- Conference
- 2022 National Disabled Members' Conference
- Date
- 27 June 2022
- Decision
- Carried
Conference applauds UNISON’s National Delegate Conference [NDC], which recently unequivocally re-asserted the union’s commitment to Fair Representation.
Rule D5.2 of the UNISON Rulebook observes that self-organisation assists the union:
Promote the union’s equalities and bargaining agenda
Defend jobs, terms and conditions and services
Build its density and have a strong and dynamic presence in the workplace.
Conference re-affirms we are a union that prides itself on pioneering an equalities agenda, the principles of proportionality and fair representation, and creating a self-organised structure.
However, developing arrangements in some areas may undermine the union’s self-organised approach to Equalities. This includes for example:
The Branch Support and Organising Fund Guidance that fails to give disabled members a voice in regional funding decision-making processes, which undermines the principle of fair representation.
The disparity across regions in relation to funding allocation and the initial funding proposal that prevented disabled members Self-Organised Groups access funding autonomously.
Proposals in some regions to create Equality Liaison Groups in such a manner that may undermine the present self-organised structure, dilute the distinctiveness of self-organised groups, and pull self-organisation under a generic equalities umbrella.
Conference is aware that combined these reflect the undermining of UNISON’s approach to self-organisation, whether intentional or not.
Conference observes that the union’s present approach to self-organisation has served us well, aligning to an equalities agenda but led by self-identity that recognises the distinctiveness of each strand in terms of the issues, concerns and interests affecting that membership while supportive of the principle of intersectionality in common areas of interest or concern. Conference views any step to change this as regressive.
Conference instructs the National Disabled Members Committee to:
1.Re-affirm its support to self-organisation through the current existing constituted structures.
2. Collate feedback from each regional self-organised disabled members’ committee on current practice within their respective areas in relation to their funding, organising, and governance structure and to produce a report prior to UNISON’s next NDC in June 2023, for circulation to each regional self-organised disabled members’ committee.
3. Discuss the issue with UNISON’s other self-organised national committees and produce a summary report prior to UNISON’s next NDC in June 2023, for circulation to the NDMC in order that it may consider the findings and that its regional representatives may report back to their regions.