UNISON makes sure everybody has a voice in the union. Our 'self-organised groups' include those who are traditionally under represented, while young and retired members also come together to work on key issues affecting them. See SOGS below
Photo below (left to right) Stef; Linda; Saba and Suzanne at the National Womens Conference.
National Women Conference Report February 2009
Thursday 19th February
The delegation set off from Bradford at 10h30 am and after a smooth journey on the motorway we were stock for over an hour in Omskirk so the journey took longer than we thought but we finally made it to Southport. We checked in without a Problem and grab a sandwich on our way to conference.
The Chair of the National Women committee Katrina Murray open conference and after that or President Sue Highton gave a speech about how she has seen the changes in the Women conference over the years, and she stated that today the debates are livelier than they used to be.
Jane Allam from the Standing Order Committee presented the report which was carried as well as the Annual Report (both are available at Branch).
Conference than started to carry the business and carried motions unti16h45, after that the delegation split to attend the various work shop.
Please find reports from the work shop
ISA Work Shop
I attended the work shop about Independent Safeguard Authority Scheme (ISA), which will be implemented later in October this year. Things seem to be different depending which sector you work in. In Health this seems to be straight forward but in Local Authority this might concerns more people than the one working in Adult and Children Services, it will affect people working in Sport and Leisure. The National Officer stated that the Guidance is unclear and we found out that some authority don’t want to pay the fee of the registration fee.
Saba-Gabrielle Moussa Women SOG’s Chair; Convenor & Branch Officer
Domestic Abuse and Women's Health Service Interventions Seminar.
I attended the above seminar on the first evening of conference. The seminar began with a 10 minute presentation on the work undertaken by a domestic violence unit that had been created in Liverpool on the Wirral. The unit is the first in the country and works with a large number of partners such as the police, GP's, hospitals, the local authority, women's hostels etc to deal with and address the issues surrounding domestic violence.
The partners meet regularly at MARAC meetings, (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference) where they exchange information on both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence. The partners look at ways to assist victims such as re-locating, re-housing even as far as inducing the birth of their babies to avoid partners etc loitering round local hospitals.
Statistics are kept and every incident report to the police is logged. The increasing cases of domestic violence are causing concerns to all the partners and they are looking to other authorities to set up similar partnerships.
The women's self organised group will be looking to our authority to see what provisions we have in place for victims or domestic violence.
Linda Crowther Branch Secretary
Women’s Pension
If you read any of the feed backs from the seminars, you must read this one.
You as a female member of Unison are one in a million women who make up the 1.3 million members of Unison. By the year 2011 the Government want 3.5 – 4 million people enrolled in a Government pension scheme, females are going to be compelled to save for their pensions.
But what does this mean bearing in mind that only 11% of the trustees in pension funds are female, they are therefore grossly underrepresented in pensions, put this another way 89% of trustees are men!
The money collected from, our donation to our pension is invested in stock markets and will buy company shares and their debts. The Occupational Pension Scheme was brilliant when it was first envisaged in the post WWII years in the Welfare State. It lifted many generations out of poverty and the ‘Work House’. It is considered to be our greatest achievement.
Unfortunately as females we are not very knowledgeable about pensions. For instance did you know that the total pension assets were 37 trillion US Dollars, we are Capitalists and we own this capital! The largest pension scheme is the Californian Local Government Pension Scheme at 1.75 Trillion Dollars. The Local Government Pension Scheme has £120 Billion assets – 20% of the World’s economy is therefore controlled by us. If we are therefore owners of this capital, how can we gain more control of the money that we pay in?
We should try to get more transparency by asking the awkward questions. Where is our money going? How often is the pension company reviewed? Who has governance in the pension scheme? Does your pension scheme invest in arms? We should lobby companies who invest in inhuman regimes.
Billions of our money has been used to bail out various banks etc making many peoples’ lives a misery. So ask the question where does our money go?
Stefnie Krzyszczyk Health & Safety Officer& Steward
UNISONS EQUALITY REPS PROJECT
This is going to be a new project for Unison. There is a pilot scheme ongoing at the moment with three different regions and it is hoped that from September 2009 there will be training for an Equality Representative in every branch. Unfortunately there is no facility time allowed for this new post as yet but negotiations are taking place.
AIMS FOR EQUALITY REPRESENTATIVES:
I found the meeting to be very interesting and informative and we finished off the meeting with a ‘True or False Game’. A good time had by all!!!
Susan Sagar Secretary of the Women Self Organised Group
At 18h45 we had our regional meeting where guidance regarding the business was given to the delegation.
Friday 19th February
Conference opened at 9h30 and Karen Smales Yorkshire & Humberside regional Chair, chaired the morning session.
Jean Allam presented the Standing Order Committee Report which was carried and we carried out motion.
We had a presentation from Hanna Siddiqui Coordinator of the Southall Black Sister Project, who works with BME women to fight against domestic violence, arranged marriages. Last year the project lost its funding and Hanna told us about her fight to deliver the service, they took their local Authority to Court and won.
