Conference notes the findings of UNISON’s report “Expendable Labour” published in November 2023 that found widespread and distressing exploitation of migrant workers in the social care sector. The report found workers exploited by care employers and left exposed by a government that should be protecting them. Given inadequate training, living in poor conditions and threatened […]
Conference motions
Conference knows that stress and mental health problems are commonplace in many modern workplaces, including in colleges. Stress makes people nearly three times as likely to leave their jobs, temporarily impairs strategic thinking and dulls creative abilities. In the 2023 UNISON Keeping in Touch survey, members reported that their number one concern was stress and […]
Conference notes that the real value of pay in Further Education (FE) colleges has fallen dramatically by around 35% in recent years. Workloads have increased dramatically as staff numbers in FE colleges have decreased and like much of the public sector FE staff are having to do more for less. Conference also notes that UNISON’s […]
Conference notes ongoing endeavours by HM Government to manoeuvre the LGPS to serve its own political objectives. This goes back to October 2016 when the then chancellor, George Osborne told the Conservative Party conference of his intentions in relation to the LGPS and this included his aspiration that the LGPS invests in the nation’s infrastructure. […]
Conference is appalled at the ongoing funding crisis in local government, which is now resulting in an existential threat to the future of many councils across the UK. Conference condemns the actions of successive Conservative Governments over the last decade that has resulted in local authorities facing an existential crisis. For years, UNISON and the […]
Equal pay is nothing new, in 1910 Mary Macarthur led the women chain makers of Cradley Heath to victory in their fight for a living wage by leading a strike to force the employers to implement the rise. In 1968 a group of women workers followed suit at the Ford factory in Dagenham which led […]
Conference notes that with the roll out of auto-enrolment pensions since 2013, more than three-quarters of current workers are now contributing to a workplace pension. Conference notes with concern that with the closure of most good quality defined benefit (DB) pension schemes in the commercial private sector, only a quarter of current workers are members […]
Conference notes that 2024 is UNISON’s Year of LGBT+ Workers and welcomes the opportunity that this provides to promote UNISON as the union for LGBT+ workers in local government, raise awareness of LGBT+ rights, challenge discrimination, negotiate LGBT+ inclusive policies and recruit and activate LGBT+ members in the service group. The year highlights the important […]
Conference notes that UNISON is the largest union for school support staff – representing over 250,000 members across the UK. Conference believes: 1) That the government’s real terms cuts to school funding have led to a crisis in education. 2) That this crisis was starkly demonstrated by the dire warnings from the Department for Education […]
This union/conference notes: – 1)The Conservative Government introduced Children’s Trusts as a means of outsourcing control of children’s social care from local authorities. 2)There is no evidence to show that removing children’s social care from democratic local authority control automatically improves services. 3)One early trust, Doncaster, has returned to local authority control. 4)That the establishment […]
Conference notes with concern the continuing under-representation and muting of women’s voices, particularly working-class women’s voices, across many sections of society, from politics to the arts to the workplace. Conference believes that if we want the role of women in any campaign to be remembered, we need to be the ones that tell that story. […]
Despite The Equal Pay Act coming into force over 50 years ago, there remains a persistent gender pay gap in workplaces across the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. According for the Office for National Statistics (ONS), median hourly pay for full-time employees was 8.3% less for women than for men in April 2022, while median […]
Conference In the past 3 years over three million people have turned to illegal money lenders (loan Sharks) and as the cost of living continues to bite into 2024. An extra 1 million vulnerable people and families are expected to turn to illegal lenders as the safe high street lenders turn them away due to […]
UNISON is a union that strongly believes in equality, diversity and inclusion. We recruit and encourage activism from members of all backgrounds and our self-organisation structure is recognised as an example of good practice. We work hard to promote the rights of disabled people and are proud of everything we have achieved. We estimate that […]
2023 was designated by Unison as the year of the Black worker. Conference, it was an incredible year to be part of both as members and as Black female activists. On a national level at the Delegates and other national conferences, many events and initiatives celebrated this, including fringe and the Black members events. Having […]