- Conference
- 2018 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 27 September 2017
- Decision
- Carried
This Conference welcomes annual UNISON’s equality survey as a way of getting statistical information to support our equality bargaining agenda, and also organisational information.
This Conference notes that this year 248 young women members responded to the survey questionnaire, approximately 4% of all women members that participated. This proportion is in line with their representation in the union as a whole.
This Conference notes the statistic that 43% of young women said they would be more likely to get involved in UNISON than a year ago, more than double the figure for women overall (21%).
This Conference further notes that 36% of young women said one barrier to participation was not knowing what was involved, while just 17% of all women respondents cited that as a reason.
This Conference therefore believes it is important to make sure the work of women activists is promoted and celebrated more widely, along with a range of educational material about what kind of activity lay officers undertake.
This Conference calls on the National Women’s Committee to:
(i) seek to work with UNISON’s Learning and Organising Services team to review educational material about the role of activists and consider whether these can be adapted, or develop appropriate new material, that explains and promotes the work of our women activists.
(ii) seek to work with UNISON’s Communications team to examine how best the work of women activists can be shown and promoted across the union to encourage more women, and young women in particular, to take up activist roles.
This Conference also calls on the National Women’s Committee to invite a young woman activist to address conference 2019 about involving young women in UNISON’s work.