Black Well Being

Conference austerity is having a severe and negative effect not just on the pocket but also on the health and well being of UK citizens, especially Black people within their communities. With research showing an increase in job losses for Black members through reorganisations and restructures and some of these situations leading to an increase […]

Regional Collaboration

Many forces across the country will have an experience of shared service arrangements between forces sometimes know as collaboration. The North West is no exception to this but is concerned at the growth of collaboration arrangements that have, in our experience, proved to be an excuse for empire building and an opportunity to try and […]

Neighbourhood Policing Under Attack

Conference with further attacks on the police budget scheduled under the new Tory government over the next 5 years, we will see the concept of neighbourhood policing severely damaged and in some forces disappear completely. A recent report carried out by UNISON, the biggest union for police staff, shows that neighbourhood policing has taken more […]

Volunteers Vs Citizens in Policing

Conference welcomes UNISON’s Police & Justice report, “’Home Guard’ Of Police Support Volunteers To Fill In For Police Cuts”, published in October 2014, which shows the disparity between police forces in England and Cymru/Wales in their use of Police Support Volunteers (PSV), the roles they are asked to undertake and the extortionate cost of PSVs […]

REVIEW COMMUNICATIONS WITH RETIRED MEMBERS

Conference notes that communications between branch, regional and national levels remains unsatisfactory as far as UNISON retired members are concerned. Conference is also concerned that there has been a failure to produce updated literature on retired members matters such as the Branch Retired Members Secretary’s Handbook, the UNISON Code of Practice for Older People and […]

Following through on reasonable adjustments

Composite A Following through on reasonable adjustments (Motions 2 and 3, Amendments 2.1, 2.2 and 3.1) This Conference welcomes the continued support at Young Members’ Weekend for a meeting of disabled young members, a process by which those members can feed their issues into the National Young Members’ Forum work plan. This Conference notes that […]

Health and Wellbeing

Conference welcomes all initiatives to improve the health and wellbeing of our members, however there are concerns that need addressing as part of these initiatives namely: 1) Staff are unable to take the refreshment breaks they are entitled to during working hours. 2) Staff are not being paid for overtime worked and pressure is being […]

A SINGLE COMBINED FREE TRAVEL PASS FOR BUS AND RAI

The bus pass providing pensioners for free off peak bus travel in England and Wales has helped their mobility largely on a local basis. However, many pensioners find the cost of rail fares, even after using the 30% discount of a Senior Rail Card, an expensive hindrance to frequent visiting of friends and family across […]

Stress in the Workforce

Conference over recent years Police Staff numbers have declined drastically with the impact of the Austerity measures imposed by the Government. Since 2010 nearly 19% of the workforce has been cut- that equates to over 15,000 Police Staff and yet the work load has not reduced. It means less staff doing more work for the […]

ENCOURAGING DIVERSITY IN WOMEN’S COMMITTEE’S – BLACK WOMEN

In UNISON more than 70% of our total membership are women. UNISON is committed to fair representation and proportionality (Rule D4.1). However, we know in the public sector where many of our members are Black Women we see very few represented at Branch, Regional and Committee level; despite statistics nationally telling us that Black people […]

HIDDEN DISABILITIES

Conference notes with concern the issues faced by our Black members living with long term conditions and hidden disabilities such as Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) more common in Black women, Sarcoidosis and Sickle cell. The fact that these conditions are not obvious can cause members to have their complaints for sick leave and requests for […]

POLITICS AND BLACK COMMUNITIES

Black communities must reject the economic policies of the coalition government. Austerity cuts continue to significantly impact on Black people and we cannot sit back and see our basic human rights eroded due to the colour of our skin. Conference, too often the colour of your skin determines your life chances and Black communities continue […]

ROTHERHAM

Conference is appalled at the cases of grooming and sexual abuse in Rotherham. While we do not know the true scale the independent enquiry into Child sexual exploitation in Rotherham led by Alexis Jay gives a conservative estimate involving approximately 1400 children, adding: “It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that […]

BLACK LGBT ASYLUM SEEKERS

Conferences is concerned to hear that homosexuality is criminalised in 76 countries in the world, including 40 African countries, and society persecutes and discriminates against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans (LGBT) people in even more countries. In July 2011 it was reported that the Commonwealth Secretary General, Kamalesh Sharma had spoken out against discrimination towards […]

DEFINING BLACK

Conference, despite the work done by the National Black Members’ Committee in producing a definition of ‘Black’ in UNISON in 2013 there continues to be questions about using ‘Black’ when addressing Black members. We have also found that branches and Regions in the union continue to use other definitions when describing ‘Black’ members, such as […]