Following on from yesterday's business the delegation had a hard decision to make. After several conversations with the National Treasurer Chris Baugh and assurances that the Branch (and others) would receive permission to purchase branch banners without the need for the sort of fundraising we had mentioned in our motion A81 for later in the day. With the assurances given the decision was taken to withdraw the motion and allow the business of the conference to progress without being delayed by a unnecessary debate when we had our first victory of the day.
Chris Baugh had the first section of the day to present when he outlined the 2010 Organising Strategy to the conference before debate opened on the motions of the day with A40 a debate on campaigns and organising and the views of branches were taken towards how to progress the move to standing Trade Union candidates in elections.
There was opposition to this and although the motion called for a further year of preparation before proposals were put to the ADC next year there were branches opposed in principle to standing TU candidates. However, following conferences first card vote, the motion was passed by 153,470 to 86,799 with 917 abstentions.
A43 which called for procedures to be set down for how constituencies would choose candidates rather than the NEC was in the end remitted as being too soon, no decision actually having been taken to stand such candidates. The debates took up considerable time and the rules section where the branch had two motions was soon upon us but not before conference unanimously agreed motion A44 calling for support and re-instatement for sacked and victimised Land Registry union rep Jane Brooke.
In the Rules section A56 calling for a set percentage of 0.6 % of gross wages to be taken as members subscription without a maximum cap was lost. A57 deleted expired appendices from the rule book and then Martin moved and won the debate on motion A58 calling for the election of member trustees. A lengthy debate ensued on motion A60 which called for shortened debates in future where no clear opposition existed with the motions moving direct to the vote after the motion was moved and seconded. It was ironic that a motion intended to shorten debate took so long.
This led us into the Health and Safety debates; A63 was carried and called for Crown Immunity to be removed from Government departments as this was being used by employers to avoid legal obligations to engage in meaningful health and safety structures.
A64 was passed calling for departments to adopt the International Stress Management Standards which are accepted by the HSE as the approach to be taken in dealing with Work Related Stress. The last motion to be heard in the Health and Safety section was A65 which called for an agreed maximum working temperature was remitted to the NEC on the grounds of the instruction to provide industry standard monitors to all branches.
Lively debates ensued in the Affiliations section where A70 calling for affiliation to the "Right to Work" campaign was agreed before Motions A71 and A72 were debated. These discussed affiliating to the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign and disaffiliation from the Hands off Venezuela campaign. As you can imagine, with such opposing views the debate was quite lengthy and no other affiliation discussions were heard.
The 2010 Financial report was presented to Conference and can be found on the PCS website.
The final section of the day was the Services and Structures debate where Grant was to move motion A88 on behalf of the branch. The motion called for organisation between branches where site closures such as Lytham were made more complex by the various branches represented there. The motion recognised the need for all branches to be organised to present a unified resistance to such closures and the motion was passed.
The first motion in the section was A85 but was remitted to the NEC. It was intended to re-dress the serial leavers and re-joiners to the Union where some staff abuse the representation of the union, joining when in trouble and leaving when they felt the union had solved their problems. Motion A86 was passed calling for an updated equality data exercise to assist in addressing under-representation of minority groups in the Union.
A87 on pay for Union employees was lost as it called for pay cuts for our full time officials and staff. A88 was carried, as I mentioned before, as was A90 on de-recognition of PCS in negotiating rights where those rights are gifted to or swapped with sister unions following departmental re-organisation. The motion called for full consultation with members before this was done in future and conference agreed. Another remitted motion was A91 moved by Treasury Solicitors calling for facility time for branches where they become responsible for their own pay negotiations.
The role of Lay Tutors was recognised in A92 which called for lay tutors to be treated ad ULRs for the purpose of delivering training courses and for associated time to be given for that role, this motion too was carried.
A93 was lost when nit sought to stop the practice of listing the number of nominating branches alongside candidates' names in ballot papers. The last motion to be heard was A94 calling for the use of e-mail and electronic submission for conference delegates and nominations. This was carried before conference closed for the day and delegates headed back to their hotels to prepare for the PCS Social later that evening.
Written by Chris Wade
