- Conference
- 2024 National Community Conference and Seminar
- Date
- 22 September 2023
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that the workforce in the community sector especially in the social care sector is overwhelmingly female.
The additional pressures on women working in the community sector, especially low paid women have seen almost 3 in 5 of these women experience poor mental health where work is a contributing factor. However, for Black women in this sector, it’s almost one in two.
Conference notes that community service group workers are also having to deal with various other stressors such as huge workloads, under-investment, zero-hours contracts and low pay as inflation rises while governments across the UK hold down wages.
All these factors can have a detrimental effect on mental health, especially on women with disabilities and Black women.
Conference notes the work done by UNISON in highlighting the impact of poor mental health and in providing educational materials to assist branches in ensuring that organisations treat mental health with the seriousness it deserves, with procedures that protect staff in general and maximise the assistance given to workers experiencing mental health problems in particular.
The National Women’s Committee believes that the community service group committee has a key role to play in improving mental health of women working in the community sector.
Conference calls on the Community Service Group Executive to:
1. Work with the National women’s Committee to campaign for mentally healthy workplaces where women can thrive;
2. Promote UNISON’s guide to bargaining on mental health to women members working in the community sector, branch and regional women’s officers and self-organised groups;
3. Encourage branches to train workplace representatives to negotiate robust mental health work place policies to address the situation.
