Unison

Nurses Red Eyes Poster - Unison 1996

Unison poster launched October 1996 - a take on the Blair "demon eyes" campaign

launched at Bourenmouth and top with Unison nurses at University College London Hospital

Under paid, over worked and under stress No wounder 25,000 nurses quit the NHS last year  - UNISON Nurses

NUPE/UNISON TV 1991

Trade unions are increasingly thinking seriously about the use of video to get their messages across to their members, potential members and to the public.

Both NUPE and NALGO now have experience of production and a range of applications.

NALGO, I understand, has so far limited itself mainly to top-quality production working out at about £1,000 a minute, but of late it has also produced a couple of 'cheap and cheerful' videos for short-life use.

Like other unions NALGO has been particularly concerned about the difficult problem of getting branches to use the videos that are available.

In 1984 NUPE took its video-production programme a stage farther by establishing an 'in-house' facility, and at the same time was able to tackle the problem of distribution and use.

It was evident to us that, at costs ranging from £15,000 to £50,000 from specialist producers, few unions could afford to produce many videos. And if few were produced, it would be impossible to build a video 'culture' within the union.

To build that culture we needed to create an expectancy in our members, by regularly delivering videos on a range of subjects and issues. That, in turn,  would encourage the organisation of opportunities to use the tapes.

The 'in-house' facility comprises a small studio equipped to film, edit and copy tapes. Each of our 11 NUPE divisions was also supplied with video-cassette  recorders and television monitors to encourage and  facilitate the viewing of tapes.

The overall cost of all this was around the price of two middle-of-the-range commercially produced tapes,  and it has already paid for itself through the videos we have made and other uses to which the equipment has been put.

Apart from reducing the production cost, our own facilities have given us the benefits of flexibility and  immediacy of production. The tapes we have produced so far include productions on women in the union and on combating racism, campaigning tapes on key issues such as the health service and the political fund ballot, and information tapes on changes in local government manual pay.

Whenever we produce a tape, we issue discussion notes or work-books, so that the tapes are used  actively and collectively and not viewed individually and passively.

We use close-circuit television at our national conference and video-record the proceedings. That  not only provides a complete record; it also enables us to create edited compilations for use on courses,showing potential and new delegates how conference  works and encouraging them to participate in debates.

A video library has been set up at Head Office, with over 300 titles available on free loan to branches, with a catalogue and a leaflet to branches keeping  members aware of what's available. A viewer's record  card is sent out with every tape borrowed, and from this  we can monitor the use and value of the tapes.

Now we are developing a programme of media training for key members and officers of the union.

We are hoping also to produce a quarterly 'NUPE.News' video, about 15-20 minutes long, dealing with the 'topics of the day'. It would have a national flavour, but include a regional slot for presenting a key development or dispute.  

The material gathered for the news video could also be used in other videos used for campaigning  purposes. 

Individual items could provide the basis for 5-to-10-minute campaign or information tapes.  For example, the footage shot for a 3-minute item on water privatisation in the news tape could be used for a range of tapes on specific issues - for anglers, conservationists and consumer groups, as well as for members. In this way we can make interesting, thematic and continuous use of material instead of confining ourselves to the occasional tape on a specific issue in isolation from other developments.

 I would go farther and argue that the trade union movement needs to-be even more adventurous and take advantage, through video, of developments in satellite and cable TV.   But that must be the subject of a separate article.

Jim Sutherland NUPE Education Officer
December 1991

Hector MacKenzie on the new union 1991

 

Hector Mackenzie COHSE

December 1991

Changes in health care and in COHSE itself have made it a very different union to the one it once was, says general secretary Hector MacKenzie, who sees the creation of a new union with NUPE and NALGO as the next stage in that development.

From a fairly small organisation concentrated in the 'Cinderella' psychiatric and mental handicap hospitals, COHSE has grown to encompass people working throughout the health care sector.

At the same time, it has become more political, more conscious of the need to reflect the concerns of its over-whelmingly female membership and more anxious to ensure that services are targeted at every union member.

