Fair representation for Disabled Members in UNISON

Conference is concerned about the level of discrimination currently faced by disabled people. Cuts to public services, welfare reform, changes to health and social care, reductions in disabled students allowances and bedroom tax have all targeted disabled people. To fight this campaign against disabled people, disabled people need to be politically and societally active. We […]

Social Care Workforce

Conference notes with concern that community, health and local government social workers have long been vilified in the media when things go wrong. Individual social workers have seen their careers destroyed when they have been held to account for the failures of the employer to fund the service properly. Portrayal of social workers in television […]

Challenging Growing Inequality

For the past 30 years the economic philosophy has been that wealth would ‘trickle down’ to working people, and it has also been argued that austerity was necessary to build a future for subsequent generations and lift living standards. The reality has been that ordinary people have not seen the quality jobs and higher living […]

Tackling vulnerable employment and casualisation

Conference is deeply concerned that job insecurity, in-work poverty and workplace exploitation have become the hallmarks of the so-called economic recovery in the UK. While the growth of zero hours contracts has rightly attracted the public’s attention, they are only the tip of the ice berg. The proliferation of short hour contracts, false-self employment and […]

Campaigning for our public services and those that provide them

Conference notes the decisive role that UNISON must continue to play in campaigning for effective public services that embody the values of a good society – care and compassion, dignity and respect, fairness and equal treatment, accountability and the public good. Conference further notes that the context in which we must campaign is characterised by […]

Meeting the training needs of UNISON activists in challenging times

The challenges facing the trade union movement in relation to developing and training activists have rarely been as difficult as they are now, yet the need to ensure our representatives are confident and skilled is greater than ever. Last year the coalition government announced that full funding for trade union education at level 3 and […]

Domestic violence, a gendered issue

Conference notes that research from the home office has shown that nearly 90% of severe and repeated domestic violence is experienced by women. The Home Office report on domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking (findings from the British Crime Survey) reported that “women are the overwhelming majority of the most heavily abused group. Among people […]

Equality Facility Time

At the Discrimination Law Conference in January 2014 Professor Sir Bob Hepple QC said that “if a new government enacts only one new piece of equality legislation it should be to require equality representatives at workplaces” – such representatives would require a legal right to time off to “be involved in drawing up and enforcing […]

Care of older people

Conference supports integrating health and social care services providing the principal aim of doing so is to improve the quality of services particularly for older people. Conference believes that services can only be successfully integrated if social care is made, like health, free at the point of need. Conference therefore welcomes: 1)The Labour Party’s policy […]

Solidarity with Palestine

Conference hopes that a lasting ceasefire between the Israeli Government and Palestinian Organisations can be established, but recognises that this will not happen or be sufficient unless the illegal siege and occupation are ended. UNISON welcomes Palestinian attempts to establish a unity government and urges the UK Government and the EU to support and encourage […]

Living Wage for All

Conference is disturbed to hear, that despite the introduction of the minimum wage in 1999 by a Labour Government, some employers in the care sector both in the community and private sectors are still paying their staff a pittance. Working in a care home or looking after the most vulnerable people in our society in […]

Terms and Conditions in the Community and Voluntary Sector

Conference notes with concern the insecurity facing workers in the community and voluntary sector, many of whom are low paid women workers. Many voluntary sector organisations provide services via contracts from local government and health authorities, and cuts in public spending are inevitably impacting on the funding of these services and therefore on our members. […]