Gender Duty

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Conference
2006 National LGBT Conference
Date
21 September 2006
Decision
Carried as Amended

Conference notes the new statutory duty on public sector organisations to proactively promote gender equality in both service delivery and employment. This new duty will come into force in April 2007. Conference believes this presents an opportunity for public bodies to more effectively address the needs of women generally and Black, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender women specifically as well as transgender men.

Conference further notes that

1.The response of the public sector to the race equality duty since 2002 has been patchy and disappointing. Those organisations that are committed to race equality have used the duty to improve their performance. However a significant proportion of public bodies have shirked their statutory responsibilities and failed to prioritise their race equality work – most of these have been able to do this without any enforcement action from the Commission for Racial Equality;

2.Many UNISON branches and activists do not appreciate the key role that they can play in campaigning for employers to comply with their statutory race equality responsibilities.

Conference calls on the

A.National LGBT Committee to work with the NEC and the other Self Organised Group National Committees to issue detailed guidance on how public bodies can use the new gender duty to address employment and service delivery issues that affect women especially Black women, Disabled women and Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender women and men;

B.Branch LGBT groups and individual members to raise this with their branch committees.