With a sound financial base, the ability to speak directly to members and activists and an enviable range of industrial, professional and political services, COHSE has become an organisation capable of taking proactive decisions, anticipating and shaping developments instead of simply reacting.

It is that ability which led COHSE this year to enter talks
with NUPE and NALGO on the creation of a new public services union.

Over the next few years, the arena in which we organise will change out of all recognition. The shift from hospital to community care is already breaking up the large institutions. Divisions between the NHS, social services, the voluntary and the private sectors are blurring.

National pay bargaining is gradually being devolved. And the demands placed on unions by a changing workforce are shifting in emphasis as large numbers of women re-enter the workforce and part-time jobs increase.

All of this demands an imaginative response. We need a new union capable of encompassing all those working in the public services and of responding to their disparate needs, quickly, efficiently and without bureaucratic delay.

We envisage a union in which the basic local building block, the branch, can be tailored to meet the specific needs of a workplace as small as a group home and as large as a district general hospital.

This means abandoning some of our 'hallowed' institutions, such as the compulsory monthly branch meeting,in favour of a less formal organisation which-recognises that diversity of needs and revolves around a workplace 'patch' with union representatives responsible to the branch for their own patch.


We see regions developing a new facilitating role as
both a resource and an administrative centre, but making sure there is no bureaucratic block in the union decision-making structure.

There should be a national tier of perhaps four key
groups, of which health and personal social services
would be one, with their own autonomous policy-making powers and the ability to direct their own finances. There should be professional advisory panels and consultative conferences for groups such as nurses, ambulance personnel and social workers, and new ways of developing policies through working parties and even ballots.

We also want to see a top tier encompassing all mem-
bers and providing central services, holding the membership register and with overall responsibility for the finances and resources of the union.

Having seen other unions grow large and get things wrong, we should learn from their mistakes. We mustavoid an overwhelming bureaucracy in which no decisions can ever be made and initiative is stifled. We must avoid competing power blocks in which regions and trade groups struggle for supremacy to the detriment of the whole union. And we must avoid simply lumping in all the old practices and structures of all three unions. 

In short, there cannot and must not simply be a larger version of COHSE, NUPE or NALGO; we need a new union.

UNISON - OUR NHS IS NOT FOR SALE

Estate Agents Cameron, Clegg & Lansley, held a viewing of prime residential property - St Thomas’ Hospital in London today (1 April 2011). UNISON, the UK’s largest union, organised the spoof sell off to expose the huge dangers lurking in the Tory’s Health and Social Care Bill.

The union is warning that Lansley’s vanity project poses a health risk to patients, to the NHS and to the nurses, midwives, hospital porters and medical secretaries who keep our health service running.

Paste in front of the first paragraph:

Dave Prentis, UNISON General Secretary, said:

“Selling off the NHS is no joke – but that’s exactly what’s the Health and Social Care Bill paves the way for. Even the Tories are waking up to the toxic prescription that the Health and Social Care Bill really is for our NHS.

“Handing over £80 billion to GPs is a reckless gamble. Doctors don’t want it, and it will poison the relationship between patients and their GP. Who wants to be sitting across from their doctor wondering if the treatment they are prescribed is what they need, or what the GP can afford to pay for?

“And taking the private income cap off hospitals when they are being hit with cuts is a recipe for disaster. Patients who can pay will be the top priority. NHS patients will be pushed to the back of the queue – eroding the core principles our NHS was founded on.

“It’s time to take the Health and Social Care Bill to the mortuary - where it belongs.”

The hospital sell off stunt is part of a nationwide day of action against the Health Bill, and ahead of the union’s annual health conference. Taking part in Liverpool, the health conference brings together 1200 delegates, representing UNISON’s 460,000 health workers.

UNISON’s big opposition to the titanic Health and Social Care Bill

* Big cuts in health spending. These are being taken from patient care and leading to job losses – including clinical staff – across the NHS.

* Opening up the NHS to private profit. Taxpayers’ money destined for NHS patients will be diverted into shareholder profits.

