There will be a meeting of the SOCA Group Executive (also chaired by McInally) before conference takes place. The notable absences will be SOCA President David Tattam and two Assistant Group Secretaries who have been suspended without "trial" and have been forbidden to attend either the GEC or both Group and National Conferences.
Of course the main topic up for discussion will be the events up to their suspension and GEC members will be presented with a one sided exposition of events as approved by Serwotka and McInally. The "accused" of course will not be able to defend themselves or offer their version of what has been going on. Democracy in action "socialist style".
Stalin would be proud.
On Monday delegates will be entreated to the new Standing Orders Committee report which replaces the previously agreed agenda with items approved by Serwotka and his cronies only. An exiting day is ahead as with McInally's opening speech being followed by the Dear Leader Mark Serwotka then droning on about whats going on about what delegates should accept as fact and how they have saved the unions credibility in SOCA.
Following Serwotkas diatribe delegates will be allowed to ask a few questions before they break for tea and return to hear a presentation from the PCS Campaigns department before more tea and another presentation before they disappear to the watering hole of their choice for the evening.
Of course the people they might want to hear an alternative view from won't be present. That's fair init!
The following day will be taken up by a composite motion written by the NEC, hijacking the whole issue in the wonderfully entitled Emergency Resolution One. If they are lucky they might be allowed to discuss issues that their members want them to, but in the time left after the highly controlled debate its' quite unlikely.
Readers will be interested to know that SOCA members are not being asked to take part in the next round of strikes taking place. Serwotka obviously doesn't want to provoke a backlash especially as he is well aware that the last time SOCA went on strike just 3% (that's 81 members out of 2,600) took part.
One thing that delegates might want to query (if they are allowed, John McInally isn't a fan of free speech as I found out last year) is why Serwotka has not allowed the ballot on the "deal" reached with Management to go ahead for the members of SOCA to decide for themselves.
Could it be that Serwotka is afraid he might lose?
Probably. Hence all this bureaucratic manoeuvring in place of democratic decision making.
Watch out for further updates.
No comments:
Post a Comment