Conference notes the campaigns for a National Care Service in each of the 4 nations and UNISON’s support, in principle, for such a proposal. Local government in Scotland, Wales and England and that any proposals for a National Care Service should respect and build upon this. Conference notes that social care is essentially a community-based […]
Conference motions
Conference notes that everything is going up fast – 12 percent now but forecasts of upwards to 22 percent. However, the pay of many UNISON members has been effectively frozen for almost 12 years. We can’t make ends meet! We have a cost of living crisis because of the decisions made by political leaders and […]
Conference notes that one of UNISON’s main aims is, as per UNISON’s rule book, “to seek to ensure equality of treatment and fair representation for all members and to work for the elimination of discrimination on grounds of race, gender, sexuality, gender identity, disability, age or creed”. To achieve this, UNISON seeks for branches to […]
Conference believes that, due to years of under-funding and cuts from the Westminster government, local government across the UK is in grave danger. Extensive UNISON research from last autumn revealed that councils across the UK were facing a funding shortfall of £3.2bn in 2023/24 and a cumulative funding gap of £5.3bn for 2024/25. A small […]
Conference notes that health inequalities in the UK, that were already unacceptably large, have intensified in recent years. Conference notes that one of the most measurable demonstration of such inequalities is the “social gradient in health” which outlines differences in life expectancy for different groups of people. For example, women living in the least-deprived 10 […]
Conference notes that the government’s new Health and Social Care Act introduced Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) into 42 areas of England, which became fully operational in July 2022. Under the act, former Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) have been absorbed into the ICSs – specifically into their boards (ICBs). Each ICB will take on the commissioning […]
Conference welcomes the good work UNISON is leading in Wales in partnership with the Welsh government and other unions to address the long term crisis in social care and recognises developments here have enormous potential to influence how care is delivered across the UK. UNISON’s campaigning resulted in Wales TUC and Welsh Labour’s adoption of […]
Conference notes that following a period of membership decline in early 2021, UNISON fought back in the latter half of 2022 to achieve net membership growth. Record recruitment of over 180,000 new members was 30 percent above 2021 levels and exceeded even the highest surges of joiners during the 2020 Covid pandemic peak. Membership growth […]
Conference is alarmed at the new Strikes (Minimum Services Levels) Bill for Great Britain which further attacks the right to strike and with draw your labour in this country. Conference believes that the right to strike is a fundamental human right and needs to be exercised now to win better wages and conditions in the […]
Conference recognises the need for change in social care. The current system values neither staff or service users. It creates a low paid workforce and fails to recognise the skills required for the high quality social care that our most vulnerable citizens deserve. The current system across the UK enables and promotes a market approach […]
Conference is concerned that the findings of a Parliamentary Work and Pension’s Committee which completed in July 2021 are being disregarded by the Tory government. The committee were clear that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) national programme for supporting disabled people is not working and that local level support is needed to break […]
Conference notes that the Conservative government has declared their intention to replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with a new Bill of Rights which they introduced to parliament on 22nd June 2022. The Bill of Rights would repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA), which directly incorporated into domestic British law rights set out in the […]
Conference welcomes progress made by UNISON over many years in campaigning and negotiating for equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender plus (LGBT+) people both in work and in society. Despite these advances, many transgender people still experience serious abuse and discrimination on a daily basis, including in their workplaces. A disproportionate number of trans […]
Conferences notes the cost of living crisis which will disproportionately impact on disabled people. Even before the pandemic, disability related expenses or the ‘disability price tag’ was on average £583 extra per month compare to non-disabled people, according to the 2019 Scope Disability Price Tag report. One in five faced extra costs of more than […]
Conference notes that drug and alcohol addiction can happen to anyone. Disabled and Deaf people can also become addicted to drugs and alcohol. However, for many Deaf people who become addicted, there is nowhere to turn for help. The services that exist are already overstretched and underfunded, but added to this they are very unlikely […]