- Conference
- 2010 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 18 July 2009
- Decision
- Carried
No-one is more aware than the Black Members of the biggest public services union in the UK that the proportion of our customers from Black and minority ethnic communities is rising exponentially.
Consequently, increasing numbers of those interfacing with statutory and other agencies are unable to communicate in English, and are dependent on the services of an interpreter. Some of our Members provide these services; across health and social care, housing, Immigration and Border Control and the Police, and many other sectors.
Conference, we believe that the working lives of this army of communite activateurs is currently enduring a number of obstacles, which inhibit the exercise of their duties, cause distress and leave the customer poorly served. These, largely unrecognised, issues include:
·Pressure to adopt a more supportive role than purely interpreting;
·Unnecessarily short notice/unsociable hours, because it is ‘known’ they won’t refuse;
·Parking difficulties for emergency and protracted interpreting session;
·Arranging/rearranging care for family members;
·Late payments.
We call on the National Black Members Committee (NBMC) to work with the National Executive Committee (NEC), Service Group Executive Committees (SGE’s) notably Health, Local Government, and Voluntary Sectors, Labour Link, and Regional Groups to illustrate effective negotiation on behalf of our Members in areas such as:
1.Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) particularly in areas where only ad-hoc arrangements currently exist;
2.To empower and support activists to expand the obligations and supportive conditions itemised on existing contracts;
3.To produce guidelines on how to negotiate Equality-based procurement for translating and interpreting services;
4.To encourage the use of Equality Impact and Needs Assessment tools prior to contract design;
5. To highlight the good practice guidelines arising from 1-4 above, and practical advice around the achievement thereof in UNISON newsletters.