* NHS patients will be pushed to the back of the queue because the proposed Bill will take the cap off the amount hospitals can earn from private patients.

* It means competition, not co-operation. The government wants to run the NHS through competition between different health providers and market forces.

* It will create a huge postcode lottery. The care patients can expect will vary from place to place, increasing costs and health inequalities and hurting vulnerable people the most. No-one voted for this.

* The NHS is working and public satisfaction with the NHS is at an all time high. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?

26th March TUC Demo

Click on photo to enlarge
UNISON Banners on the 26th March TUC Demo

Unison Aberdeen


Unison Aberdeenshire

Unison and UCU Stop the Cuts

Unison Barnet & Chase Farm Hospitals

Unison Barnet Local Government

Unison Basildon

Unison Bath and North East Somerset

Unison Bexley

Unison Birmingham (x 3)

Unison Black Members

Unison Blackpool Health

Unison Blood and Transplant Service

Unison Bolton Health Branch

Unison Bolton Metro Branch

Unison Bracknell Forest

Unison Bradford

Unison Brent

Unison Bridgend County Council Branch

Unison Brighton and Have

Unison Buckinghamshire health

Unison Calderdale

Unison Cambridge Healthcare Branch

Unison Camden and Islington Community Health Branch

Unison Camden

Unison Carmarthenshire County Branch

Unison Central Bristol Health Branch

Unison Central London Community Health Branch

Unison Central Manchester Healthcare Branch

Unison Charnwood

Unison City of Edinburgh

Unison City of Plymouth

Unison City of Sheffield Branch

Unison Cornwall Health Community Branch

Unison Croydon Nurses

Unison Cumbria County Council

Unison Darlington Local Government Branch

Unison Derbyshire Police

Unison Dorset County

Unison Dumfries and Galloway branch

Unison Dundee City Branch

Unison Durham County

Unison Ealing

Unison East London Mental Health branch

Unison East Midlands Police Service Group

Unison East Midlands

Unison East Sussex Area Branch

Unison Eastern Region

Unison Environment Agency Midlands

Unison Environment Agency South West

Unison Fareham Branch

Unison Filipino Nurses

Unison for Jobs, Growth and Justice

Unison Forth Valley Health Branch

Unison Gateshead Health Branch

Unison Gateshead Local Government Branch

Unison Glasgow City Branch

Unison Greater London – 1st Health Brigade

Unison Greater London Authority

Unison Greater London Region

Unison Greater London retired members

Unison Greenwich Local Government

Unison Grimsby and Goole Health Branch

Unison Haringey Health

Unison Haringey

Unison Hastings and Eastbourne healthcare

Unison Hertfordshire Community Healthcare Branch

Unison Hertfordshire County Branch

Unison Homerton University Hospital

Unison Hounslow Local Government Branch

Unison Housing Associations Branch

Unison Hull

Unison Inverclyde

Unison Isle of Wight Blood Collection Team

Unison Isle of Wight Healthcare Branch

Unison Isle of Wight Local Government Branch

Unison Isle of Wight

Unison Kensington and Chelsea local government

Unison Kingston Branch

Unison Kingston Hospital

Unison Kirklees

Unison Lambeth College

Unison Lambeth

Unison Lancashire Police Branch

Unison Leeds Metropolitan University

Unison LGBT

Unison Lincolnshire County Branch

Unison Liverpool Acute Hospitals Branch

Unison Liverpool Community and Hospitals Health Branch

Unison Local Government Branch

Unison Local Government Scotland

Unison London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

Unison London Fire Brigade LFEPA

Unison London Met

Unison London Metropolitan University

Unison Manchester Advice

Unison Manchester Community and Mental Health

Unison Manchester

Unison Manweb

Unison Medway Towns Local Government

Unison Merthyr Tydfil

Unison Middlesex University

Unison Milton Keynes Area

Unison national banner

Unison Norfolk Local Government Branch

Unison North Somerset

Unison North Staffs Community Health

Unison North West Region LGBT Group

Unison North West Region

Unison North Yorkshire Branch

Unison Northern Region Healthcare Branch

Unison Northern Region

Unison Nottingham Healthcare Branch

Unison Notts County

Unison Notts Libraries

Unison Oxfordshire Health

Unison Plymouth-Welfare not Warfare

Unison Portsmouth City Branch

Unison Queen Elizabeth Hospital Woolwich

Unison Reading Borough

Unison Rhondda Cynon Taff Branch

Unison Richmond Upon Thames (x 2)

