Dear UNISON members and all trade union members.
As the the date of the three day hearing approaches, people are asking:
1. "What is #Unisongate and what are you complaining about?
2. "Can members of the public attend the hearing?"
The hearing which is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC runs for three days starting:
Monday 19 December to Wednesday 21 December inclusive
Venue: Fleetbank House, LONDON, EC4Y 8JX
Here is our first our Complaint 2
On or about 2 August 2015 to
on or about 24 November 2015, UNISON breached paragraph 51 of the General
Secretary 2015 Election Procedures which are made under rules D7 and E3.3 and
paragraph 7 of Schedule C to the UNISON rule book. These breaches took the form
of a sustained and prolonged misuse of union resources as evidenced by the
email correspondence from Mr Cliff Williams on behalf of ‘Team Dave’ the
campaign to elect Mr David Prentis. Given that a number of these emails were
sent during the time when Mr Williams was being paid to carry out UNISON
business the circulation of the emails amounted to a misuse of union resources,
funds and property. Further the emails reveal that UNISON resources, funds and property
were used to promote and campaign for Mr David Prentis. Examples of these
emails are set out in the Annexe to this complaint.
Annexe
to complaint 2
4. Email from Liz Snape
(assistant General Secretary) dated Saturday 29 August 2015
‘The Health SGE (service group
executive) chairs have done a letter to all health branches –this will be sent
on Tuesday for the opening of nominations on Wednesday.’
Health SGE Chairs have no
means of sending any communications out other than via the official channels of
the union, the use of these means of communication is a union resource.
5. Team Dave; Update No 14
dated Sunday 27 September 2015 states
‘Please use your contacts in
the branches to push for more nominations’
‘If you have any contacts that
you can lobby, in any of the Regions involved please do what you can to support
Dave’
6. Team Dave ; Update No 15
sent at 13.19 on Friday 2 October 2015
‘Use your network to contact
any branch that hasn’t nominated and try to get them to do so and support Dave’ It should be noted that none
of the recipients of this instruction are members of any branch and as such
could only contact a branch in the capacity as a full time official.
7. Team Dave; Update No 16
sent at 21.04 on Sunday 4 October 2015
‘Please don’t leave anything
to chance and make sure that contact is maintained with our reps on the Execs.
The results particularly from Scotland and the NW will mean that there will be lots
of pressure on our people to change their votes. Try and speak to them before
the meeting starts’
It should be noted that the
recipients of this instruction could only attend the Executive meetings mentioned,
in their capacity as employees which would be in work time, hence they would be
using union resources to conduct this campaigning.
8. Team Dave ; Update No 20
sent at 09.44 on Friday 23 October 2015
States ‘It may be that in some
circumstances you may be able to “circumvent” hostile branches by covertly
working with sympathetic employer contacts. I acknowledge that some colleagues may
feel that this is ethically inappropriate but it doesn’t breach campaign rules;
it will however need to be done with caution’
We note here that the email
refers to ‘covertly working with sympathetic employer contacts’ we submit that
by definition the full time officers recipients are employed by UNISON and the
only means they have to acquire ‘sympathetic employer contacts’ is in their
role as employees of the union which have members employed by the employer
contacts. Thus the relationship to the ‘sympathetic employer contacts’ can only
be one that arises from the recipient’s position as an employee of the union
not as an individual.
9. Team Dave; Update 22 sent
at 18.00 on Friday 30 October 2015
States ‘3. The 12th of
November will be Vote Dave Day”. We will aim to ramp up our social media campaign
but if you can arrange work site events then do so and send details through to
me and Liz’.
The reference to ‘work site
events’ can only refer to those premises at which UNISON is recognised.
We submit that the full time
officers who received this email could only organise such events in their capacity
as employees of the union, as such this is another use of UNISON resources in
breach of rule.
Point 7. States ‘Include Dave
in any press releases’
We submit that this is clearly
directed at full time officers misusing the press release facilities of the union
in an official capacity to promote the candidacy of Dave Prentis.
10. Team Dave ; Update No 27
sent at 10.47 on Tuesday 24 November 2015
States ‘It’s not enough to
win, we need a strong margin between Dave and the contenders as we anticipate
that there will be attempts to challenge the result. A wide margin minimises
that possibility’
Background
#Unisongate 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:
The audio file can be downloaded online here:
The audio recording largely features the voice of UNISON’s London
regional secretary, 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 staff
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.
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 sacking, privatising or cutting the Terms and Conditions of
our members. The idea that union paid unelected officials would go behind the
backs of locally elected branch officials is appalling and has no place in a
trade union. To date there has been no condemnation of these remarks or any
investigation.
Repeated calls for an independent investigation were turned
down.
The “Team Dave” emails 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.