We heard some very emotive speeches on the motion regarding domestic violence; some of the speaker for the motion to be carried showed to courage to talk about their personal experience, a standing ovation from the floor was given the Lady.
We carried more motion and broke for Lunch.
The after noon Session, open by carrying motion while we were waiting for Dave Prentiss the General Secretary to arrive, but Motion 14: Equality Means: make it happened was carried but the amendment recommended was lost. The motion talks about some funding for equality scheme.
Dave opened its speech by stating that UNISON has the biggest Women Conference in the world, and told us that this conference is very close to his heart because when appointed as General Secretary this where he did his first speech. He then told to us about his experience of the Obama’s Campaign and how the Black Men & Trade Union mobilised the Country to vote for the changes “Yes they can”. US workers are no different from the Brits and the whole experience has changed Dave’s perspective on how we can achieve as a Union. He stated we are in recession and by the end of the year 3 millions of people will be employed mostly women And young people we as union need to act. The crisis of the financial industry left members poor and decisions were made by a few men leaving the majority dry.
UNISON is about fighting to defend jobs, negotiating redundancy packages; TUPE transfer to the private sector; shared services and fight for workers. UNISON is campaigning for affordable Housing, and against the BNP. There is no place for racist bigot in our council and in our union.
Equal Pay, Dave said that we were a big union and we needed to fight, women achieve more today, the minimum wage needed to be increased.
The equality Bill needed to be driven, the learning agenda needed to develop more. Our Union couldn’t be static but needed to change by bringing the area organisers and all together we would develop a vision for our union: Social Justice/ Democracy and Solidarities are values that we need to expand until we come out of recession.
After this inspiring speech we carried our business conference closed 17h30.
Saturday 20th February
We had opened remarked from Katrina Murray our chair of National Women Committee.
Jean Allam gave us the Standing Order Report and cracked on to finish the outstanding business remaining on the agenda.
We had one vote card on Motion 21 put by the London region, who wanted conference to be moved on ½ terms to allow their delegation to attend. The debate took place the NEC was to oppose and the motion was opposed. On the ground that we cannot cater for every body and not every region have the period of time of for ½ terms.
96 votes for the motion to carried / 130 votes to oppose
The other motion which was lively debated was motion 36 regarding the voting. The motion was lost because conference felt that the motion should be better written, and the general feeling was that it should be re-written and re-submitted next year.
And the last motion that the NEC wanted us to support but the conference opposed was motion 42, which was about the dead line that Branches and region have to question in writing the reports from the national committee. Conference would prefer to have a session where they could ask directly to the committee the questions.
Conference closed at 1pm with Katrina’s speech as she won’t be our Chair next year. The conference managed to achieve its entire agenda.
For all people interested all the documentation regarding the motions passed and lost are available at the Branch Thanks.
And those who would like to take part to the Women Self Organised Group please Contact either me or the Branch.
Saba-Gabrielle Moussa
Chair of Women Self-Organised Group
Culture@bradfordunison.org.uk
01274 432291
Why not check out this quiz (download here) - This file is a word document.
Email your answers to the Branch Admin@bradfordunison.org.uk.
If you would like to apply for this event please download and complete this application form
UNISON 2009 National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Members Conference.
My name is Richard Locke and I am a General Manager working within Facilities Management for Bradford Council.
I have been a member of Unison since September 2009 and was delighted to hear I had been accepted as a visitor at this years Conference.
I arrived with Tony Sykes on Friday afternoon at the hotel and soon turned around to attend the first meeting at Cardiff City Hall which was the Regional Meeting. The two Chairs made me feel very welcome and whilst most of the information given related to how the Conference would run It was interesting to note that I was not the only first timer there. In the early evening I attended the Local Government meeting, the largest of the Service Groups. It was particularly re assuring that there were so many LGBT members in attendance and whilst I had little knowledge or opinion on some of the issues raised, I found it interesting and positive that some many people wanted to be represented in this service group.
After the meetings had ended there was a small reception with various speakers welcoming everyone to the Conference.
Saturday was a full day of speakers, motions debated and voted in agreement. Sitting at the rear of the Assembly Hall made me feel a little excluded from the proceedings, however, should I have the opportunity to attend again in the future I would like to be a voting delegate.
A number of motions were discussed such as pension rights for civil partnerships. This issue will affect me and it was enlightening that someone had actually researched this subject and was so knowledgeable about pension rights. I was glad that he had raised this as an issue which was supported throughout the hall.
The Equality Bill is another motion debated. My knowledge of this legislation was and still is pretty limited but the heartfelt speeches and commitment by delegates to make positive choices and changes have left me feeling the need and desire to find out more.