Unison Rochdale

Unison Rotherham Health Service 13275 Branch

Unison Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust Branch

Unison Salford City Branch

Unison Salisbury Health Branch

Unison Scotland

Unison Scottish Environment Protection Agency

Unison Sefton Health Branch

Unison Sefton

Unison Senate House

Unison Shetland Local Services

Unison Shropshire

Unison Sir Ceredigion County Wales

Unison Skills Development Scotland Branch

Unison Soas

Unison South East Blood Service

Unison South East Region Health

Unison South East Region Retired Members

Unison South East Region

Unison South Gloucestershire

Unison South Kent

Unison South Lanarkshire

Unison South West London Community Health Branch

Unison South West London Mental Health

Unison South Western Ambulance Branch

Unison Southampton District Branch

Unison Southampton

Unison Southend on Sea Local Government Branch

Unison Southwark

Unison St Ceredigion County

Unison St George's Hospital, Wandsworth

Unison Staffordshire Branch

Unison Stockport Local Government

Unison Surrey County

Unison Swindon Branch

Unison Taunton Deane Branch

Unison Tayside Police Branch

Unison Thurrock Branch

Unison UCL

Unison University of Brighton

Unison Wales (x 2)

Unison Wales Health Branch

Unison Waltham Forest (x 2)

Unison West Cheshire

Unison West Midlands Region Birmingham Hospital Branch

Unison West Midlands Women

Unison West Sussex County Branch

Unison Westminster

Unison Whittington Health Branch

Unison Wiltshire Heath

Unison Wiltshire

Unison Wolfson Neuro rehabilitation Centre

Unison Wolverhampton Local Government Branch

Unison Women

Unison Worcester College

Unison Yorkshire Ambulance Service Branch

Unison Young Members City of Plymouth

Unison Young Members

Unison-Defend the NHS

Unison: Barnet

New Ed Hall Union Banner To Be Unveiled Saturday 26th March TUC Demo

South West London Mental Health Branch
UNISON Banner

Members and officers of South West London & St Georges Mental Health Trust branch of the health care Union - UNISON, will have the pleasure of unveiling their new UNISON branch banner at the TUC Demonstration in London on Saturday 26th March 2011.

The artists who created the banner, was famous London trade union banner maker Ed Hall, responsible for hundreds of beautiful trade union banners.

Michael Walker UNISON Regional Officer who was responsible for the design describes the relevance of the iconography on the banner.

The colours used in the banner are those of UNISON of purple, green and white and are in turn based upon the WSPU suffragette colours. (chosen in 1908 by Emmeline Pethick Lawrence).

Nursing staff and Asylum attendants in period uniforms of 1910, hold up the banner and is taken from a graphic used on the front of the National Asylum Workers Union journal in its earliest years.

The logo's and slogan "All For One and One For All" at the bottom of the banner are from the original National Asylum Workers Union est 1910.

In the centre of the banner is the main building at Springfield hospital built in 1840. Surrey County Lunatic Asylum (later known as Wandsworth Asylum) opened on 14th June 1841, catering for 350 bed. Note the red flag flying from its rooftop.

At the bottom of the banner, left side - the cat represents Syndicalism and at the bottom right side a Rat (the bosses - as used on the Friern Barnet banner).

UNISON 9/11 Ribbon and Badge

UNISON Nurses handing out 9/11 ribbons at 2002 TUC Congress at Blackpool

UNISON 9/11 Badge from September 2001 worn by London emergency services staff.

UNISON working with SEIU

TUC Lobby 19th October 2010

Thousands of public sector workers have packed Central Hall to capacity with standing-room only as they protest against the coalition government's plans for huge cuts in public spending. Messages from the rally are giving us updates on events.

