- Conference
- 2024 Energy Service Group Conference
- Date
- 23 February 2024
- Decision
- Carried
This conference recognises the critical importance of UNISON’s “Organising to Win’ national strategy that provides a vision of a stronger UNISON with a plan to increase member participation, build a bigger and more representative activist base, and achieve sustainable membership growth.
In the Energy Sector we need to strengthen the collective voice to protect the rights and interests of workers. Unionised workplaces strengthen workers’ rights and create fair and equitable working conditions, promote job security, and ensure a sustainable and just energy industry.
The current UK energy sector plays a vital role in powering our societies and economies. The drive to Net Zero needs to be underpinned by a strategy that ensures we organise across all areas of the sector including renewables.
Workers in this sector often face challenges such as precarious employment in smaller off shoot business not covered by the same pay, terms and conditions as the parent company, inadequate safety measures, and limited bargaining power. Union organising is a powerful tool to address these issues and empower workers to advocate for their rights.
Conference calls on the SGE to undertake the following:
To work with Branches, Regions, LAOS, and other appropriate parts of the union.
1. To deliver an ‘Organising to win’ recruitment and retention strategy that will grow the union across the energy service group, including the recruitment of new activists, health and safety reps, environmental reps and ULR’s.
2. Produce a service group annual organising plan to ensure sustainable growth in membership, participation, and activism in the service group.
3. Develop new techniques including digital organising to improve member retention.
4. Promote of the UNISON College and the role of Union Learner Representatives.
5. Engage with the national industrial action project to ensure best practice organising techniques are embedded in future strategies for winning national ballots and disputes.
6. Develop Branch guidance and training to align organising and bargaining at a local level to increase member terms and conditions and secure improved union facilities.
7. Promote Organising to Win best practice by encouraging all activists to access the new organising guides, webinar recordings, templates, and tools contained on the UNISON Organising Space.
8. Map the sector to identify all employers where we have members, capturing where we have recognition agreements for the purpose of Collective Bargaining and where we have no engagement with companies.
9. Explore the use of sector wide and / or employer specific BSOF bids to deliver increased recruitment and retention in the sector.