Two good reasons to vote on 22 May

Many people feel uninspired by the Euro and local elections taking place on 22 May.

Labour is so dismal that a recent poll had the Tories in the lead, despite the big drop in living standards, cuts in services and privatisaion of the NHS they have overseen.  The Lib Dems will be punished for their lies on student fees and for propping up the Tory government.  And the Tories are the usual selves - friends to the rich and powerful - looking after themselves and their mates.  They are even talking about introducing a ban on workers striking unless at least 50% vote for it in slow and legalistic postal ballots.  On this basis, not a single MP would have been elected (let's not mention the police commissioners!).

So there's a real danger of a low turnout on 22 May.  But a low turnout risks very big wins for the obnoxious UKIP and the fascist BNP.

If you haven't watched it already, take the time to watch an LBC radio interviewer expose Nigel Farage:

UKIP is doing well in the polls by feeding on both anti-establishment feeling and anti-immigrant racism.  What the interview does so well is show how Farage and UKIP are in fact just as much part of the establishment themselves - a particularly nasty part of it.

We also have the BNP and other fascist groups standing around the country.  This is particularly important in the north-west, where we are currently represented in the European parliament by BNP fuhrer Nick Griffin.  He is getting vast amounts of our taxes to peddle his filth.  May 22 is a chance to make clear that he doesn't represent us and boot him out of the European parliament.

However uninspired you may feel by the other candidates, don't sit at home and end up being represented by fascists and xenophobes.  Turn out and vote.

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UNITE Political Fund ballot - vote YES despite the spin

Between 1 May and 22 May, UNITE members in the UK will be balloted again, this time over whether the union should keep its "political fund".

Details about the ballot and resources are here including this video campaigning for a YES vote:



The law says that to keep our political fund, UNITE must ballot all its members at least every ten years.  There are a lot of misconceptions about the political fund.  Some are being addressed by UNITE's campaign for a YES vote, but others are being fed.

In the UNITE Rulebook, Rules 23 & 24 deal with the Political Fund, while Rule 22 covers "Political Organisation - the Labour Party".  While the money in our political fund can be used for anything at all, only money from the political fund can be used for certain purposes, which are set out in Rule 23.1 (taken from the legislation).  Read them for yourself, but they basically boil down to supporting political parties or office holders, or persuading people to vote for or against candidates.

The UNITE guide to the ballot (which does contain some useful material) highlights a court case involving NALGO in 1987.  NALGO ran a "Make People Matter" publicity campaign for a year, attacking the Tory government and its policies on public services and focussing on Tory marginal constituencies.  The courts ruled that the main purpose of the campaign was to persuade people not to vote Conservative, and since NALGO had no political fund, that it could not continue or spend money on the campaign for the duration of the election.

I don't think the facts support the UNITE guide's claim that since this case "if unions want to have any kind of political voice, to campaign for changes for working people or against government policies, we must ballot for a Political Fund every ten years".  Even the case cited only banned the NALGO campaign during the election itself.  It's only in recent years that PCS and NUT (which aren't affiliated to Labour) decided to set up political funds, yet most of their members work in the public sector and they have obviously been campaigning against government policies long before they established political funds.

Better arguments for a YES vote

It's a shame that UNITE is exaggerating the case so much in order to persuade members to vote YES.  Because there are much stronger arguments for having a political fund which go right to the heart of the matter.  Without a political fund, for example:

1. We could not urge members or the public to vote against parties like the BNP which seek to divert people's anger about austerity onto scapegoats and which oppose everything UNITE stands for.
2. We could not support those few MPs, councillors and candidates who do actually stand up for our members.
3. We could not campaign against re-electing councillors or MPs who have led particular attacks on our members.
4. We would risk getting bogged down in expensive and distracting legal cases whenever our campaigning criticised the policies of a particular party, especially around election times.

The reality is that for better or worse, governments affect the lives of UNITE members inside and outside the workplace.  Workers suffer inadequate legal protection on every issue from redundancy and TUPE to health & safety and blacklisting.  Unions are tied up with genuine "red tape" designed to use the threat of legal action to pressure union officials to obstruct members taking the action they decide is needed to defend their interests.  When big business and the rich spend eye-watering sums lobbying for their interests, working people cannot afford to restrict our participation in democracy to putting a cross in a box every few years.  As individuals we have no realistic prospect of influencing national events, but collectively we can.  A union that doesn't engage on political issues is defending its members with one hand tied behind its back.

