- Conference
- 2025 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 14 October 2024
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference recognises that UNISON recruits and seeks to support and organise migrant workers and that the most vulnerable of these workers are women, with a large percentage of these working in health and social care environments.
These members are being charged deductions for their accommodation and living costs which are not properly itemised on payslips, creating detrimental impacts on their finances and uncertainty of what the deduction are attributed to.
These can also create limitations to them being able to access affordable housing.
Members are often afraid to raise an issue for fear that they might lose their job and their right to residence.
Rapid staff turnover leads to difficulties with recruiting and organising these vulnerable workers who, usually, have no access to a tribunal as they have less than two years employment, often their employment depends on them being employed so a loss of employment could lead to a loss of residence.
Employers will continue to take advantage of the position until employees gain rights from day one, Meanwhile, the more training, knowledge, and awareness UNISON Women activists have, the better UNISON will be in supporting these members.
Conference calls on the National women’s committee
To work with other bodies of UNISON and other appropriate partners to identify members this affects and to support them as far as possible; and,
To work with Learning and Organising Services to make appropriate training available for all UNISON stewards to assist in supporting and representing these vulnerable members.