How to find out which UNITE branch you're in

With the UNITE branch reorganisation in full swing, patchy communication and elections of almost all reps and branch officers across the union due in June, loads of people are asking how to find out which branch they are in, when it meets etc.

If you go to the UNITE web site and log on to "My Unite" (top right hand corner - you may need to register first).

Once you are logged in, the "My Unite" box in the top right should change to show your name and your industrial sector.  If you click on your name you are taken to a page with a number of tabs that allows you to update your personal details, to see the number and name of your branch, who the secretary is, and details of its meetings.  While you're at it, please take a few moments to check and update your contact details and the Equal Opps information.

If you don't have your membership number, or if the page doesn't provide the information you need, you'll need to call your Regional Office.  This map on our branch web site helps you find your region and the contact details for the regional office if you are in the UK.  For the Republic of Ireland see here.

I've previously posted about the process for branch and representative elections, and why they are so important.

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Eligibility for lay office (rule 6)

Updated guidance from the UNITE Executive Council on rule 6 (eligibility for lay office) has been published here.

This mainly deals with who is an "accountable representative of workers", which has been a contentious issue in UNITE.

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Is there a "demographic timebomb"?

In the debates about pensions, much has been made of rising life-expectancy, with scary graphs which show the rapid rise in the percentage of the population over 65.  A lot less attention has been paid to far less scary graphs which show the percentage of the population aged 15-65.  What this shows is that the proportion of the population who are not of "working age" has not changed anywhere near as fast (even if you allow for the fact that people are older when they start working later now than 100 years ago).

Because the debate on pensions has been dominated by "pensions experts" who look at the issue in isolation, they miss the fact that today's working population is supporting a broadly similar proportion of the population who are not of working age as in the past.  More pensioners is offset by fewer children.


Production per worker has risen massively with developments in technology.  If society could afford a decent welfare state and pensions in the aftermath of World War 2, we can afford it today - if we're willing to stop the trend of more and more wealth being concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority.

The domination of the pensions debate by institutions that gamble on the markets has been poisonous, obscuring the fact that decisions about what proportion of society's wealth go to look after children, older people and those unable to work are political decisions.

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