Labour letting us down

The UNITE material for the election stresses that this vote isn't about affiliation to Labour.  This is correct.  Affiliation is in our UNITE Rulebook and changing that will require a rule change at a Rules Conference (the next one is June/July 2015).  But as Jerry Hicks highlighted in his recent election campaign, there's plenty that UNITE could do short of disaffiliation to avoid funding attacks on our own members.

The UNITE campaign for the political fund emphasises every aspect of the political fund except for the support for Labour.  But this is grossly misleading.  While there are many positive things UNITE could spend its political fund on, let's look at how it is actually spent.

The most recent accounts published on the Certification Officer web site are for 2011.  Page 10 covers the political fund, showing members contributions at £6,543,000.  The only expenditure was £3,407,000 in Labour Party affiliation fees and £667,000 on "Administration expenses in connection with political objects".  The balance in the political fund rose from £3,020,000 to £5,489,000.  Just over a million UNITE members contribute to the political fund, with just over half a million not contributing, including 169,292 who had completed an exemption notice.  There's an ever so slightly more detailed breakdown in note 2 on page 27, which does include the tantalising figure of £274,000 spent on "other grants and donations".  I did write to the UNITE Finance Director the previous year, asking about the other grants and donations - "Are these Labour Party related (e.g. CDP money) or contributions to non-party-related campaigns etc?", but never got a reply, despite chasing it up.

In reality, the vast majority of UNITE's spending from the political fund currently goes to support the Labour Party.  From the limited information available, I'm unable to determine any spending that actually went elsewhere.  Part of the problem is lack of transparency.  Despite requests, the finance reports which come to the Executive Council don't show the income to, or balance of, the political fund separately.  They do show projected political spending continuing at around £3.4m for the next few years, but don't yet show 2015, when we expect the General Election.  In my 10 years on the union executive, I don't recall any decision or report on expenditure from the political fund ever coming before the EC (or the Regional Committee when I was on that), other than for Constituency Development Plans (CDPs).

What we can see from the accounts on the Certificaion Officer web site is that (as usual between elections) the political fund balance is being built up rather than spent.  I have argued elsewhere that this was a major factor behind Len McCluskey's desire to bring forward the General Secretary election.  Getting the GS election out of the way now will allow him to pump millions from the political fund into Labour for the next General Election without his successor having to justify this during a General Secretary election at the same time.

The union's political committees are closely tied to Labour and closed to the vast majority of UNITE members.  A small percentage of UNITE members are in the Labour Party, but not even all of these are eligible to take part in UNITE's political conferences and committees - Rule 22.5 puts extra hurdles in the way.  Only Labour Party members who are delegated from other UNITE committees or who are delegates to Constituency Labour Parties can take part.  The effect is often to make these committees more like the voices of Labour in the union, rather than the voice of the union in the Labour Party.

The real UNITE policy

Behind all the spin about using the political fund for purposes other than Labour, the real agenda of UNITE's leadership was made clear at the last Policy Conference.  Composite 16, which included motion 81 from the IT & Comms National Industrial Sector Committee, which read:

This Policy Conference resolves that until the Labour Party adopts and actively pursues policies in support of trade union freedom, at least 10% of members' Political Fund contributions that would historically have been spent on the Labour Party shall be used by Unite to directly campaign for trade union freedoms instead of being used for contributions to, or support for, the Labour Party.

This Policy Conference resolves that until the leadership of the Labour Party publicly supports Unite members taking industrial action against austerity and in defence of public services, at least 10% of members' Political Fund contributions that would historically have been spent on the Labour Party shall be paid into Unite's National Dispute Fund.

To ensure transparency, this Policy Conference resolves that Unite's accounts will show contributions, expenditure, assets and liabilities relating to the Political Fund separately from its general funds.

Len and the majority of the EC argued vigorously against the motion, which was defeated at the Policy Conference (though it got a sizeable vote).  If the spin was true, and lots of our political fund was already being used for non-Labour purposes, the motion would have been passed "on the nod" rather than being one of the most contentious topics of the whole conference.

Not convinced to vote YES?

