Update Your Details With UNISON

The recent pay campaign highlighted several issues of Unison member’s personal details that are held on the National Membership System (WARMS)

It is vital for a number of reasons why members should ensure that we have the most up to date information for each member.

Members should be assured that each record is held in confidence, and details can only be accessed nationally from the National Membership Team, and from a branch perspective, only by the branch membership officer and branch secretary.

Wrong employer, missing or outdated email addresses, incorrect postal address, permission for Unison to contact you denied, incorrect surnames, outdated job titles, etc are just a few of the areas that we need to address. Although these are mostly examples of records not being up to date the instances where members have opted not to receive communications from Unison or have no email address in the system is a problem for the branch as we are increasingly using the membership system to send communications directly to members. With so many members working from home, and likely to be working this way in the future it is a significant issue where we aren’t able to include all members in pay and pensions campaigns, etc.

For these reasons it is vital that members ensure their own personal membership record is the most current.

There are 2 ways to do this. Option 1 is the preferred as it gives the member individual control over their record.

1.       Registering and logging on to your own personal record at “My Unison” where you can check the details that are held for you, and update/amend where required: www.unison.org.uk/my-unison

2.       Contact the branch directly with any updates by e mailing branch membership officer Gerry McAteer at Gerard.McAteer@nhs.scot

With regards the recent pay campaign, if the consultative ballot that was held on the offer from Scottish Government had been rejected by Unison members, the next stage would have been a formal industrial action ballot. Unison through our branch would then have faced massive issues with regards the Trade Union Act legal requirements due to missing membership information. In the event, we did not require to go to full industrial action ballot. However, we do not know how the next pay campaign or any other issues we may face going forward, that could possibly result in formal industrial action ballot. Therefore, the vital importance of this matter.

We are urging you as Unison members to take a few minutes to ensure we have your most up to date current personal information. Thanks for your help.

Classic IBM PC photograph by Steve Petrucelli CC BY-NC-ND 2.0