Lyons on his way!

In a move that has remarkable similarities to the demise of Sir Ken Jackson from the AEEU union, one of the few left members of the amicus MSF National Executive Committee (NEC), Dave Hutchinson, has started proceedings that could cause serious difficulty for Spare General Secretary, Roger Lyons. You may recall that Jackson tried and failed to stay on beyond his term without election, in breach of the law.

Dave, NEC member for Yorkshire & Humberside and the North East regions, has submitted a formal complaint to the Certification Officer (CO) about Lyons. The CO was established by the old Labour Government in the 1970s to act as an ombudsman for unions.

The complaint is that Lyons has now gone more than five years without an election, a breach of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act. Exemptions are allowed if the General Secretary has less than five years to retirement at the time the election would be due. General Secretaries therefore could go up to 10 years without election if they were to carefully time their elections.

Now five years ago, the NEC delayed Lyons' last appointment, many at the time believed this was to make his retirement date less than 10 years after the appointment, taking advantage of the exemption and allowing Lyons to stay until 2007, without the tiresome bother of another election. However it looks like they screwed up the dates. Lyons was last elected on 27th February 1997 and took up his appointment on 1st September 1997. His normal retirement date is 14th September 2007, ten years and thirteen days after the delayed appointment.

To get round this problem the NEC passed a resolution at the December 2002 NEC meeting bringing forward Lyons retirement to 1st August 2007, however what they didn't seem to realise is that the Act specifically rules out such evasive manoeuvres. On top of all that the MSF NEC should have sought ratification of Lyons' new contract from the full Amicus Joint Executive Council under Instrument of Amalgamation rule 3(8). They have failed to do this so their change to his contract is a breach of Amicus's own rules as well.

All this came to light as a result of a split in the right-wing of the union: At the October 2002 NEC meeting, the General Purposes and Finance Committee, then Lyons' stalwarts, pushed through a new contract for Lyons on the dubious reasoning that he had agreed to go with Sir Ken Jackson but now wanted to remain until his normal retirement. There was a pretence that this was simply 'a reversion to his previous terms'. However, at the December NEC meeting, serial expense claimer 'twenty five thousand Bob' Braddock, a diehard Lyons supporter, moved what we believe was a totally false amendment to the minutes. The amendment said that the October meeting had specifically noted and agreed a change to Lyons' retirement date which must be on or before 1st August 2007 - bringing him within the 10 year retirement exemption.

Dave Hutchinson challenged Braddock who went into an apparently meaningless ramble about his amendment being simply to 'clarify the minute'. When it was put to the vote the amendment was carried 9 to 5 with no less than 12 of Lyons' trusted supporters abstaining. Even though the amendment had been won, black looks were passed round the NEC table in abundance. The minutes of the December NEC make no note of Braddock's claim that the amendment was 'purely for clarification'.

It looks like Dave (naughty boy!) has been reading the legislation.

Declarations by the Certification Officer have the power of law; although the union are notorious for maximising legal appeals to the many lost cases they have experienced, it will be interesting to see whether Lyons can withstand the same procedure which resulted in Two Jobs Jackson being dumped from the AEEU.

We expect a few interested right-wingers will be watching all this from the treetops. They know that Lyons would be extremely vulnerable in an open election given his abominable record of wasting in excess of a million pounds of MSF members' money protecting his own position and his slavish support of the warmonger and privateer at No 10.

It seems like Lyons may have been aware of this looming problem and was desperately trying to stitch together a golden parachute; all this could account for his recent attempt to secure himself a 30% pay rise which would have dramatically increased his pension from £57,749 to a whopping £75,073 a year (pensions being restricted to 2/3rd of final salary).

Posted by www.rogerlyons.com on 9th March 2003