There was huge applause for Dave Prentis when he says make the banks pay. If there's money for them and for war, there's money for the poor and for public services. His call for a pay freeze for bankers went down well. Dave spoke up for communities and the public services they rely on.

Lizzie Louden a pupil at Leytonstone school is due to speak after Dave.

The TUC's Brendan Barber said those who did well from the boom should help pay for the bust they created.

'Cowardly' Tory MPs hide from their constituents

Dave Prentis, General Secretary of UNISON, today branded Tory MPs as “cowards” for turning their backs on their constituents, to join a last-minute meeting convened by David Cameron.Dave Prentis said:“It is a sad day for democracy in this country. I am outraged that Tory MPs have turned their backs on their constituents, when so many have travelled hundreds of miles, to see them.“Many had made appointments months in advance and are armed with facts and figures about the damage that cuts will do to local people and services.“MPs should not be running from the truth and hiding in a meeting with Cameron. They should have the guts to come face to face with the constituents that they were elected to represent.“I am warning the Tories that they can run, but they can’t hide. UNSON members will track down their MPs and lobby them in their own constituency offices, until they get their message across.”

Claire Rayners Last Words

Nurse: Claire Rayner

January 22 1931 - October 11 2010

Last Words

"Tell David Cameron
that if he screws up
my beloved NHS
I'll come back and
bloody haunt him!"

Lib Dem's to Axe 1,000 Nurses

Lib Dem's to Axe 1,000 Nurses

at NHS Direct

Gail Adams UNISONhead of nursing said

"NHS Direct is a ground-breaking success story that has taken pressure off the emergency services and provided much needed advice and support to people.

"Private call centres with unqualified staff can never replace this excellent service, that provides vital, immediate support such as during the swine flu outbreak that saw scores of people die."

NHS Direct UNISON Official Michael Walker added:

"Not one Coalition party stated they would scrap NHS Direct in their manifesto. There is no mandate for cutting this service . If the government attack NHS Direct, what else is next? What other NHS cuts are they hiding? It is time for Cameron and Clegg to come clean about their real plans for our NHS."

"If the Lib Dems get their way 1,000 registered nurses, many of whom are disabled, will be sacked if this plan goes ahead".

"The shocking truth is this is the front line, these are real registered nurses and they are now facing the sack".

2,300 NHS dedicated specialist nurses and professionals are available on NHS Direct 24 hours a day.

ends

Don't Let Nurses Freeze - Kingston Nurses Demonstration

Dont' Let Nurses Freeze

Kingston hospital’s decision to freeze front-line nursing posts will hit patient care hard as well as adding to the burden on existing over-stretched staff, said UNISON nurses at the hospital . The nurses condemned moves to cut the number of nurses on wards as part of a jobs freeze at the hospital, saying that it flies in the face of pledges to protect front-line NHS staff.

The Trust management have stated that they will not replace nurses who leave unless they are “critical”.

Michael Walker, Lonson Nursing officer for UNISON slammed the proposed cuts as “putting patient care at risk” saying:

“ it is outrageous that overworked nurses are being expected to cover for nursing posts that are not filled. UNISON believes that the cuts will put lives and patient care at risk. The Coalition Government told us that they would not cut front line services, and yet at Kingston - Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s local hospital - this is exactly what we are witnessing - nurses are very much frontline service”.

Nora Pearce, UNISON Nursing & Midwifery Convenor at the hospital said:

“The NHS has a very high turnover of nursing posts; nurses cannot simply be expected to pick up the work of posts no longer filled without compromising the care we provide.

