- Conference
- 2013 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 25 February 2013
- Decision
- Carried
Conference welcomes the major recruitment drive whose aim has been to strengthen the union in order to defend better our member’s interests and campaign even more effectively in defence of public services.
Conference believes that the next stage of this work must be to step up the union’s work to bring more members into active membership in order to build sustainable workplace organisation.
Conference also believes that for young members in particular, this means not only undertaking ‘like-recruits-like’ exercises in the workplace, and seeking to identify potential activists and leaders, but looking to the potential sources of our membership and future activists and leadership amongst young people who have not yet started their working lives.
Conference notes that UNISON has already done good work in building relationships with organisations that include potential members, e.g. the National Union of Students (NUS) – notably the joint campaigning on the Living Wage; and the British Youth Council (BYC) – which is supporting the union’s campaign to stop Police privatisation, and also offers opportunities to reach out to young people with a positive message about trade unions.
Conference further notes the widespread use of the TUC’s ‘Unions Into Schools’ online resource for teachers and activists – and which was developed with the full support of UNISON – that is used to teach young people about the role, history and achievements of trade unions.
Conference therefore calls on the National Executive Council to:
1)support further building of the union’s outreach work to young people, and especially with the aim of recruiting those such as students pursuing courses designed to lead to work in the public services;
2)build on our existing relationships through identifying joint campaigning activities with youth organisations;
3)consider what joint work may be done with youth organisations to raise UNISON membership and develop sustainable workplace organisation.