This conference notes that increasing pressure is being placed on households to communicate and gather vital information, and to carry out transactions such as buying licences and paying bills, via the internet. Conference is aware that there are very many current and retired women public service workers, on very low incomes for whom the purchase […]
Conference motions
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 […]
The coalition government’s emergency budget claimed to be fair, but cuts in jobs and wages, and changes to benefits and taxes, will impact hardest on women – particularly low paid women and their families: 1)Sixty five per cent of public sector workers are women, and almost a quarter of working women are in public sector […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
With the General Election over and a Con Dem Coalition in Government, the proposed cuts to public services will have a dramatic effect on the lives of women. Statistics show that many women do not use their vote and do not feel that casting their vote is important. In May 2011 the local elections will […]
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 […]
REMOVAL OF ADDITIONAL ALLOWANCES/ENHANCEMENTS AND ITS EFFECT ON LOW PAID AND PART-TIME WOMEN WORKERS
Conference is alarmed at Birmingham City Council’s threat to remove additional allowances, night shift enhance pay, car allowances and entitlement of meals which forms part of the employees terms and condition of employment, the most effected will be low paid and part time female workers as well as Black female workers who depend on this […]