“I urge those implementing the cuts to take serious consideration of our concerns and reverse this decision”

(pics) Kingston Nurses Demonstration 23 June 2010

Why Florence Nightingale Must Die

Today, according to the International Congress of Nurses (ICN)


Is International Nurses Day

It is presently held on the birthday of Florence Nightingale

This is our response:-

Kick Over The Statues

WE REPORT THE LONG OVER DUE DEATH OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
By Michael Walker UNISON Nursing Officer for Nursing Times April1999


All over Eastern Europe statues of Lenin are being taken off their pedestals (1999), dismantled and hauled off to be cut up. It is in the same vein that the nursing profession must, as we enter the new millennium, start to exorcise the myth of Florence Nightingale. Not necessarily because Florence Nightingale was a very bad person, but because the impact of her legacy or more correctly the interpretation of that legacy has held the nursing profession back too long.


The Nightingale myth had from it’s earliest days been appropriated by the nursing hierarchy and the founders of the Royal College of Nursing who colluded with them, to use it to sell any vocational, self sacrificing ideal required for the good of the service and not the good of nursing.

As a result of the Nightingale myth, the leadership of nursing in Britain for the best part of this century has stressed "vocation" and subordination to the medical profession and cast nursing as somehow non political. We cannot progress until we break from the yoke of the Nightingale myth.

We must ask ourselves as nurses why it is that the medical professional still dominates health care. Why very few nurses are in the political arena (it is only with the 1997 General Election that we have had nurses elected to parliament). And why nursing trade unionism has not made more of an impact. A consequence of these failings has been that nurses remain professionally impotent and nurses pay lags behind that of other "organised" professions in the UK and nurses pay in other western nations.

The failure of British nursing to meet its potential, I would contend, is the ever present Florence Nightingale, whose views, whether based on myths or reality, has stopped nursing from progressing into a profession in its own right. What is clear, is that the British establishment sought from the very origins of modern nursing to sanitise nursing, and ensure that its heroine would be acceptable: a white, English, middle class, protestant women.

Florence Nightingale fulfilled this role admirably, unlike Irish catholic nurses such as Joanna Bridgeman and Jamaican nurses like Mary Seacole who made an equally important contribution to nursing during the Crimea War. Neither of these has been officially credited for their efforts.

It was Joanna Bridgeman who developed the system of nursing and management that Florence Nightinglae adopted, while the efforts of the black Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole in the Crimea were cold shouldered. What is equally interesting to note is that it was probably the Quaker, Elizabeth Fry, who has greatest claim to the title founder of modern nursing with her pioneering work at St John's hospital by her Institution of Nursing Sisters, a number of years before Florence Nightingale embarked upon her endeavours. So maybe international nurse’s day should be celebrated on her birthday, the 21st May.

Once the Nightingale myth and her status as a Saint had been confirmed by the British establishment, Florence Nightingale set about turning out her robotic acolytes from the St Thomas School of Nursing from 1860 onwards, soon capturing the role of matrons in most major hospitals. Ehrenreich & English encapsulated this well in following quote: ‘Training emphasised character, not skills. The finished product, the Nightingale nurse, was simply the ideal lady …absolved of reproductive responsibilities.

To the doctor, she brought the wifely virtue of absolute obedience. To the patient, she brought the selfless devotion of a mother. To the lower level hospital employees, she brought the firm but kindly discipline of a household manager accustomed to dealing with servants’. Abel-Smith sates: "The power (of matrons) was reinforced by the para-military organisation of the nursing staff and the rigid discipline imposed in the training schools. As Miss Nightingale said rather ominously "No good ever comes of anyone interfering between the head of nursing establishment and her nurses. It is fatal to discipline". The control of the matrons over her nurses was to play a crucial role in future attempts to enrol nurses in professional organisations or trade unions".

No wonder Ann Widdecombe (supported by RCN General secretary Christine Hancock) called for the return of the Matron at last year’s Tory party conference. Florence Nightingale supported the subordinate role of nurses to doctors, opposed registration of nurses, three year training of nurses, did not see mental health nurses as part of nursing, and had questionable success at her hospital in the Crimea, she also turned her back on the fine history of lay women healers, not to mention her opposition to women speaking in public..

