- Conference
- 2016 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 1 January 2016
- Decision
- Carried
Conference celebrates the fact the since the birth of UNISON self-organisation has had an essential and continuing role in the development and participation of Black, Women, Disabled people and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender members. However, many of UNISON branches do not have their own local Self Organised Group (SOGs).
One of the barriers to setting up a group can be that only one or two members from a particular branch may be interested in participating. In these circumstances it can be beneficial for a number of branches in geographic area to come together and support a “cluster” SOG open to any relevant member. Conference applauds the work of Black activists in both Suffolk and Norfolk who have established county wide SOGs open to any member regardless of service group.
Some branch SOG Officers are not given enough support and development and struggle with setting up and maintaining a branch group. Conference therefore applauds the Eastern Region for running a residential training weekend for SOG Officers.
UNISON’s membership database does not have monitoring information on a large number of its members. UNISON’s membership forms do not ask members to self-identify in these areas with the exception of ethnicity. However, this means that branches find it harder to send targeted information about self -organisation for any particular SOG and thus struggle to maintain SOGs or even set them up.
Conference also believes it is also important to examine alternative organising approaches for Young Members.
Conference therefore instructs the National Executive Council to:
1)Send every branch secretary and regional SOG Committee and Young Members Forum guidance on alternative ways to support branch self organisation;
2)Promote SOG and Young Member Officer training in each region;
3)Consider how branches can be supported to encourage more members’ to declare their ethnicity and other SOG monitoring information, and use ‘MyUNISON’ to update the RMS;
4)Ensure that swift progress is made towards enabling members to identify whether they identify as disabled via ‘MyUNISON’ and for branches to register this through WARMS;
5)Work with each National SOG Committee and Young Members Forum, in partnership with Regional SOG Committees and Young Members Forums, to report annually on branch self-organisation within each region and report progress to branches.
