Conference notes the words of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, “Achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls is the unfinished business of our time, and the greatest human rights challenge in our world.” Conference believes that identifying, celebrating and increasing visibility of women’s achievements worldwide can help forge equality and combat gender bias, and […]
Conference motions
The overturning of Roe Vs Wade by the US Supreme Court is the biggest attack on abortion rights since the 1970s. There are over a dozen US states ready to bring in bans following this ruling. These bans won’t stop abortions. But they will stop safe abortions, and they will make it a crime to […]
Conference, UNISON has more than 1.3 million members and activists of which more than 70% are women. This means that there are over 9 hundred thousand women members scattered across the twelve regions and over 1000 branches. We know we have around 85 thousand young members, so if we use the same percentage of 70% […]
Conference notes that: Domestic abuse impacts on women in their workplace as well as their home. There is no timeline to abuse or location preference, this can happen anytime of the day at any place. Pre-pandemic the workplace was a key place and provided safety away from their perpetrator. Women have become even more vulnerable […]
UNISON is a growing union, and we seek to recruit members from all backgrounds across thousands of workplaces, despite this many branches have found it difficult to recruit and engage with members from Black communities there are barriers both external and within UNISON that also impact on black participation. Some of the barriers include: 1)Black […]
This conference believes that when members are employed by an organisation within the Charity and Voluntary sector, either on a zero-hours or permanent basis, they are put at a disadvantage when it comes to their working conditions, especially in relation to potentially losing out on pay and / or being marked down as off sick […]
This conference believes that we should campaign to stop the practice in the voluntary and charity sector of employers contacting their employees after work and should properly compensate their employees for overtime. We deplore that the 2020 Charity people salary survey found that employees working in the voluntary and charity sector found more people working […]
Conference notes that poverty wages and poor working condition are endemic in the care sector. It is only after initiatives such as UNISON’s Ethical Care Charter, our national campaigns on sick pay and staff shortages and the hard work and determination of many UNISON activists and senior branch representatives, that have continued to bring attention […]
Conference notes recent advice from the Metropolitan Police force that women should “run away” if they feel unsafe in the presence of a lone police officer in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard in March 2020. Not only is this advice discriminatory towards disabled women, but it also fails to address the root […]
Unison is committed to proportionality for women but the reality is that in many branches this does not happen. By the time women have done their jobs, looked after the children and their homes, checked on their elderly parents and helped with homework, there is little time to sit and map out what they need […]
Research suggests that there may be some variations for Black women in the average age at which the menopause takes place between women of different ethnic backgrounds. Some studies suggest that symptoms may be more prevalent and more severe for Black women, although research is not yet clear on the reasons for this. Black women […]
Our Women Members are our greatest asset Conference welcomes the election of Christina McAnea as the first woman General Secretary of a major trade union. Representing more than a million women working across the range of public services, UNISON with its commitment to lay democracy and proportionality and fair representation enshrined within our rule book […]
UNISON rules and guidance provides for the principles of proportionality and fair representation to be observed in UNISON elections and delegations. The UNISON rule book defines proportionality as the representation of women and men in fair proportion to the relevant number of female and male members comprising the electorate (2.14.2) The UNISON rule book defines […]
Conference welcomes the announcement by the UK government in July 2021 that it will introduce a new duty on employers to protect all their staff from sexual harassment at work and protections for workers harassed by clients or customers as well as colleagues. This announcement came as part of the government’s published response to the […]
This conference notes that the health, safety and wellbeing of workers providing services in the Water, Environment and Transport Sectors � as well as in the other more prominent sectors such as Health – has been paramount to UNISON during the COVID-19 pandemic, and will continue to be into the future. The Water Industry Sector […]