Minutes of London & Eastern Young Members Committee Meeting

Saturday 8th December 2012 128 Theobalds Road, Holborn

Present

Gavin Sibthorpe ChairShelly Asquith Vice ChairSimon Bralee Lucille Harvey Nadeem Chunghtri Paul Jafrate Rachel Dunn Adam Zacharia Sam WheelerLouise Mitchelle Sarah VentressTim Knight-Hughes

Mel Whitter Ex Officio

Apologies

Cat Smith Belinda Washington Kelly Hockley Alex Etches

Welcome

Gavin welcome Committee members to the meeting, and apologies for some mix up with timing. He advised the committee that Liam Kelly has resigned from the committee as he now works as the Legal and Affiliated Services co-ordinator for the London and Eastern Region. The committee expressed their congratulations to Liam on his new position.

The committee then agreed that as Sam Wheeler was an observer to the committee and is from the same sector as Liam, Sam would now become a full member of the committee.

SERTUC Young Members Network

Shelly Reported Back that SERTUC ran a young workers month in November, There had been a number of events across the region, including one she organised at Unite House.

Regional Committee Report back

Tim reported back the following key points.The union is still in Dispute at Amnesty InternationalJob losses have been announced at Ford, both in our region and in the South East

There were discussions around the continuing fight back in the NHS and the successful Olympic 500 campaign in the Passenger Section.He also noted that the motion from the young members committee was carried unanimously and remitted to the national executive.

Sector/Workplace reports

BAA-Nadeem reported that there are ongoing difficulties in engaging the younger members on a workplace level; however they are continuing to organise. The pay increase for 2013 is 3.5% and a profit share in new technology (this is part of a 3 year deal), as this deal comes to and end they see pensions as being a key battle ground.

Parliamentary staff branch- Lucile advised that the branch is continuing its recognition campaign, at present they are signing individual; agreements with MPs offices. The introduction of IPSA has seen pay cuts for a number of staff members as the new salary bands are introduced.

NHS- Gavin reported on the ongoing campaign in the NHS, and the work he is currently doing in his trust around “on call” agreements.

National Young Members Committee report back

Adam reported that two working groups have been set up on working with students and working with young labour. Also the Committee was shown a video, Smells Like Teen Spirit- we’ll try and get a copy for the regional committee to watch.

Young Labour Conference

Information was circulated from the national officer regarding young labour conference. However it was unclear from the document what number of delegates we were able to send was, or the selection process for the delegates. As the deadline for delegates and nomination was December 19th the committee agreed to take expressions of interest for those who wished to participate as Unite delegates and Mel Whitter would pass these on and seek further clarification.

Shelly Asquith, Simon Bralee, Lucile Ball and Gavin Sibthorpe all wished to be considered as delegates. They were advised that Conrad Landin who is a young Unite activist also wished to be considered.

Shelly Asquith also wished to be considered for the Unite position on the Young Labour National Committee. The committee unanimously endorsed this idea, and Mel Whitter was to pass this onto the national political department to again seek clarification on the elections.

Dates of next meeting

The committee agreed that its preferred dates for meetings were Sundays. The 2013 meetings will be on the following dates from 12.00-16.00

March 17June 9Sept 15Dec 1

AOB

Gavin informed the Committee that the LGBT committee is holding a LGBT history event on 4th Feb., and we should try and get young LGBT activists there.

Gavin also shared with the committee a statement from the Executive regarding the General Secretary election.

The committee then held a leadership workshop drawing up its work plan for 2013