Conference motions

Conference is appalled to note that, according to Home Office statistics, domestic violence accounts for one in six violent incidents as measured by the British Crime Survey, with 85% of those victims being women, and one in four victims having been assaulted three or more times. The government’s national domestic violence delivery plan highlighted action […]

Conference notes the great strides that UNISON has been able to make supporting disabled people’s rights to employment, goods, facilities and services by using the Disability Discrimination Act’s (DDA) provisions to challenge discriminatory actions. We also applaud UNISON’s commitment to promote equality within the union through its own equality scheme. More recently disabled people have […]

Conference regrets that in his March 2008 Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, again failed to increase the basic state pension to restore its value if the link to average earnings had not been broken by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. Pensioners should have an immediate rise now to restore the pension value and […]

This Conference believes that UNISON has in many ways led the way within the trade union movement on organising young workers, and UNISON’s Young Members show the key roles that young people can play. However there is still a great deal more work to do to ensure young people have their rightful place in society. […]

Conference welcomes the Human Rights Inquiry undertaken by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The inquiry: 1)Assessed progress towards the effectiveness and enjoyment of a culture of respect for human rights in Great Britain; and 2)Considered how the current human rights framework might best be developed and used to realise the vision of a society […]

Conference notes that some high profile media coverage of a 2008 employment tribunal judgment suggested that civil registrars were not obliged to carry out civil partnership ceremonies if that contravened their religious beliefs, despite the fact that employment tribunals do not set a legal precedent. The successful appeal against this ruling did not receive anything […]

Conference believes that the success of the government’s plan for a substantial expansion of apprenticeship schemes and places is dependent on schemes being introduced on a negotiated basis which provide high-quality training, with decent apprenticeship pay, and which do not seek to substitute for existing jobs. Conference also believes that such schemes offer the opportunity […]

Conference notes the right to seek asylum is an internationally agreed human right under the Refugee Convention of 1951, which Britain signed after the Second World War, promising to provide sanctuary to those fleeing political and other forms of persecution. Conference further notes that many asylum seekers in Britain are incorrectly labelled “economic migrants” or […]

Conference notes the continued marketisation of services across the public sector, primarily in England, which has already created a market for services worth more than £80 billion each year. This market is often driven by the pressure to make efficiency savings and cut costs which will be made worse as the effects of the credit […]

The United Kingdom has one of the worst rates of child poverty in the industrialised world. 3.9 nine million children (30%) are living in poverty. In the North West over a quarter of our children are living in poverty. In some of our communities in the North West, as many as 65 per cent of […]