Nurses are increasingly beginning to challenge the Nightingale myth. Today’s nurses, especially our UNISON nursing students are much more questioning, much more involved in campaigning and much more willing to stand up for their rights and pushing the bounderies of our professional role. This development can only be a good thing as nursing enters the new millennium. Nurses of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your chains By Michael Walker UNISON Nursing student Officer and Wendy Wheeler RGN RHV

SW London mental health

UNISON South West London Mental Health packed AGM 2009 and leading the way on the G20 protest

NHS 50th Anniversary

John Kelly-Chandler

JOHN KELLY-CHANDLER


John Edward Kelly-Chandler, Regional Organiser, died in service on Tuesday 9 October 2007.




John was a Regional Organiser in the Greater London Region since 1991 covering health and local government branches. In recent years he has had responsibility for the South East London Health branches.

John was diagnosed with lung cancer a year ago and had been receiving treatment during the past 12 months. Despite gruelling treatment he managed to maintain a positive and courageous attitude throughout. He was on holiday in his favourite place in Italy when he passed away.

Prior to working for UNISON, John's working life spanned numerous occupations from flour milling to merchant marine, from baker to selling cosmetics, from shoe salesman to the Elecricity Generating Board

John was a leading lay activist in NALGO’s electricity section, a Shop Steward at West ham Power Station, He rose to become the secretary of the CEGB Headquarters branch and took a leading role in the FUSE campaign against the privatisation of the electricity industry. He was elected to NALGO’s National Electricity Committee, eventually becoming its Chair and was also a member of NALGO’s NEC.

He lead his union colleagues through the convulsions of privatisation and attempts to build solidarity at the CEGB for the Miners in the great 1984-1985 dispute.

In 1991 John was appointed as a union (NALGO) regional officer, a position he held until his death.

Born in Hastings on the 11th November 1947, adopted by Hartlepool (becoming a staunch Hartlepool United FC Fan) lifelong resident of London, latterly Charlton.

Buried in his beloved Ravello, Italy.A memorial service was held at Caxton Hall, London to celebrate his life on Saturday 10th November 2007 at which the regional head of health for London Chris Remmington stated
"John's politic's was very simple, unsophisticated and non-sectarian.
Members first,
build the union,
always recognise that the future belongs to the next generation - so don't get in the way - build gateways not obstacles,no false labels of left and right, at the close of each day be clear that an advance has occurred in the ideas of progress, of collective strength, of humanity, of unity."


John was a much respected and loved member of the regional staff and will be missed by all who knew and worked with him.

Christine Wilde UNISON President

Christine Wilde,Midwife Elected UNISON President 2005-2006

Christine Wilde, a midwife, has been elected president of UNISON by the union’s ruling National Executive Council (NEC). This is the highest lay position in the country’s largest and fastest growing union. Christine has been a longstanding member of UNISON since its creation in 1993. She joined founder union COHSE (Confederation Of Health Service Employees) in 1976.

Christine has held several positions in the union including COHSE branch secretary, chair of the Isle of Wight healthcare trust branch and UNISON vice president. In 1988 Christine was the first woman to become a member of COHSE’s NEC. Christine has also been a member of the Labour Party NEC.

Christine was born and raised in Blackburn, Lancashire. She was educated at Blakely Moore School for girls and went on to train as a midwife at Queens Park hospital, Blackburn. Christine now works and lives in the Isle of Wight, as a midwife. She has two grown up sons, Jason and Greg and two grandsons, Connor, 5, and Craig, 2.

Christine is dedicated to midwifery. She said:“I love to help people; it’s such a rewarding job. I enjoy working with women and the job really stimulates me.”As President, Christine has two main aims, one in the UK and one overseas. In the UK she wants to improve working conditions for public service workers. And overseas she wants to establish a shelter for orphaned children who have lost their parents or carer because of HIV/AIDS.Commenting on her future plans in UNISON Christine said:“I want UNISON to grow physically, I want to make working policies with other unions and most of all I want to establish a shelter for children who have lost everything, children that have been abused or abandoned because of ignorance and power.”

Dave Prentis, General Secretary of UNISON said:‘I am pleased to welcome Christine as the new president of UNISON and I look forward to working with her on the future direction of the union.’