Sick Pay

This conference notes the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) findings that for the fifth year running, over 30% of employers have reported an increase in staff going into work whilst unwell. UNISON’s Community members’ survey found that 85% of members had gone into work ill in the last two years. This conference welcomes […]

Violence at work

This conference notes that there is widespread under reporting of violence in the workplace and believes that in many social care workplaces it is wrongly accepted as part of the job. Commissioners are cutting funding, and placing service users with high needs in homes designed for those with lower needs. This particularly affects services provided […]

Funding of Social Care in Community

The social care sector plays a vital role in Community. Not only are there over 320,000 workers employed in social care within the charity sector, but many more are employed by housing associations. Therefore the crisis in social care funding has a particularly far reaching and negative impact on members within Community. This substantial reduction […]

Violence at Work

This Conference notes the sterling work done by UNISON Scotland in: • surveying violence at work over a twelve year period • campaigning for Zero Tolerance of all workplace assaults; and, • securing the Emergency Workers (Scotland) act 2005 which gives key public sector workers added legal protection Conference notes that this detailed recording of […]

Higher Education as a Service Group

Conference notes that: 1)The Higher Education (HE) Service Group is one of the seven service groups of UNISON. (The website quotes “Higher education – including teaching and support staff” 2)Members of HE within UNISON have a proud record of sharing experiences and learning the lessons of victories and defeats, despite some historic differences between pre […]

Reinvigorating Recruitment through Positive Policies on Free Education

Conference notes that: 1)The recent Labour leadership campaign, as a result of Jeremy Corbyn’s inclusion in the ballot and overwhelming victory, provided fresh opportunities for the labour movement and progressive forces to debate the way forward. 2)Central to the Corbyn campaign was a commitment to free education and abolition of higher education tuition fees. 3)This, […]

Fair treatment for workers in the community and voluntary sector

Conference notes with concern the growth of poor working practices in the community and voluntary sector. Increasingly the sector is providing support for those who the statutory agencies are unable to help, or where there is no government/local authority priority or duty to provide care. However, cuts in funding – both from government sources and […]

Low pay in the community sector

Conference notes with concern that cuts to local authority budgets are impacting on the salaries of our members in the community sector. This is particularly a problem in the care sector, where the majority of employees are low paid women. There is evidence that, in some cases, the terms offered by commissioners are so low […]

Voter Registration – Don’t let Students lose their Voice

Conference notes the following: 1)That the previous coalition government passed the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, which made provision for Individual Electoral Registration (IER). This will replace the previous electoral registration system, whereby one person was responsible for registering the entire household. 2)That the Tory government elected in May 2015 intends to pursue boundary […]

Don’t Do A Clegg!

Conference has long stood against the tuition fee model in higher education which has been used to marketise our workplaces, eroding terms and conditions, whilst unfairly burdening millions of young people with extraordinary debt. Conference notes that, as well as tuition fees being set to continue at £9,000 per year, and rise with inflation, the […]

Student workers

Conference is concerned at an apparently growing trend for universities to employ students in roles which are traditionally occupied by low paid women workers – jobs in cleaning, catering and clerical work. Conference is aware that many students are forced to work to support themselves and supplement their student loans. However, these jobs are often […]