Dear Colleague,
Request for Nomination of Helen Davies to UNISON NEC as a London representative in the female seat.
I am a social worker for London Borough of Barnet, nicknamed "easyCouncil" and I am the Chair of the local Barnet UNISON branch as well as the local Trades Council. Barnet is a flagship Tory controlled local authority. It is looking to privatise all of its services on top of the cuts to vital services. It is actively encouraging all schools to take on Academy status. It has produced a budget which will see the end of the youth services and most Children's centres closed. There will also be redundancies of social workers in the Mental Health Service this year with more to follow in the next 3 years across Adult Services. We can expect massive cuts to care and support for the most vulnerable in our communities. Libraries will also be closed. We will be facing a total of some 800-900 job losses. No protection for frontline services then.
These plans of devastation are being visited in one form or another across the UK throughout the public sector.
In Barnet I have played one of the leading roles with people in my branch and other unions to organise some highly successful lobbies of the local Council and in alliance with other trade unions and community activists we have begun a campaign to resist these cuts. With other activists I have been on stalls every weekend talking to residents about the Council's plans and trying to mobilise them for the lobbies. I have also been holding numerous meetings with colleagues in day services explaining why they need to oppose plans to turn them into a Local Authority Trading Company. I will be working hard to have a good turnout on our local demonstration 30.1.11 and to be sending a good contingent to the TUC demonstration 26.3.11 but also to be encouraging our members to take industrial action. Needless to say as Chair of the Branch and of the Trades Council I have worked hard to try to make sure all parties feel comfortable working together in the Alliance.
If we are not successful our branch will not exist in the next 2 years as most of us will be working for the private sector.
I am seeking nomination to the NEC from all of those who think like me. The welfare state is something to be proud of as even in its imperfect state it takes some of the fear out of the economic consequences of becoming ill long-term, of becoming unemployed, falling on hard times. These were things which haunted previous generations. The welfare state is our inheritance and it is something I think we are rightly committed to as union. The economic crisis – something not created by public sector workers – is the fraudulent reason being given for a massive redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich and a reorganisation of our society, which sees no place for a welfare state.
Local responses to the cuts are necessary and will hopefully be successful but I believe it is the job of the NEC and all of our national bodies to make sure the fights are linked up where possible and also to offer some national fightback. The Government, although weak, is well organised and coordinated in its attacks. The recent student demonstrations drawing on the support of other trade unions, including ours, show the Government can quickly be unnerved. As Brendan Barber (TUC General Secretary) expressed recently, the student demonstrations are probably just a prelude of things to come. I believe we need to make sure those demonstrations are a prelude and not the end of a fightback. This requires coordination and a national response to organise the fightback.
I believe I have the necessary experience to take this job on. In this country and in Germany I have always been a member of a Trade Union. In Germany I was one of the initiators organising residential workers, where I worked, into the Trade Union and part of a group from this which organised the first ever demonstration against our voluntary sector employer. Returning to London I first joined UNISON whilst being a temp in Lambeth and recruited other temps to the union. In Hackney I became a steward just as the Council went bankrupt and led in my section (Adults Services) over the cuts. I organised a successful boycott of interviews over a restructuring in our department. In Barnet I became a steward and then went on to become Branch Chair 2005. I have played an active role in all of our campaigns. I would want to put some of this grassroots organising experience into the NEC. On the NEC I would be part of, I hope, a majority on the left who want to give everything to ensuring our Welfare State remains part of our heritage and something we pass on to the next generation in an even better state.
I would also urge you to also nominate Marshajane Thompson who is standing with me in the other female London seat; and Jon Rogers, excellent current incumbent standing in the male seat.
Yours sincerely,
Helen Davies
Membership Number: 1224335
Email: ayupchuck@googlemail.com
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