Thanks to Ray Goodspeed of Left Horizons for doing this interview.
On NHS issues – what I was trying to say is that we have many, many issues in the NHS, but the model bequeathed to us from the previous regime simly does not work, The idea was that if a member has a problem at work, a full-time officer turns up and fixes it!
But…there just are not enough full time officers, and there never will be. I worked for the union for a couple of years and I was shocked at how much time the Officers spent on individual case work, It is about 50%. I raised it with McCluskey and he went back down memory lane : “Well your branches should be doing those cases” he said. Because the last time he was a rep was the late 1970s, and when he was a Regional Officer was the 1980s. Not being personal, but the experience of being a senior officer is completely different to ours as reps. In fact a very good hard-working officer came up to me after that meeting and said “There are no effing branches” (in her sector).
If we were to rebuild our grass roots structures then we as reps could help each other. A union is suppose to be self-organisation of workers. All Unite needs to do is to fund a quarterly meeting of ALL the reps in Health in a region. They come together ashd split up into the trdes and occupations, discuss their issues, and then report back to the whole group. In the afternoon you could organise a plenary session on campaigning, legal cases or an aspect terms and conditions. Unbelievably, since we formed Unite, those sort of meetings have been denied – to save travel expenses!
If we get the model right, the issues can be solved.
You couldn’t make it up. To put saving £500 of travel expenses over being industrially effective!
And then senior officers wonder why the union struggles to engage members…?