Maybe you're not convinced that unions should play any political role at all.  Or you disagree so strongly with how UNITE currently uses its political fund that you think it's actively doing harm.

But I'd still argue you should vote YES.

You have the ability to "opt out" of the political fund as an individual.  By voting NO you deny any choice to the rest of the members who do think the union needs a political voice and want to contribute despite the problems.

If you believe that a majority oppose the current political strategy of UNITE, we should be able to change it for the better - wouldn't that be a better approach?  Voting NO means siding with every Tory who wants to prevent working people having any voice in politics at all.

As you may have gathered, I don't agree with UNITE's current political strategy.  But I'm still contributing to the political fund.  I think there's a problem with "opting out" as an individual - it leads people to see the union's political work as no longer their responsibility or concern (even though it still affects us all), and give up on the idea of changing it for the better.  Changing it requires a collective democratic decision.  I'd much rather people contributed and fought to change UNITE policy rather than giving up and opting out.

What next?

The immediate task is to ensure a YES vote in the ballot, so that UNITE can continue to have a political voice.  But we should fight to change UNITE's political strategy too.

Jerry Hicks' magnificent 79,819 votes in the General Secretary election, despite Len McCluskey's "red-baiting" appeals for right wing support, reflected widespread anger at UNITE's ongoing support for Labour MPs even when they aren't representing us.

Those Labour councillors like Kevin Bennett and Councillors Against Cuts who vote against the cuts deserve everyone's support.  But Labour suspends or expels people who stand up for UNITE policies.

Jerry argued that we should support MPs and councillors when they support us, not keep pumping in money in the hope that they might do so in the future.  He also argued for renegotiating the Labour Party affiliation fee to reduce our massive contributions.  The affiliation fee is £3 a year per member, and UNITE's affiliation fees are over £3.4m a year, suggesting we are affiliating on a membership significantly greater than the 1m who contribute to the political levy.  If we can do this, why can't we affiliate on a lower membership figure as a start, instead of giving Labour this extra money?

We should also demand that UNITE spends its political fund more in line with the impression created by its YES campaign.  I live in the north-west, where we have Nick Griffin as a BNP MEP.  I'd love to see a large chunk of our political fund spent on the Griffin Must Go campaign.  The last EC meeting failed to endorse the motion from our Health National Industrial Sector Committee calling for a national demo in defence of the NHS - what better use of our political fund?  Campaigns like these could involve a far wider section of our membership than the narrow political committees which are closed even to most Labour Party members, and increase the engagement of UNITE members with politics.  Wouldn't that be a more promising political strategy than asking us all to join Labour, get selected as candidates, get elected and then get suspended or expelled if we actually stand up for UNITE policies?

If UNITE continues with its current strategy, things are likely to get worse.  We already have a big gap between words and deeds, with the link to Labour acting as a brake on our campaigning.  As the General Election approaches, the pressure will build on Len McCluskey and the rest tone down their rhetoric and keep a lid on action.  Yet Labour's leaders couldn't make clearer that even if they are elected, they won't reverse the damage being inflicted on working people by the Con-Dems.  The absence of a General Secretary election for another five years will make it harder for UNITE's leadership to stand up to these pressures.

If we want to protect our jobs, living standards, services and communities, we are going to have to put up a fight rather than waiting for Labour.

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Construction strikes, defending jobs, nationalism

The wave of unofficial strikes by construction workers has sparked widespread debate. The strikes represent the first really major eruption of militant action against job losses in the UK since the recession began. But the central slogan of the dispute - "British Jobs for British Workers" is one that can only lead to division and disaster for working people.

Slogans like "United We Stand, Divided We Fall" have survived many decades because they encapsulate a fundamental truth. To win against employers (and the governments who back them) we have to unite working people regardless of race, nationality etc. This isn't always easy, but it always has to be our aim. A campaign that runs in the opposite direction may seem an easier way to get support in the short term, but we will pay a terrible price if we allow such divisions to take root.

The very fact that the Tory press and the BNP are all over this dispute should set the alarm bells ringing. Since when are they pro-trade-union? Since when do they support unofficial action? Since when do they oppose the anti-union laws? These anti-union forces are sympathetic to the dispute precisely because they want the anger workers feel over job losses to be directed against other workers, dividing us and protecting the rich and powerful.

