- Conference
- 2022 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 22 February 2022
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes that UNISON membership surged in 2020 in response to government’s mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on vital public services and public service workers. However, as home working continued and workplace access remained restricted, UNISON’s workplace activity and visibility decreased. Following an initial surge in schools’ members in January 2021 rates of new joiners fell dramatically and the rate of leavers increased. Despite a positive national profile throughout the pandemic, UNISON’s membership decline persisted and 2021 ended in net membership decline of around 30,000.
In the context of continuing disruption and uncertainties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, UNISON faces major challenges including:
1)A declining membership poses a direct threat to current levels of resources, influence and effectiveness and has a detrimental impact on activist and member morale whilst a hostile national UK Government threatens further coercive legislative measures and new rounds of austerity;
2)Ongoing decline of Local Government direct employment and threats of further privatisation of our NHS leading to increased fragmentation and a growing proportion of public service workers employed in areas not covered by UNISON recognition and facility agreements;
3)Traditional physical workplaces are shrinking with an increase in hybrid and home working, precarious employment, and automation, moving many public service workers away from UNISON’s traditional branch and workplace organisation;
4)Large private public service employers such as social care providers and academy trust chains increasingly operate beyond and across UNISON branch and regional boundaries, with increased finance and remote overseas parent companies more hostile to UNISON aims and values and better able to withstand local workplace union campaigning activity.
Conference recognises UNISON’s unique strengths to address the challenges and to revitalise the organisation at all levels including:
a)A strong public profile with clear UNISON values and public service focus;
b)A well-established organisational base at workplace, branch, regional and national level including infrastructure and expertise in organising, campaigning and activist development from which to build and grow;
c)A long-held ambition to be an Organising Union with significant foundational work already achieved through investment in Meeting the Organising Challenge strategies;
d)The new Branch Support and Organising Fund (BSOF) which will build on best practice from the former fighting fund and regional pool;
e)Lessons from proactive initiatives developed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic for improved digital communication, campaigning and engagement, creating new opportunities for organising within fragmented and inaccessible workplaces and providing new opportunities for members from under-represented groups to participate in union activity.
UNISON is an organising union and seeks not merely to service its members but also to organise them: to recruit new members, to find and support new activists, to win recognition where we need to, and to go on to win real gains for members’ terms and conditions.
However, too often UNISON’s marketing of itself to its members presents the union as a servicing union, with emphasis on the ‘insurance’ of joining a union for individual protection.
Whilst Conference recognises the importance of supporting individual members with their personal issues in the workplace, we know that until members understand they are joining a collective and are prepared to participate in and develop that collective endeavour, UNISON will struggle to make major gains for workers and change the balance of power in the workplace.
Conference reaffirms UNISON’s commitment to:
i)Embed equalities, proportionality, fair representation, and participation in all aspects of UNISON organisation and activity as key to building our union density and effectiveness;
ii)Continue to strengthen the Organising Framework process, demonstrating partnership working between branch and union staff and ensuring adequate resources for organising activity and officer and activist succession planning;
iii)Proactively recruit and organise private and community sector public service workers with a view to securing union recognition and improved pay and conditions and encouraging members’ participation in UNISON structures and democracy;
iv)Research future growth in public services employment including social care and under-five’s education; followed up by adoption and roll out of whole union organising strategies for those sectors to tackle endemic worker exploitation, low pay and insecure employment in the predominantly female workforce;
v)Recruit more activists across the whole union, particularly from under-represented groups such as low paid women, Black and migrant workers;
vi)Welcome the establishment of a UNISON College to train and support new and existing activists and support wider access to member learning and activism;
vii)Support branches to defend and where necessary, expand the right to the facilities required for collective and individual representation;
viii)Continue the use of social media targeted at members and activists to share and signpost guidance and key information; Hold regular webinars, on key topics that will inform and reassure our members; Contact new members as soon as possible to welcome them and learn the key issues affecting them at work;
ix)Build on successful pilots using the Member Contact Tool (MCT) to contact new joiners and potential leavers to improve membership retention.
Conference calls on the National Executive Council to:
A)Develop a joined up national organising strategy with a clear vision for a stronger UNISON and a resourced plan to build workplace organisation, grow our activist base especially elected workplace representatives, increase member participation, and achieve sustainable membership growth;
B)Support and encourage internal solidarity between all parts of the union around the common goal to revitalise workplace activism and branch organisation, return membership to pre-2020 levels and re-establish sustainable membership growth;
C)Deliver increased standardisation of organising tools, templates, techniques, and training and embed organising best practice across the union;
D)Analyse staffing data of large employers with existing UNISON organisation, recognition, and facility agreements to establish UNISON densities and potential for infill membership recruitment and growth as well as recruitment of more activists;
E)Establish accurate organising benchmark data with regular and transparent reporting of progress against national and regional objectives;
F)Urge branches, where appropriate, to identify three employers in their branch where a campaign could be launched of recruitment and/or union recognition. This will be led by the branch with resources (labour, finance and time etc.) from the Region to ensure that where they have recruitment campaigns, they are linked to form objectives / improvements for our members;
G)Carry out a full and detailed review of UNISON’s marketing of itself to members. This review will utilise external expertise should that be necessary and will look at how other trade unions are dealing with this challenge in the twenty-first century. This review will include the following:
I)Tone of voice: do we sound like an organising trade union at all times?;
II)Newsletters and the advertising they carry;
III)Do our members read literature and what do they take away from them?;
IV)Application forms and membership leaflets;
V)Websites and social media;
VI)Emails and texts;
VII)Materials to recruit reps to accurately reflect devolution arrangements where appropriate.
This review should include opportunities for branches to feed in their views at the outset, and to monitor and comment on progress as it develops. It must also include significant opportunities for the self-organised groups and equality groups to input: we need UNISON’s marketing to work for all our members if we are to move successfully in marketing ourselves from a servicing outlook to an organising outlook.
Conference calls on the National Executive Council to implement this review over the next twelve months.