- Conference
- 2026 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 15 October 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes:
That the rise in flexible and home working since the COVID-19 pandemic has benefited many workers, especially in administrative and office-based roles. However, staff in lower graded roles, often women, work in roles that cannot be done from home, such as cleaning, catering, and other frontline duties in schools, hospitals, and care settings.
Many employers now offer the flexibility to work from home when unwell but still capable of working (e.g. with mild illness or recovering from an injury), allowing sickness absence to be avoided. Many frontline staff are unfairly disadvantaged by this, as they do not have the same option and must report sick potentially impacting their attendance records and putting them at risk of capability procedures or disciplinary action. This creates a two-tier workforce, where the roles predominantly done by women from working-class and racially marginalised backgrounds are again undervalued and treated less favourably.
This is an equality issue that must be recognised and addressed by employers and UNISON. All staff should be treated fairly when it comes to sickness absence, regardless of their ability to work from home and women in lower graded roles should not be penalised or held to higher attendance standards simply because of the nature of their work.
We call on National Women’s Committee to:
1)Work with the NEC, service groups, and self-organised groups to campaign for fair and consistent sickness absence policies that account for the inability of some roles to be performed from home.
2)Develop guidance for branches to help them raise and challenge this issue with employers through collective bargaining.
3)Work with the NEC, service groups, self-organised groups and branches to call for a review of attendance and absence policies to ensure they are equality impact assessed.
4)Promote the value of frontline roles through UNISON campaigns and challenge the structural inequalities these workers face.