It is the responsibility of all decent trade unionists to encourage a serious fight-back over the effects of the recession, and to fight tooth and nail against any effort to direct anger against the wrong targets. It is clear that slogans like "British Jobs for British Workers" used by Gordon Brown and, regrettably, some in the trade union movement, have opened the door to this. We have to learn from what has happened and stamp out such slogans from the labour movement.

The issues underlying the dispute are real and serious and need to be tackled.

Construction workers move around the country and the world, following the big projects. This is why they have the sort of networks that have allowed the action to spread so quickly. Big construction projects are organised through chains of subcontracting companies, many of them huge corporations making hefty profits.

The issue in dispute isn't primarily the ability of individual workers to move from country to country in search of work. It is about the ability of subcontracting companies to operate across borders and the rules which govern them.

The neo-liberal free-marketeers want to drive down pay and conditions through what they called the "country of origin principle". This is the idea that a worker or company should be governed by the law of the country they are from, rather than the country they are operating in. This would accelerate the "race to the bottom" in employment law and in pay and conditions. It would in practice mean little or no regulation - who would be enforcing Polish employment law in the UK, for example? The neo-liberals tried to get the country of origin principle enshrined into EU law through the Services Directive, popularly known as the Bolkestein Directive after its Dutch proponent (a former head of Shell). Unions and the left managed to defeat this (you can read the bulletin from my own workplace at the time here).

As usual, the bosses didn't just give up. They used the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to get a series of rulings in the Laval, Viking and Ruffert cases which meant that the right of a company to trade freely across borders was placed ahead of workers rights. This not only helped bring back the country of origin principle, but even worse, suggested that any industrial action which sought to impose higher labour standards from the host country might be illegal even if the workers had complied with all the anti-union laws. UNITE regards these ECJ cases as a more serious threat to workers' rights than all the Tory anti-union laws which New Labour has left on the statute book, and has set up a web site to campaign against them:
www.lavalvikingruffert.eu. And if anyone is thinking these cases only affect workers in construction - think again.

At the Staythorpe power station site, the subcontracting company publicly stated they would not employ any UK workers. They claim they pay the normal UK pay rates, but nobody involved in the campaign seems to believe this. The subcontractors have undercut UK firms by a very large margin, and people can't see how that would be possible when you add on travel and accommodation costs. The widespread belief is that the companies are paying much lower wages and are avoiding having any UK workers so that there is no "comparator" for a race discrimination claim for the low wages being given to the migrant workers. UNITE is looking into whether a policy of banning recruits of one nationality is discriminatory in itself - it certainly sounds it.

The practice of the subcontractor company bringing all its labour from overseas is spreading, and workers in the industry see it as a systematic attempt to smash union agreements and slash pay and conditions. Many big construction sites (refineries, power stations) are on the coast and companies are keeping migrant workers in accommodation barges (prison ships?) moored offshore, completely segregated from the community and local workers. This is a recipe for stoking up conflict.

On the news tonight, I heard reports that government minister Alan Johnson is now saying that "if" European law is harming UK workers, it should be changed. This is progress, but it is also rank hypocrisy. These awful laws are not something the EU has imposed on the UK - the "New Labour" UK government lobbied hard in favour of the ECJ rulings, just as they lobbied hard against tightening up the Working Time Directive, improving Works Councils etc. The UK government has been the champion of the free-market and deregulation in Europe - it sent Mandelson to the EU to ram this message home.

What recent events show is that militant mass action can achieve more in a few days than months or years of patient "lobbying".

I hope the strikes result in improvements in workers' rights and the overturning of the ECJ rulings. Contrary what the Liberal Democrats have been saying, this doesn't mean abandoning EU employment law, it means giving it priority over the rights of companies to make bigger profits regardless of the social consequences.

Just as importantly, I hope that union activists learn from this the dangers of giving an inch to nationalism in our campaigns. UNITE proudly claims that "internationalism" is one of the three pillars of its strategy, along with "organising" and its "political" strategy. Internationalism has to mean more than the very important solidarity work we do with workers in other countries. It has to mean a deep commitment to unity between workers in the UK, regardless of their origins. That can be the only sound basis for an effective fight to save jobs or over any other issue.

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UNITE Executive Council, 28-30 January 2009

N.B.This is not an official Unite Report; it is based on my notes of the EC meeting. I believe it to be a fair account of some of the key decisions taken (rather than my views about them), and I will willingly correct any errors upon receipt of official notification from Unite.

