Celebrate the Bus! Help Keep the Bus Pass

“Conference congratulates the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Midlands Region Pensioners’ Network on its ‘bus tour’ of the Midlands between 7th and 21st April this year to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme. Working with a range of local partners who included retired members of at least thirteen UNISON branches […]

National Insurance

The National Insurance scheme as established in 1948 to provide unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, retirement pension and various other benefits to employees and pensioners in the UK. Employed people who have not reached state retirement pension age and their employers contribute to the scheme through @National Insurance Contributions’ (NICs), which are based on a percentage […]

POST OFFICE CARD ACCOUNT

This conference instructs the National Retired Members’ Committee (NRMC) and calls upon the National Executive Council (NEC) to raise awareness, by any means at their disposal, to the pending threat of the removal of the Post Office Card Account (POCA). This account is used by thousands of pensioners and less able people as a safe […]

Older People and Loneliness

This conference calls on the National Retired Members’ Committee (NRMC) and requests the National Executive Council (NEC) to liaise with other agencies to raise awareness of loneliness and its affects in particular, on older people. Loneliness often comes about as a result of the lack of transport in rural areas together with the lack of […]

Intergenerational Commission

This conference rejects the proposals contained in the Resolution Foundation think tank’s report of the intergenerational Commission, chaired by Lord David Willetts (nicknamed Two Brains), titled “A New Generational Contract”. Conference further rejects the myth of generational unfairness on which the report is founded, and which masks the fact that the real unfairness is based […]

WINDRUSH

Conference is appalled at the Windrush scandal and the treatment of too many of the British citizens affected. In particular Conference is concerned for the many retired people and pensioners caught up in this controversy whose status and rights as British citizens have been erroneously called into question. Conference recalls that Caribbean people were invited […]

Bullying of Black workers in the workplace

This Conference notes historical evidence from the TUC has shown that Black workers are reluctant to use the employer’s policies that are put in place to protect them and fear the ramifications as a result of reporting instances of bullying and discrimination. In a UNISON survey from 2009, the evidence revealed that Black women employees […]

Black pupils exclusion from schools.

Conference recognises that Black Caribbean pupils are significantly more likely to be permanently excluded from schools three times more likely than white pupils. Black pupils are routinely punished more harshly, praised less, told off more often and more likely than white pupils to be identified as having behaviour related to educational needs. Black pupils are […]

Career progression of Black workers

This conference believes that the level of career progression of Black workers is very low in most work places and is imperative that this is addressed. The Equality Act 2010 states that we should have equal opportunities for all. Conference believes that all Black workers should be supported, enabled and valued to progress into senior […]

Homeless Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) asylum seekers

Conference notes the continuing national housing crisis and the exponential rise in homelessness. Conference welcomes the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 which extends the previous 28 day period for ‘threatened homelessness’ to 56 days and makes clear that a valid Section 21 notice (Housing Act 1988) also constitutes being ‘threatened with homelessness’. For […]

Challenging hate crime and supporting victims

Conference is deeply concerned that there has been significant rise in hate crime cases in the UK. Hate crime of any kind, directed against any community, race or religion has absolutely no place in our society. Our diverse communities thrive precisely because of the rich co-existence of people of different backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities and […]

Unfair immigration policy

Conference believes the current immigration process leads to unfavourable treatment of Black workers who do not have full legal rights to reside in the UK. They face a large number of issues including: 1) Application Fees : The basic ILR (Indefinite leave to remain in UK – permanent stay) fee of £1875 per applicant is […]

Building on the success of the London Mayoral Election

This National Black Members Conference notes that whilst Jeremy Corbyn and Labour did not win the General Election on 8 June 2017 they far exceeded expectation and substantially damaged Theresa May and the Tories ambitions of a Tory overall majority. Labour won 40 percent of the vote nationally. This was due to an inspiring manifesto, […]

Blood donation

The National Health Service (NHS) Blood donation and Transplant reported that Black people make up just 2.7 percent of active blood donors, despite representing 10.4 percent of England’s population. Blood donation is required from all communities and ethnic backgrounds to meet the needs of all patients in England and North Wales now and in the […]

Zero hours and Black workers

In recent news it has reported that the number of unemployment has hit a record low. What these statistics do not report is that a large proportion of this is because of the increase in zero hours contracts. Employers have increasingly been turning to zero hours contracts as part of the general attack on staff […]