The Importance of Branch Magazines in Water, Environment & Transport Branches

This WET Conference, 2017 notes that the United Utilities branch produces a regular magazine entitled U3 which assists the visibility of UNISON in the many geographically spread workplaces and in turn, the retention of existing and recruitment of current non-members. Other branches in the WET Service Group could benefit from producing their own versions specific […]

Water, Environment & Transport Conference Health & Safety Event 2018

This Water, Environment & Transport Conference notes the success of the WET H&S event of 2016 and past events and calls on the WET Executive in conjunction with UNISON’s H&S unit to organise a similar event in 2018, noting that our Service Group has some of the riskiest occupations within our membership of the whole […]

Local government and the cuts

Conference notes: 1) The major changes taking place in the role of local government; 2) That central government funding for local government has been in steep decline since the beginning of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2010, and that local government has taken the brunt of the policies of public sector ‘austerity’ […]

Workplace mental health in local government

Conference believes that mental ill-health among the local government workforce is a huge and growing concern. A culture of long hours working, bullying, harassment and abuse is commonplace among local authority staff, with three quarters reporting consequent rising stress levels and declining morale. Meanwhile growing levels of sickness absence, with no cover due to cuts […]