Unison's Health Service Group Executive AGM is over, and we're heading to Trowbridge for the Folk Festival and the start of our holiday.

I don't think I can write a full report of the meeting on my BlackBerry whilst driving down the M6 (I know, I know, I'm a diletante) but I will just comment on the most important debate: that on the question of re-opening year two of the three-year pay deal.

There was a unanimous view that the re-opener clause will almost certainly need to be triggered. There was little or no support for the idea of Unison trying to re-negotiate the first year increase.

I received the following email the other days. Despite being an elected member of UNISON's Health SGE I didn't receive it from the national office directly, but via a member in another region who forwarded it on to the excellent and useful healthactivists email list.

The email raises a couple of questions. Firstly the fact that the email, the meeting it refers to, and the draft statement presented to that meeting in UNISON's name all seems to have gone on without any oversight or control by the elected lay leadership of the union. I think members of the union will quite reasonably ask why the SGE weren't in control of this process of negotiations with the other NHS unions.

Delegates vote to agree support for motion 30 demonstrating our pride in the NHS at its 60th birthday.

The highlight of the second day of UNISON conference has undoubtedly been the NHS debate. There was an excellent fringe meeting at lunchtime organised by the cross-union activist bulletin health worker. Several of the newly-elected members of the health SGE were there, and they joined in an excellent discussion about learning the lessons from the pay ballot. There was a determined mood to the meeting and positive suggestions for rebuilding our relationships with other NHS unions in support of efforts to get the pay deal re-opened, in line with Dave Prentis' speech and his comments in this morning's papers.

Commemorations to be held nationwide.

As Leo Colston said, the past is a foreign country. But in these days of cheap international air travel, that shouldn't stop us visiting.  There's been a blogroll link for some time on 4glengate.net to the blog of Michael Walker, a former COHSE activist, which contains an archive of documents and reflections on the history and achievements of COHSE - the Confederation Of Health Service Employees. It's an impressive archive, and every health worker, every UNISON member, should spend some time reading up on it.

This morning, I've been thinking about the UNISON consultative ballot on the below-inflation-for-three-years NHS pay offer which is due to start this week. When we discussed the pay offer at UNISON health conference last month, and subsequently, according to reports from colleagues around the country, officers of UNISON and those lay members who want us to accept the offer have been at pains to stress that rejecting the offer would necessarily imply taking industrial action. Not just industrial action but sustained industrial action. I think that word is included just to pour scorn on those public sector workers who have already held a one day strike in support of their campaign for better pay, but scorn in such a situation is the chocolate pot calling the kettle black. At least, as many of my colleagues in Leicester keep telling me, the teachers are doing something. 

As I couldn't get down to London today for the lobby of Parliament, I've taken the unusual step of writing to my Tory MP, Edward Garnier. I don't often write to him, what with him being a Tory, and a lawyer and what with our last meaningful contact being me standing for Labour against him in 1997, but since I couldn't go in person to support Karen Reissmann, I figured that I shouldn't let him off the hook.

Thanks to the excellent 'write to them' website, I've just sent him this message... 

While UNISON health delegates ponder their decision on the three year pay offer from health workers, the new issue of the Nursing Times is published today with details of their online survey.

It shows that 71% of the 2400 people who took part don't want this deal.

Obviously this is just a quick snapshot but given that band 5 nurses are amongst the groups who stand to do the best, it is indicative that healthworkers do recognise a pay cut when they see one.

At the meeting tonight organised by Manchester Community and Mental Health Unison, Graham Pink spoke eloquently about his sacking 17 years ago for whistleblowing.

The assorted leaderships of the NHS unions have demonstrated today why we're in the mess we are over NHS pay. As late as Friday afternoon there was little hard information available about this year's pay proposals, yet by Monday morning, UNISON and the RCN had apparently negotiated a proposal not just for this year but for next year and the year after as well.

If the proposals even came close to reaching UNISON's stated policy of an above-inflation pay rise for all NHS staff then this might have been worth the conflict with the other unions, the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, but it doesn't. It falls so far short as to be shockingly bad - a below inflation, real terms pay cut for this year, followed by two more below inflation, real terms pay cuts to come.