- Conference
- 2011 Retired Members' Conference
- Date
- 10 June 2011
- Decision
- Carried
Conference recognises the different role and contribution of retired members to their working counterparts and accepts that their involvement in UNISON is more limited. However Conference believes that many retired members still have much to offer the union and that their preclusion from almost all aspects of its work is not necessarily in UNISON’s best interest. In particular retired members should be permitted greater involvement in UNISON’s Self-Organised Groups (SOG’s).
Whilst accepting that retired members should not be involved in basic trade union work around pay and conditions for working members, retired members continue to be women, disabled, black and/or LGBT and therefore issues that affect each of these groups also affect retired women, disabled , black and LGBT members and we should therefore still be able to participate in Self-Organisation within the union including involvement in Regional SOGs and attending SOG conference.
Conference believes that retired members should be entitled to send regional delegates to the SOG conferences in the same way that the regional SOG committees send delegates to their respective conferences and that consideration should therefore be given to sending no more than two delegates per region to each SOG conferences.
Conference therefore instructs the National Retired Members’ Committee to liaise with the National Executive Committee and the National SOG committees to discuss ways in which this may be achieved, including where necessary the submission of appropriate rule amendments, and to report back to Retired Members’ Conference in 2012.