In the afternoon I attended a discussion group. I chose LGBT mental health and wellbeing. The subject is something I have first hand experience of as I have worked in mental health establishments and I live with a psychiatric nurse. The statistics presented were shocking to me and very interesting despite the research had only been considered for the Welsh region and not for the UK. Stress, anxiety and self harming were words banded around in discussion which I felt saddened to hear that my brothers and sisters were victims of these conditions which can be so hard to resolve in one’s life without good support structures in place and potentially the need for medication. It was particularly heart wrenching when two delegates spoke of the discrimination they had experienced in their mental health issues. This made me realise that whilst my life has not been a straight road I have many synergies with some many people on so many levels that I have never considered previously. As an out gay man in a civil partnership we do not frequent the scene or other gay events and therefore I feel I have missed out on sharing and understanding so much, the needs of others who are LGBT. This weekend has started to change my perception and armed me with knowledge and experiences I never thought imaginable.
Further motions were then debated. Blood donation and the possible consequences of being outed for not giving blood at work. I feel im in the fortunate position that I am out - albeit for the last 15 years. Again I had great realization after listening to the experiences of others and the conviction in their voices made me want to be part of this support network even more to help make positive changes to people who identify as LGBT.
Due to the far out location of our hotel we did not attend the social event in the evening.
Sunday morning saw the final day of the conference.
I was particularly enthused by the group debate regarding the BMP. Sadly, due to time it was cut short.
It was very moving to see people speaking so passionately on different motions, particularly one guy who stood up to speak on male rape. My heart went out to him when he became totally overwhelmed and was unable to speak at all. Another guy spoke how proud he was that he had just come out after more than 40 years and had also found God. I found these testimonials quite moving as I could relate to many issues from my own life experiences.
Having never had a strong political view point, I have come away from this Conference feeling a little stronger and more confident in knowing exactly what shifts in political power I don’t want for my future and that of other LBGT people. The message needs to be out there and needs to be loud and I would welcome the opportunity to take my part in this.
I have always had the desire and belief to have equality in every part of life and therefore I would be keen to follow the path of an Equality Representative, in addition, I am a manager of a large and diverse team and have always been enthusiastic about the learning and development of myself and others to make a stronger team. In that regard, I have an interest in becoming a Learner Rep. As previously mentioned I am new to Unison and therefore I would like to receive further information and guidance on these roles in order to make a sound decision for myself and to how I may have some impact on helping others in greater need.
Richard Locke
24 November 2009.
UNISON Regional Disabled Members. Yorkshire & Humberside.
Report from– Doncaster races
30th May 2009 click here for full story.
The Branch has an active Retired Members Section with a Constitution and Annually elected officers. A wide range of activities are provided both social and political. There are monthly meetings during the winter months at Shipley Library with a variety of interesting speakers and tea and biscuits. In summer the meetings are replaced with a series of trips to different locations and an annual five day holiday is organised. There is a walking group which meets monthly for a walk of around five miles and followed by an optional pub lunch. We also have an annual Christmas Lunch which is a very popular event. All the above revolve around a monthly newsletter which also keeps you up to date with pensioner matters.
We play a full part in pensioner campaigning being affiliated to the Bradford Older Peoples Alliance, the Yorkshire and Humber Pensioners Convention and the National Pensioners Convention. We are also represented on the Unison Regional Retired Members Committee. We send delegates to the National Retired Members Annual Conference and the Pensioners Parliament.
We do charge a nominal membership of £2 per annum or you can choose to become a life member with a maximum fee of £25 depending on your age when joining.
For further details about the Retired Members Section you can contact the Secretary or Treasurer whose details are given below. A membership application form can be down loaded from the website or obtained from the Branch Office.
Secretary: Patricia Grogan, 11, Leeds Road, Eccleshill, Bradford BD2 3BA. Tel: 01274 639677 E-mail: patricia@patriciagrogan7.orangehome.co.uk
Treasurer: Peter Meer, Peremar, 10, Bramham Road, Bingley BD16 4HP
Tel: 01274 561004 E-mail: petermeer@btinternet.com
Newsletters
September 2009 | July 2009 | May 2009 | March 2009 | January 2009 | December 2008 |
November 2008 | October 2008 | September 2008 | August 2008 | July 2008 | June 2008 | May 2008 | April 2008 | March 2008 | February 2008 | January 2008
Disabled Members
Disabled people experience discrimination at work. UNISON challenges discriminatory actions and campaigns for a fair deal for disabled members.
Women
UNISON has almost one million women members - more than two thirds of our union. Women still earn a lot less than men and face sex discrimination and harassment at work. Our members also juggle work and home commitments. This is why UNISON takes a lead on negotiating and campaigning on women's rights at work and in the community.
Black Members
Black members in UNISON play a key role in winning equality in the workplace,
actively challenge racism wherever it is found, and are at the forefront of UNISON's organising work. As black members in UNISON we work together to win positive change in the workplace. The more of us that are actively involved the stronger we become.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are still denied equality in the workplace - too often we face discrimination and harassment instead of a fair deal. Joining UNISON gives you a voice in Britain's biggest union, which is committed to working for LGBT rights.
