Here we are, the last day before the voting closes for UNISON NEC elections. It has been a bit of a difficult election for me personally so far as it has given me a bit of a dilemma about who to vote for South West region male seat. Normally my natural instincts would make me vote for the candidate of the Left , in this case Berny Parkes, without any hesitation . But this time my own branch chair, Mike Hines is standing too making the choice slightly more problematic. As we are all working towards the same goal – better working conditions, more rights for the workers, fighting austerity etc - under normal conditions, the difference between the candidates would not be big enough to have a major impact if the vote went one way or another. But these are not normal times! We have Tory-led government which day after day blatantly weakens our rights in the work place and tramples all over the unemployed, minorities, disabled… by any means it can – including lying and distorting facts while the opposition Labour Party vacillates on how to deal with the disastrous consequences of Tory policies unfolding before our eyes. Given the weak state of the opposition, the role of the trade unions in fighting the government to bring about economic revival and social justice becomes hugely important. In this context who we choose to lead our unions becomes more critical.
Reading Mike and Berny’s election statements I was disappointed not to see a more robust statement by Mike about the issue of leadership. I was also disappointed not to see any criticism of the leadership of the Labour Party. After all, this is the party that takes a big chunk of our members’ subscriptions as donation. So we, the members, are entitled to have a view about Labour’s policies and influence them or even demand to review our policy of affiliation to this party. Mike says in his statement that his membership of the Labour Party will not affect his work as a union activist, but my experience of working with him and observations of his attitude to more radical political views and activists have convinced me otherwise. Whether working as a member of the NEC will affect this or not remains to be seen.
