- Conference
- 2011 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 21 October 2010
- Decision
- Carried
This National Women’s Conference notes the attack on women that is being instituted by the ConDem 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 Six hundred thousand job loses being estimated by the public sector these will have a disproportionate effect on women.
During the General Election campaign, David Cameron stated on Newsnight that the North East was over dependent on public sector employment. One in three jobs in the North East are in the public service. Forty six per cent of working women in the North East work in the public sector. Sixty seven per cent of those working in the public sector are women. The North East has never recovered our manufacturing base since Thatcher’s decimation of our heavy industry. The North East already has one of the highest levels of unemployment in the country with nine per cent and it is anticipated that the cuts will take this to one in ten being unemployed. The slash and burn policy of the ConDem’s will have a massive impact on women members in the North East and the rest of the country. The vast majority of workers in the public sector are women. It is anticipated that there will be approximately thirty thousand public sector job losses in the North East alone.
This Women’s Conference has to speak up for our women members. 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 benefit system, restriction on school meals and access to Sure Start.
Along with the 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 twenty one thousand apprenticeships that the previous Labour Government was introducing into the public sector. This will obviously impact on the employment of young women into the public sector and potential young members for UNISON.
Within the Northern Region, UNISON has been working with Northern TUC and other public sector trade unions to create the Public Service Alliance 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. 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.
In support of the work Northern Region has done to mobilise members around the cuts and efficiencies, with the assistance of our Regional Education Officer, we have produced training modules for delivery in branches on issues such as equalities, strategic campaigning, countering the cuts myths, managing job loss, health and wellbeing and work life balance, and learning and development. Through this we hope to embed equality into our negotiating and bargaining agenda. Other regions are urged to take similar initiatives.
This Women’s Conference instructs the National Women’s Committee to:
1)Produce materials that will assist women members to use Equality impact Assessments to fight cuts in jobs and services including ensuring that ethnic women are not disproportionality impacted by the public sector cuts;
2)To work with service groups to ensure that no compulsory redundancy advice includes gender as part of meaningful consultations with employers including direct and indirect impacts on women;
3)To 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 members;
5)Produce women specific materials that can be used to raise the disproportionate impact on women of Government policies;
6)Encourage branches and regions to provide leadership training for women
7)To 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;
8)That the above actions be incorporated into UNISON’s Million Voices campaign and into the UNISON’s Alternative Economic Strategy; and
9)To 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.