Fraud and the elderly

Conference notes with concern the ‘BBC 5 Live Investigates’ report on fraud broadcast in September 2018 stating that fraudsters scammed nearly 49,000 older people across the UK in the past year, equivalent to almost six reports every hour. Furthermore the total number of reports has nearly doubled in the past 3 years and one expert […]

Austerity – Defending living standards for older p

Conference recalls how concerned we were last year about the Intergenerational Commission’s final report published in April 2018. Conference notes, now, that the report’s publication has foreshadowed a series of further attacks on older people’s entitlements and standards of living including: 1) The Taxpayers’ Alliance’s report, Pensions Inequality, issued in August 2018 calling for an […]

Cuba

UNISON applauds the achievement by the people of Cuba in liberating their country and sustaining it as a beacon of socialism over the last 60 years – with remarkable achievements in health, education and culture – in the face of massive oppression by powerful northern neighbour the USA and other reactionary forces. The Cuban revolution […]

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

Conference notes that #MeToo has transformed the debate around sexual harassment and has enabled women and men to come forward. with cases being reported in the media more than ever before. Conference acknowledges that anyone at any time can experience sexual harassment, but the statistics demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of victims are women. Conference […]

Menopause and the Workplace

Conference notes that around 3.5 million women aged fifty years and over are currently in employment in the UK. Conference notes further that the employment rate for women in the UK has actually increased in the past few decades and women now represent nearly half of the UK labour force. This means that many more […]

Celebrate the concessionary bus pass and the bus

A recent report in the Journal of Transport and Health by Dr Sarah Jackson, highlighted important benefits for older people who use a concessionary bus pass: a) Older people who use a concessionary bus pass tend to be more happy and physically active; b) They are also less likely to be socially isolated when they […]

Tackling Stress, Bullying and Harassment

Conference understands the huge scale of harm being caused to members by work-related stress, including wrecked lives and relationships, debilitating mental and physical illness and sometimes, tragically, death. Such misery is often compounded by the insensitive treatment of victims by some employers who, far from acknowledging their own responsibility for causing excessive workplace stress, seek […]