Category: 2023 year of Black Workers

UNISON prepares ‘robust response’ to government’s attempts to divide the health team

UNISON has reaffirmed its commitment to the One Team campaign for the health service, in the face of the government’s “divisive” actions during the NHS pay dispute, the national executive council (NEC) heard today.

Health members in England are currently voting on the government’s latest pay offer. The ballot closes at 3pm on Thursday 13 April. By the time delegates meet for the national health conference next week, results will be through and next steps will be debated.

In her NEC report, general secretary Christina McAnea said that, ahead of conference, the health service group executive had discussed the Westminster government’s commitment to the Royal College of Nurses to consider a separate pay spine in England ‘for nursing staff exclusively’.

“That’s obviously of huge concern to us,” she said. “The committee reaffirmed our union’s One Team values and agreed that any move to break up the Agenda for Change pay system in this way would present significant risks – including around equal pay – and cause unnecessary local tensions.

“The committee agreed to oversee development of a robust UNISON response, focusing on the measures actually needed to support proper pay and career progression for nursing staff, and highlighting the dangers of dismantling the harmonised pay spine.”

In associated work, Ms McAnea reported that the service group’s flagship healthcare assistant re-banding programme, ‘Pay Fair for Patient Care’, is going “from strength to strength,” with projects now active in every region.

And she noted the union’s launch of its National Care Service campaign, just one day after the government confirmed it was to halve its investment in the social care workforce. “The campaign couldn’t be more vital,” she said.

The NEC received updates on other pay campaigns across the union, including: the upcoming industrial action ballot for local government members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and consultation over a new offer in Scotland; a strike ballot in higher education; and upcoming strike action at the Environment Agency and CQC.

Council members took the opportunity to send messages of support to health members in Northern Ireland, whose strike actions recently brought the government to the negotiating table, and to the junior doctors of the British Medical Association (BMA), who are currently on strike.

Away from pay disputes, Ms McAnea told the council that UNISON has put the wheels in motion for a potential judicial review into the Home Office’s recent decision to renege on three commitments it made following the Windrush Review.

Home secretary Suella Braverman has confirmed that plans to strengthen the powers of the immigration watchdog, set up a new national migrants’ advocate, and run reconciliation events with Windrush families would all be scrapped.

Ms McAnea said that any action the union takes will depend on the responses it receives from the government to its objections, and further legal advice,

“We’re still investigating and trying to get more information. It seems appropriate given our long history of supporting people involved in Windrush, and [former general secretary] Dave Prentis’s personal involvement in this, that we as a union pursue this as far as we can.”

It was fitting that the NEC also approved the president and vice presidents’ award of UNISON honorary membership to Doreen and Neville Lawrence, the parents of Stephen Lawrence.

As president Andrea Egan told her colleagues, the honour reflected the Lawrences’ work for social justice and fight against discrimination in the UK, including their work on these issues with UNISON itself, and also marked the fact that 2023 is UNISON’s Year of Black Workers.

In other business, the NEC agreed to extend the union’s financial appeal – from regional to national – for the staff at the Orchard Day Nursery in Merseyside, who lost their jobs when the owners controversially closed the centre in March.

The article UNISON prepares ‘robust response’ to government’s attempts to divide the health team first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: Celebrating our Black LGBT+ activists

This month we lit up our UNISON Centre in Pride colours to celebrate all our LGBT+ members during LGBT+ History Month.

As this is UNISON’s year of Black workers, I also want to celebrate our Black LGBT+ activists, both from our past and present, who’ve led the way in the struggle for equality and LGBT+ rights both within UNISON and across the UK.

Rizwan Sheikh was a leading activist in lesbian and gay, and Black members groups. He became a senior activist in his region and then nationally. He was very proud to be the first Black co-chair of UNISON’s national lesbian and gay committee (as it was known at the time, now the LGBT+ national committee) and campaigned for supporting migrant workers in the Northern region.

Then there’s Bev Miller, our first ever lesbian chair of the national Black members’ committee and a tireless advocate for Black LGBT+ rights for many years in UNISON.

Dave Merchant’s activism on trans rights was pioneering. He was the first trans man to co-chair the national LGBT+ committee and drove the work on trans equality in workplaces and within UNISON itself.

Tim Roberts is now Eastern regional secretary, but he has always been an influential advocate for equality, whether it was on our national LGBT+ committee, or challenging racism and discrimination in the workplace. Tim led the way for UNISON to have continued representation at UK Black Pride.

