WHY WE NEED AN AMICUS COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS PROCEDURE
submitted by Ron Yarwood

All members will have repeatedly heard and read the proclamation that Amicus and any successor union will always be run and controlled by its members.

Take the time and trouble to research far enough back into its constituent parts and it could well be argued that the membership controlled principle had some merit in practical terms, but today's rules are fundamentally lacking in one of the most crucial areas!

For any evolving institution to be truly democratic it must never lose sight of the fact that it is made up of Individual entities and small groups of like minded contributors who must be seen to have some day to day Influence and rights.

Not simply the right to attend branches and participate in policy making activities every two years, and rule making ones every four years, but equally the right to know that as a member, or group of members, they have the explicit right not to always agree with dictates from on high, and that the rules provide for them a mechanism whereby genuinely held grievances and complaints can be processed, not only at the whim or discretion of those whom maybe they are in conflict with, but as a constitutional right of membership.

Search our 2006 Amicus Rule Book and you will not find any reference giving you the right of appeal against unreasonable decisions or unfair actions which may have adversely impacted on you, other than the very explicit circumstances covered by Rule 38 (Discipline).

It's incomprehensible that across all aspects of human rights, political, employment, social and legal etc, Amicus demands all the checks and balances of appeals procedures but ironically they are lacking within our own union rule book.

The power this absence bestows on the Leadership and the National Executive Council takes on unchallengeable proportions.

Without effective rights of appeal to impartial, internal adjudication, Amicus will return to the late 1990s when it's reported that we were the most legally threatened trade union in the UK, not by the employers, but by our own membership.

It is well understood that a joint union membership as large as ours would need to have an appeals structure which avoided being swamped with frivolous appeals, but lets not forget that the AEU, had an internationally respected internal appeals structure. The ultimate arbiters on items of rule being the Final Appeals Court, which was constituted of elected rank and file members. It should also be remembered that this was at a point in time when the AEU alone had more members than all of the present Amicus, constituent parts put together.

I have recently learned that the NEC has introduced an appeals procedure, but the existence of this procedure is not widely known to the ordinary members, union reps, branch officers and full time officials. I have been told that appeals are referred to a panel of 3 NEC members appointed by the NEC; I ask myself, how likely are they to uphold any complaint against the NEC when there is no appeal to a higher authority?

In my own humble opinion there is an urgent and compelling need to constitute a similar body to the AEU Final Appeal Court along with an effective complaints and appeals procedure. This should be done sooner rather than later and should certainly be a cornerstone of the Rule Book of the new union.