- Conference
- 2024 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 11 October 2023
- Decision
- Carried
Affordable childcare facilities
Conference deplores the ongoing failure of Public Sector Services to engage with childcare issues, which are an increasing barrier to recruitment and retention in an overwhelmingly female workforce.
The lack of adequate pay increases set against a backdrop of the worst cost of living crisis in a generation means that childcare has become even less affordable for many women workers. We pay some of the highest childcare costs in the whole of Europe, second only to Switzerland where standards of living are considerably higher.
Conference notes that 998,000 (78%) women of our 1.3 million members were the majority of these women take on the responsibilities of childcare, and are now being forced into a position where it is no longer financially viable for them to continue to work. Providing affordable and reliable childcare could be a powerful aid to preventing more staff from leaving the public sector services.
Conference therefore calls on the National Women’s Committee to:
1)Embed claims for childcare provision into UNISON’s policy and ensure that this provision is also in the LAOS events.
2. Support branches to work with Public Sector Services to establish widespread provision of subsidised childcare and holiday play schemes.
3. Highlight and promote the benefits this would have for recruitment, retention, and staffing levels in our Public Sector Services.
4. Equip branches and regions with arguments and information to promote the benefits of direct provision of childcare for Public Sector Services with high quality and affordable. – stop the profiting of private childcare.
5. Work with Labour Link committee to get this prioritised on Labours Agenda.