015.
Read Three
earlier Private Eye articles here
1. Unison
on tape
2. A
family affair
3. A
greasy poll
End.
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