- Conference
- 2016 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 24 September 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes with some distress that despite the UNISON ruling which allows for the creation of Black members self organised groups, protected seats at the highest lay member level, fairness and proportionality rules for conference and numerous motions which promote the increased involvement of Black members throughout our structures, many Black members continue to report difficulty in accessing opportunities to attend NDC, lack of support for them to be included at Branch level and a lack of visibility in their regional structures. IN 2014 NBMC a motion was passed which asked for the increased involvement of Black women and yet National women’s conference 2015 reports that only 8% of delegates as Black compared to 12.4% in 2014. Black member participation can be inconsistent, in 2015 despite an overall increased attendance of delegates, the second largest region North West had only 35 delegates attend the National Black Members Conference and had a low attendance of Black women to its regional conference.
Conference, there must be more that we can do, our union prides itself on the full inclusion of all our members, the statistics seem to reveal that Black member participation could benefit from additional support and encouragement, specific initiatives perhaps such as training in self esteem, self confidence and mentoring to name but a few, each branch and region will have its different experience and would be able to identify what work there is to do, but we know that Black members would benefit from the support of all its structures to progress.
Conference therefore requests that:
1)NBMC explores the issue of barriers to involvement of Black members at branch and regional level across self organisation and service groups with a view to creating guidance for greater Black member inclusion in branches and regions
2)that recognising the extensive work which is already regularly done, NBMC sets a clear directive to create a set of actions to respond to the statistics around member participation, considering the setting of useful targets in order to promote and incentivise action
3)to provide a league table with national statistics with regard to Black member involvement across all its conferences and that this be supplied to Regional Groups to be able to work on with the involvement of its Regional Black member SOG.