in UNISON

He said that they valued staff working on
social care and recognised that they found the
15 minute visits unworkable, so Labour would
end them.
He said that Labour saw the value in having
career paths for staff and the need to get
more young people into public services.
Labour gave a commitment for 20,000 new
nurses; 3,000 new midwives; and 5,000 more
care workers. There would be fast track
apprenticeships for younger people in public
services. He said that Labour wanted to give
people hope that things can and will be better
and that Labour will work with them to make
what we have fit their actual needs.
He then did a Q&A. There were a range of
issues raised but the one of note was that
Labour propose that the NHS will be the
single provider of public health services and
that the market is coming to an end. They
would work with other providers but they
would not be the main providers. This would
give more security to people. He got
rapturous applause throughout his speech
and at the end of it too. It was quite
heartening and gave a glimmer of hope.
Conference closed with three
Motions/amendments outstanding.
Overall it was a full and informative
conference. It was just prior to the election
and gave some hope that if Labour got in,
things could start to improve and there would
be a more equal spread of money within
society.
Energy
Glasgow : 15 June 2015
Delegate : Debbie Carr
Dave Prentis addressed conference, and was
warmly received . The energy sector of
UNISON has been critical of feeling like the
“poor relation” to local government,
education and health. Dave said that the
energy sector was just as important as the
other sectors. He thanked us all for our hard
work and said that he was very proud of the
work we had achieved. Dave, coming from an
energy background, understood the issues
members were facing and said that he is
doing his bit at national level as well.
Doug Parr, a guest speaker from Greenpeace,
went through global warming issues.
Informing us of the rate of the ice cap melts
and the rate in which the world’s
temperature is increasing, he told us that
even if we stop burning fossil fuel today we
need not to do this for 100 years for the
temperature to go down by only 2 degrees
which won’t help as we are too far into the
changes.
There were a few questions put to the
speaker from Greenpeace including one from
Joy Tennant, EDF Energy North East. She
asked if he had a plan to help safeguard
people’s jobs through the changes he had
proposed to help slow down global warming.
He answer was non-committal, which was a
disappointment to her.
There were only a few motions, which was
disappointing. Only 2 were submitted by the
MANWEB branch, the rest were from SOGS.
The most interesting one being with regards
to having the energy sector brought back
under government control, saying that this
would prevent offshoring and help our
economy. This was not carried.
Water, Environment and Transport
Glasgow : 14 June 2015
Delegate : Fran Hill
After opening remarks from the service group
chair, Ruth Davies and a visit from Dave
Prentis, general secretary, we had a guest
speaker – Peter Kenway from the New Policy
Institute, who has been researching social
responsibility in the water industry.
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