- Conference
- 2024 National Retired Members Conference
- Date
- 4 June 2024
- Decision
- Carried
This UNISON Retired Members Conference is concerned that there appears to be a decrease in UNISON members retiring from paid employment, who are seeking to join as Retired Members. This experience has been reported from quite a number of branches recently.
This Conference realises that this may be due to one or more of the following reasons: –
a)Members are working full or part time to a much older age than in the past.
b)Members have been homeworking and/or online working and have lost their contact with their Branch and local networks.
c)Representatives/ Stewards don’t see members as frequently and are not aware members are retiring.
d)Due to GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) information about members leaving can no longer passed to the Branch by employers.
e)Members weigh up the benefit that they might get and don’t think it is worthwhile,
or:-
f. Members are not interested in continuing trade union membership into retirement.
The Conference believes that Retired Members are an important part of this union and value them and believe that members should be encouraged to retain their membership of UNISON and of the Trade Union movement generally.
This Conference calls upon the Retired Members National Committee to-
i)Seek ways of carrying out research into this issue to provide verification or otherwise around these issues and report back to our next Annual Conference.
ii)Liaise with the NEC (National Executive Committee) to seek support to ensure that national publicity covers articles about the advantages of membership to retired members, particularly when circulating other information to members.
iii)Liaise with the NEC to seek support to ensure that the Stewards/Branch Representatives’ training delivered across the United Kingdom, covers the availability of continued membership and benefits (legal advice, support, ongoing activities etc.) when dealing with issues such as redundancy, pensions information, redundancy situations etc. with members who may be considering leaving employment.
CWMRU/WALES RETIRED MEMBERS COMMITTEE