This report is far from exhaustive – many more issues were debated and decisions taken over the three days.

Ian Allinson
UNITE EC member, Electrical Engineering, Electronics & IT sector
www.iansunitesite.org.uk

The economic crisis ripping through members’ lives set the context for this Executive meeting.
1. At the November meeting, the council had heard a report about the poor support from MPs for the amendments to the Employment Bill which corresponded to elements from the Trade Union Freedom Bill. A council member had proposed that we write to the UNITE MPs who had not voted for them to ask why. Both Joint General Secretaries (JGS) had supported the idea and nobody had spoken against. Like many other uncontentious matters before the council, it was not put to a vote, but the council member and many of the rest of us believed it had been agreed. At this meeting, he queried why it wasn’t minuted and whether it had been actioned. Charlie Whelan said he didn’t think it had been agreed. This time is was agreed (with a specific request to be minuted) that a letter would go to the MPs expressing our disappointment and pushing the Early Day Motions which are now coming up.
2. In spring 2008 the Electrical Engineering, Electronics & IT (EEE&IT) sector had asked UNITE to pledge funding for a research project into the cancer risks from the semiconductor and computer manufacturing industries, subject to this being matched by a number of employers. This had been referred to the Finance & General Purposes (F&GP) committee but no recommendation had yet been made, despite me raising this at every subsequent EC meeting. The EC agreed the funding.
3. The TUC, along with other organisations, has called a major demonstration in London on 28th March, just before the G20 meets in the UK to take key decisions on the response to the economic crisis. The summit will be the occasion for Obama’s first visit to the UK, and will attract massive media interest. The EC agreed that this would be a major mobilisation for the union, with transport etc. I think this is a key event which can be a focus for all our campaigning against job losses etc.
4. A campaign has been building up around the construction work at the Staythorpe power station in the East Midlands. The contractor has openly declared that it will not employ any UK labour, despite there being many unemployed workers with the necessary skills in the local area. It is clear that a number of construction companies are seeking to undermine pay, conditions and agreements in the industry through similar tactics. Many major construction sites (oil refineries, power stations) are on the coast, and contractors are now bringing in accommodation barges so that the workforce do not have contact with the local community. This is hitting the local economy, as well as stoking up hostility. Despite their protestations to the contrary, it seems impossible that the contractors could be paying the proper wages, plus travel and accommodation, and still under-cutting local companies by a huge degree. The union is exploring legal challenges to the contractors as well as seeking to exert political and industrial pressure. It was agreed to organise a major lobby at Westminster to demand government action. The BNP are trying to divert the struggle to focus anger against the exploited migrant workers, rather than the profiteering construction companies. During the EC meeting, an unofficial strike wave erupted from Humberside on the same issue and spread to various areas of the country. The anti-union laws are there to prevent the union backing such action. There is serious concern about the nationalist / racist element of the dispute.
5. The EC agreed to counter the attack on UNITE by the Times newspaper, which was using attacks on the JGSes to attack the trade union movement as a whole. The EC was concerned that the scale of the attack implied that it had been decided on high up in the Murdoch empire and that more would follow. The Tory press want to have a say in the internal affairs of our union, such as the current JGS election in the Amicus section. The EC was assured by the JGSes that the authority to deal with such attacks would not be used against our own members or staff.
6. The EC was informed that one candidate in the JGS election had included untrue statements about another candidate in their election address, that they been given the opportunity to correct them and that though they had made some changes, this had not resolved the problem. The EC was advised that legally the election address cannot be changed without the permission of the candidate, but that a separate statement can be included to correct any untrue points. The EC agreed to do this.
7. The union continues to press the government for more intervention to protect jobs. Some assistance has been promised, but it is not up to the scale of the problems.
8. The pensions dispute at Ineos which led to the Grangemouth refinery dispute has finally been settled. A report on the deal was circulated, and it looks like a real success, keeping open the final salary scheme for new starters.
9. There was a debate about how the organising and 100% campaigns can help strengthen the union’s ability to fight against job losses and offset the membership losses that are likely as unemployment rises.
10. The Irish government is saying that to re-run its referendum on the Lisbon treaty, it requires the inclusion of a social protocol. Disgracefully, the UK government is lobbying against this.
11. The demonstrations across Europe around the Working Time Directive have been put back to May. UNITE will mobilise for the one in Brussels.
12. The union can run “Globalisation Schools” for particular companies. This can be requested via Michelle Gracio.
13. It was agreed that in recognition of the fact that two of the UNITE regions cover two Labour Party regions rather than one, “London and Eastern” and “Yorkshire and North East” would have 6 seats on the National Political Committee instead of 4.
14. It was agreed that the “IT and Communications” sector will not include the Communication Managers Association (CMA), which would go into the “General, Clerical and Administrative” sector, which would be renamed APMS (“Administrative, Professional, Managerial”, I think). A document suggesting closer working between IT & Communications and Graphical, Paper and Media (GPM) sectors on areas of common interest was circulated for information.
15. A set of documents about the new lay member structures were agreed after an extensive debate. (Regional Industrial Committees & Area Activists Committees, Principles for Equalities Guidance, Timeline, Rule 9 Young Members, Rule 10 Retired Members). The EC was assured that the allocation of members to sectors was now complete for the Amicus section and “tantalisingly close” in the TGWU section. National Officers and Regional Secretaries were being briefed on 30th January. During February they are to draw up plans for each sector/region in direct consultation with Regional Councils, Regional Committees, EC members and chairs of National Sector Committees and Trade Groups, with as wide an involvement of activists as possible. These plans will come back to the March EC for approval.
16. The EC approved a Statement on the Situation in Gaza. It’s worth reading to the end, because it includes some useful action points:

