Unite: First Impressions

I’ve finally received my membership pack from Unite (Amicus Section). And, I have to say, I’m underwhelmed. Now, I wasn’t expecting anything personalised, I wasn’t expecting an enormous goodie bag, and I wasn’t expecting anything desperately radical. But the welcome pack makes me wonder if I’ve joined a union or if I have, in fact, simply purchased an insurance scheme. Two or three glossies, a membership card with a national ‘phone number, and another card with the ‘phone number on it to give to someone else so they can sign up.

I do want to emphasise that I don’t join unions to collect the badges and get cool stash, or whatever term it is the students are using nowadays for their branded paraphernalia. But I am completely left in the dark by my union as to how I am supposed to organise or even get involved, I ended up asking a branch rep specifically. As a graduate student, I was a (non-dues-paying) member of the UCU, and I got a leaflet on exactly that, a poster to stick up, and a full-colour UCU magazine, plus a few other bits and bobs. When I joined the IWW last year, I got a full constitution (the preamble of which is printed on the inside of the folding membership card), a BIROC rulebook, and a general guidebook which contained some IWW history, arguing the case for class consciousness and industrial unionism, and, importantly, a ‘Wobspeak’ lexicon, explaining all the technical terminology. I got a little IWW badge, some leaflets to begin with, and have since been sent a certain amount of organising material on a fairly frequent basis, not to mention all the internal documents. These came in very handy when we got round to setting up a General Membership Group in the summer.

Shortly after I joined, I was made very aware that there’s a lot of commotion at the top. From the sounds of it, the national officers of Amicus and T&G had used the merger which is creating ‘Unite’ to install themselves comfortably for the forseeable future. Someone in Amicus called Jerry Hicks realised Derek Simpson (Amicus General Secretary) could be forced on a technicality to accept a challenge to his position. I don’t know all that much about the exact legal and constitutional issues involved, but a letter sent to each branch by Hicks really caused me to think twice about my membership. He claims that a certain ‘fat cat’ (presumably Simpson) receives “wages of £126,939 plus perks, free car and a virtually free £million house for ever”; Hicks himself pledges to take an average skilled worker’s wage.

£126,939. Words just fail me, so I’ll stop there.

In other news, Sainsbury’s Basics Bread has mysteriously returned to the shelves, priced at 30p. I’ve not been able to buy any, however, as it is always ot of stock.

Update on Unite: Just realised they are sponsoring the NUS Extraordinary Conference organised by the NUS’ ruling factions to push through constitutional changes which would turn the NUS into a bureaucrat’s dream. Fitting, really.