- Conference
- 2016 National LGBT Conference
- Date
- 23 September 2016
- Decision
- Carried
Conference welcomes the wealth of policy, good practice, advice and resources that we have built up over the past decades of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organising. These include much policy and good practice in organising, bargaining and campaigning on Black LGBT equality.
However, conference notes the continuing challenge of disseminating information and resources, leading to knowledge gaps and reinventing of wheels. Despite the vibrancy of our group there are still many LGBT UNISON members unaware of our self-organised group. Despite our strongly held values on challenging multiple discrimination and well-established national practice on fair representation, many local LGBT activities do not acknowledge or address the full diversity of our LGBT group, with Black LGBT members under-represented.
Conference acknowledges that there is not one simple solution to getting information to individual LGBT members, or to tackling the barriers to Black LGBT participation. However, equality impact assessment is a well-established tool for checking unintended consequences and identifying overlooked opportunities to embed equality.
Conference calls on the national LGBT committee, working with regional LGBT groups and our national caucus networks, to:
1)Review how information and materials are disseminated, looking at a range of formats and routes including social media, and identify new opportunities for effective communication with members;
2)Seek to embed equality impact assessment as part of the working practice of our self-organised group at all levels, so that Black LGBT equality is threaded through everything we do;
3)Collate best practice on encouraging Black LGBT participation, including examples of mentoring and peer support, and promote via Out in UNISON and at LGBT conference;
4)Continue to monitor fair representation in UNISON LGBT internal meetings and external delegations, urging regional and branch groups to do the same, and to act on the findings.