Background
Unite’s EC deplores the fact that since Israel’s military offensive in Gaza began on December 24th 2008, over nine hundred Palestinians have been killed of whom 292 are children (UN OCHA Report 12/01/2009). The Government of Israel has ignored the UN Security Council Resolution 1860 (2009) which “calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.”
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, the United Nations most senior human rights official, has stated that the Israeli military may have committed war crimes in Gaza. The United Nations Human Rights Council (12/01/2009) Resolution on The Grave Violations of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip, calls for an immediate ceasefire and condemns the “massive violations of Human Rights of the Palestinian people and the systematic destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure”. The UN Resolution also demands the immediate withdrawal of Israel’s military forces from the Gaza.
The EC is further appalled that Israel’s blockade of Gaza has now continued for over eighteen months preventing vital supplies, including food and medicine, from reaching the people of Gaza.
The Israeli Government has acted in contravention of the IV Geneva Convention by imposing collective punishment on the people of Gaza. The World Health Organisation and other aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and have called for an immediate ceasefire. Furthermore the International Committee of the Red Cross has accused Israel of failing to honour its obligation under international law to treat and evacuate injured civilians in Gaza. The situation has led Amnesty International to call for an immediate humanitarian truce.
The Unite EC therefore resolves:
To demand an end to Israel’s military attacks and immediate withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and for Israel to lift its siege of Gaza.
To demand a halt to the bombardment of Israeli targets by missiles fired from Gaza by Hamas.
To demand that the British government unequivocally condemns the Israeli military aggression.
To demand the British government ends arms sales to Israel noting the sale of more than £18.8 million worth of British arms to Israel in 2008, up from £7.5 million on 2007.
To call for the immediate suspension of the EU-Israel Agreement providing preferential trade facilities to Israel.
To support the demonstrations against Israel’s attack on Gaza, and to encourage our members to attend.
To encourage our members to boycott goods, and especially agricultural produce, produced in the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories.
To investigate Unite’s holdings in companies engaged in building the Wall declared illegal by the International Court of Justice and to divest from them.
To encourage branches to affiliate to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop the War Coalition.
To encourage donations to the TUC Gaza Appeal and other relevant initiatives such as Medical Aid for Palestinians and to agree a donation of £5000 to the TUC appeal.
To agree to make a donation to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to further the objectives of the campaign on Gaza of £1000.

17. The proposal from the EE&IT national officer to contribute to and participate in an IPPR study on “green jobs” will be discussed at the February F&GP.
18. The pay deal for union officers and staff was approved.

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Stop the BNP conference

Those of us in the north-west again have to endure the prospect of the BNP trying to organise a conference in our region.

Unite Against Fascism's web site gives details of the protests against it.

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