- Conference
- 2011 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 28 February 2011
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes the attack on women that is being instituted by the Tory-led government. Their first budget showed a disproportionate effect on women which was highlighted by the Fawcett Society. We are all aware that the public sector is being made to pay the price of the excesses of the banking and finance sector. Even Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, at TUC Congress 2010 stated that this was unfair.
Within the public sector sixty-five per cent of the workforce is women. Of all women who are working within the UK forty per cent are employed in the public sector.
With at least 400,000 jobs losses being estimated by the public sector these will have a disproportionate effect on women.
We have to mobilise our women members to fight these draconian attacks. This is an attack on women. We represent over one million women. Together we can and must put women at the front of leading on the fight against the attack on the public sector, not just as workers but as users of public services and as citizens, and for our communities dependent on the valuable services that we provide. These attacks are aimed at the most vulnerable in our society. At a time of recession the need for public services increases not decreases.
Our women members’ earnings are crucial to the finances of their families. The stress of facing possible redundancy puts a huge pressure on women members and their families. Do millionaires really understand the reality of everyday life for thousands of our women members? Indeed the situation is compounded by the attacks on the benefits system, restriction on school meals and access to Sure Start.
Along with cuts are attacks on equality. This government has already started to attack the strides that we have made in equalities over the years. This is particularly of concern to women members and we will have to fight to keep the concessions that we have gained.
The cuts will also impact on the 21,000 apprenticeships that the previous Labour government was introducing into the public sector. This will obviously impact upon the employment of young women into the public sector and potential young members for UNISON.
UNISON has been working with regional TUCs and other public sector trade unions to create public service alliances with local coalitions to campaign against the cuts. The local coalitions are excellent examples of UNISON women being at the forefront of campaigning against the cuts and being given a prominent profile. For example, the Northern Region Women’s Network is focusing on activism through leadership and encouraging and motivating women to get involved. This model should be embedded into our campaigning work within UNISON.
This should include producing training modules for delivery in branches on issues such as equalities, strategic campaigning, countering the cuts myths, managing job losses, health and wellbeing and work-life balance, and learning and development. Through this we hope to embed equality into our negotiating and bargaining agenda.
Conference calls upon the National Executive Council to work with the National Women’s Committee and appropriate UNISON departments to:
1)produce materials that will assist members to use Equality Impact Assessments to fight cuts in jobs and services including ensuring that Black women are not disproportionately impacted by the public sector cuts;
2)work with service groups to ensure that all redundancy advice includes gender as part of meaningful consultations with employers including direct and indirect impacts on women;
3)work with the service groups to ensure that work-life balance issues are addressed as part of the strategy to respond to the cuts including childcare arrangements;
4)monitor the impact of the cuts on low-paid women and encourage branches and regions to use this information to both recruit and organise these members to ensure that they are fairly represented in UNISON’s structures” in view of the difficulties being experienced in filling low-paid women’s seats and the untapped recruitment potential within this membership group.
5)monitor the impact of the cuts on low-paid women workers;
6)produce gender-specific materials that can be used to raise the disproportionate impact on women of government policies;
7)encourage branches and regions to provide leadership training for women;
8)work with UNISON’s Learning and Organising Services to produce a training model which would equip women activists with the necessary negotiating and bargaining skills;
9)ensure that the above actions be incorporated into UNISON’s Million Voices campaign and into UNISON’s Alternative Economic Strategy;
10)promote with our women members, leadership in local public sector alliances, or other trade union organisations, to rally support, including community groups and voluntary organisations.