Privatisation/Outsourcing and the Equality Duty

Conference is aware this Government is eroding the public sector by privatisation and outsourcing. The Post Office; East Coast Mainline; a third of recent NHS contracts; and more recently, over half of the Probation Service, all moving into private hands, not only will this lead to poorer service provision, it will also have a negative […]

Additional impact of learning difficulties on Mental Health

Conference 2014 acknowledged the particular mental health concerns for disabled LGBT people and agreed an action plan to start to address this. Conferences notes the additional impact that being diagnosed with a learning difficulty or disability can have upon our mental health. People who are not aware of their specific learning difficulty or disability or […]

Coming Out to get Facility Time

Conference will note that participation in self organisation is integral to the core work and values of UNISON. Yet activists are increasingly reporting that employers are cutting back on facility time and questioning the purpose of the meeting. Activists are feeling pressurised into disclosing their disability, sexual orientation or gender identity when they may have […]

Concessionary travel passes.

Conference notes the benefits that access to public transport, such as buses, trains and coaches, can bring to many disabled people. Concessionary Passes enable this access but the conditions applicable vary across different nations of the United Kingdom. Also currently, passes issued in one country cannot be used in another. Conference believes that there would […]

The fight for fair sickness absence procedures and ‘Disability Leave’

This Conference notes with concern the election of a ‘Tory’ Government with a majority in Parliament and believes that this will signal a worsening of the rights and the likely employability of disabled people. The Conservatives have indicated their contempt for Industrial Tribunals and are not supportive of any restrictions on employers in their dealings […]

Guidance on rights for disabled workers

This Conference believes that many disabled workers are unaware of their rights as disabled employees. This Conference also believes that without awareness of rights, such rights cannot be pursued, and become endangered through lack of use. This Conference further believes that (i) it is important that information about disabled workers rights be available in a […]

Amendment to SO3, 3.3.4

Delete para 3.3.4 and insert new 3.3.4 ‘If there is no other delegate to move the motion, then the motion and any amendments to it, falls. If there is no other delegate to move the amendment, then the amendment, falls.’

Sharer Delegates to Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Conference

Conference notes that each UNISON Branch is entitled to send 10 Delegates to Conference. Conference further notes that this lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) conference is unable to send sharer delegates to our conference? This branch believes that this restricts participation in our self-organised group. This is due to that fact that every delegation’s […]

Amendment to SO6, 6.1

After ‘National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Committee.’ INSERT ‘Or any other member of the National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Committee as delegated and agreed by the Co-chairs of the National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Committee.’

National Bargaining

Conference notes the Passenger Transport Forum (PTF) replaced the Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) with effect from 1st August 2005. The purpose of the consultative element of the PTF is to provide a joint Employer/Trade Union Forum committed to partnership working in order to consider the Human Resources implication of public transport issues, while the negotiating […]

Stop the destruction of SYPTE

South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (SYPTE), has, in the last few years lost dozens of members of staff, encouraged to leave via SYPTE’s Voluntary Redundancy scheme, redundancies or merely by the none replacement leavers – many of these job losses have been amongst UNISON members. This policy of slashing services to the public will this […]

Encouraging Diversity in WET Committees

In UNISON around 12% of our total membership identify as Black. UNISON is committed to fair representation and proportionality (Rule D4.1). However we know in the WET sector we do not see enough Black members represented at branch, regional and national committee level despite statistics telling us that Black people are still amongst those most […]

Tackling Biphobia in the WET Industries

Conference welcomes the progress we have made in putting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality on the bargaining agenda in the water, environment and transport (WET) industries. However, conference notes that LGBT workers are a diverse group, who experience different types of discrimination in different ways. There is increasing understanding that issues facing transgender […]

Raising the profile of LGBT workplace equality in WET

Conference welcomes the strong track record of our water, environment and transport (WET) service group on equality issues. Amongst other successes, this has resulted in a diversity of activists on our national WET service group bodies, reflecting UNISON’s rules on fair representation and proportionality. Conference acknowledges the importance of such role models and the contribution […]

TTIP and the Water Industry

Although most water companies in the UK are already foreign owned this is not the case of Scottish Water and Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water). As such they have been protected from predatory takeovers. The Transatlantic Trade Treaty (TTIP) whilst being potentially dangerous to many sectors has declared a definite interest in opening up the European […]