Conference notes with concern the economic hardship public service cuts will have on women. Sixty five per cent of public sector workers are women and almost a quarter of working women are in public sector jobs. Women are also the greatest users of public services. With one in five women acting as carers for adult […]
Conference motions
All political parties in the run up to the General Election had campaigns around fairness and equalities and the importance of family. As soon as the ConDem Government came into power they could not wait to introduce measures that had a disproportionate impact on women. Particularly in their sights on universal benefits such as child […]
This conference is delighted to see the resurgence of a feminist movement that is gaining media attention and that is campaigning on a broad range of women’s issues. Young feminists are organising conferences and summer schools to raise awareness of feminist principles, and building coalitions to successfully campaign on specific and general issues. These groups […]
Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in women in the UK, affecting around six thousand and eight hundred women. It is the highest gynaecological killer of women in the UK and the fourth most common cause of death from cancer in women, with two out of every three cases of ovarian cancer being […]
Conference applauds the UNISON campaign to Defend Your School. The schools workforce is predominately female, with women part-time workers outnumbering part-time male staff by ten to one. The majority of these women will be in low paid jobs – as teaching assistants, schools meals staff, admin and clerical staff etc. Now, government proposals for the […]
In 1945 the UK national debt was 215% of GDP – however the government chose to invest in public services and we saw the creation of the national health service. In April 2010, the UK national debt was 71% of GDP, and yet the coalition government has used this as an excuse to try and […]
Conference notes with concern the government’s “big society” proposals. Whilst conference agrees that volunteers provide valuable support for many third sector organisations, they cannot and should not be replacing staff in properly financed and resourced public services. A UNISON report in 2009 found that massive cuts in funding were affecting the ability of community and […]
Conference is disappointed to note the failure of the Equality Act 2010 to address some of the fundamental inequalities in our society, at a time when public services are under attack, budgets are being cut, services are being outsourced and pay frozen. Conference further notes that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is facing an […]
The Women Chainmakers’ Festival is held in September at the Black Country Museum in Dudley West Midlands. This festival is held to celebrate the victory of the women chainmakers who in 1910 challenged their employers to pay them fairly. Led by Mary Macarthur four hundred women of which three hundred were union members staged a […]
This Conference is proud of the reputation that UNISON has on International work. In the Greater London Region, the Regional Women’s Committee (RWC) has been developing links with the Nicaraguan Communal Movement (NCM), through the Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign, and in 2010 co-sponsored the development of a social project for the improvement in living conditions for […]
Conference notes the report “Apprenticeships and gender” produced by the TUC and YWCA England and Wales in October 2010. Conference is concerned that the report finds that “although the problems of occupational segregation, gender stereotyping, poor careers advice, low pay and lack of progression for women in the apprenticeships system is well documented and well […]
Conference believes that young women are amongst those most likely to suffer as a consequence of the damaging policies being pursued by the Con-Dem Government. Conference also believes that: 1)the job losses predicted by the Treasury of up to 600,000 jobs in the public sector and up to 700,000 in the private sector will have […]
Conference notes with alarm that each summer hundreds of girls and boys, largely from South Asian communities in Derby, Nottingham, Huddersfield, Leicester, Oldham, Hounslow in London, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Bradford and Leeds travel with their families to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh where they are forced into marriages. A marriage where they are coerced into marrying someone […]
This Conference is concerned at the increasing levels of the artificial portrayal of women in the media. It is recognised this has a disproportionate impact on women and young girls. This can undermine the self esteem of these women and young girls when they are unable to obtain this artificial standard leading to increasing levels […]
A larger proportion of women than men have no pension provision for the future although the Government proposes to introduce the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) for those whose employers do not have pension plans. A compulsory system that only the lowest paid will be able to contract out of this will still be unsuitable […]