- Conference
- 2008 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 22 February 2008
- Decision
- Carried
Conference believes that violence and aggression against staff is not part of the job. UNISON is commited to campaigning for tougher measures so that all public service workers are afforded the same levels of protection as that given to the police.
Conference notes that as a consequence of this campaign there has been growing public awareness of the dangers faced by public service workers, and the introduction of some of new legislative and non-legislative measures such as the Emergency Workers Obstruction Act. However despite these measures:
1)levels of both physical and verbal assaults against public service staff remains unacceptably high;
2)successful prosecutions for such offences are far too low;
3)that many incidents aren’t even reported;
4)that despite UNISON’s excellent guidance on such matters many employers still do to little in terms of proper risk assessment to protect their staff;
5)that employers are often either too ignorant of, or unwilling to apply, the law, and subsequently fail to work adequately with the police and prosecuting authorities, in pursuing prosecutions;
6)that there is insufficient guidance for many public service workers on what the law says in terms of protecting them.
Conference calls upon the National Executive Council to:
a)continue to campaign for improvements in the law so that all public service workers are given the same level of protection;
b)produce guidance on what the law and relevant codes of practice say in all four countries of the United Kingdom, in terms of both physical and verbal assault.
c)rroduce a charter urging employers to:
i)work with the police in pursuing a robust policy of prosecuting those who assault public service workers;
ii)prevent future assaults by applying a vigorous approach to risk assessment;
iii)provide proper victim support when such incidents occur.
d)campaign for proper systems of reporting such incidents for all the public services, across the four countries of the United Kingdom.