We also can’t forget Ted Brown and Dirg Aaab-Richards, both national lesbian and gay committee members who led a successful campaign against media homophobia in the 1990s. They organised an advertising boycott of The Voice, until it issued an apology for a homophobic comment piece about Justin Fashanu and pledged to include positive coverage.

Another prominent activist at this time was Claire Andrews. She had big ideas about where we were going as a movement and what that meant for Black lesbians and gay men. She served on both the national lesbian and gay committee and Black members committee and ensured that there was space in both to debate their issues and set union policy.

Anyone that has been to LGBT+ conference over the years will know Paul Amann, who has been part of the LGBT+ standing orders committee for 20 years! Paul has led campaigns for LGBT+ refugees and was a strong advocate for LGBT+ rights at the Qatar World Cup. He was a vocal critic of the World Cup being held in a homophobic country.

These are just a small number of our activists that have made our LGBT+ Black history. To all our Black LGBT+ activists past and present, we thank you for your activism and for making our union what it is today.

The national LGBT+ committee’s Black caucus have created a quiz and presentation that can be used by UNISON members in their LGBT+ history month activities. You can find it here.

The article Blog: Celebrating our Black LGBT+ activists first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Universities need to ‘redouble their efforts’ to support disabled staff

Higher education delegates in Newcastle voted yesterday to build on the success of UNISON’s Year of Disabled Workers 2022, and continue to work to improve the experience of disabled members.

Sanchia Alasia of the national disabled members’ committee proposed a motion aimed at “securing the legacy” of the campaign’s achievements, “because disabled staff still face discrimination in our universities.”

The union used the Year of Disabled Workers to highlight the important contribution disabled members make to the union, to improve terms and conditions for disabled workers, including in higher education, and to campaign for improved rights for all disabled workers.

Ms Alasia told delegates: “We know that employers need to do more to address the barriers that disabled staff face, in being appointed into more senior level positions in our workplaces. They need to redouble their efforts to eliminate the different outcomes for staff by addressing these imbalances, robustly and sustainably.

“The majority of disabled staff in universities are concentrated in the lower grades in our workplaces. Even when they do progress, they reach a plateau and do not progress at the same rate as their non-disabled counterparts.

“We also need workplaces to investigate further the starting salaries of new staff who are appointed, to see whether there is a disparity between the salaries of disabled and non-disabled staff.”

The motion notes that it will take more than one year to tackle the “systemic and ingrained discrimination” against disabled people. It calls on the service group executive to work with the national disabled members’ committee to:

  • carry out an audit of HE branches that will assess:
    • where there is no agreed reasonable adjustment passport or policy
    • where there is no agreed paid disability leave policy
    • where there is no elected disabled members’ officer
  • implement a disability equality bargaining strategy, for the service group to address any such policy gaps;
  • publicise UNISON’s new online training for disabled members officers and contacts;
  • circulate the union’s new stewards guide to representing disabled members and guide to representing deaf members (British Sign language users) to activists in HE branches and workplaces.

While being urged to build on the work of one campaign, delegates were also urged to focus on a new one, UNISON’s Year of Black Workers 2023, which was launched last week.

“It’s really important that branches get engaged with this, and that you come up with your own initiatives,” assistant general secretary Jon Richards said.

“We want to improve the workplace for Black members, and we want to encourage new members to join and build a new cadre of activists – so we can better tackle workplace racism and ensure our Black members are fully supported in the workplace. So this is a really crucial year for us.”

The article Universities need to ‘redouble their efforts’ to support disabled staff first appeared on the UNISON National site.

The Year of Black Workers

This is UNISON’s Year of Black Workers.

UNISON has 185,000 Black members, most of whom work in health and local government services, with significant numbers working in social care and schools. Many deliver frontline services, and many are low paid.

UNISON national officer for race equality Margaret Greer said: “The Year of Black Workers will focus UNISON on the important issues that affect Black members and their everyday lives, with their lived experiences being central to our challenging racism in the workplace toolkit. This focus is vital in these testing times for race relations in the UK today.”

UNISON’s Year of Black Workers is underpinned by the desire of ‘establishing legacy to generate change’, and the national Black members committee hope to develop legacy campaigning work across several areas, including:

Ms Greer added: “My hope for this year is that UNISON can help increase the participation of Black members and activists and see tangible success, both in terms of UNISON structures and maximising the union’s capacity in the workplace and broader Black communities.”

In UNISON, ‘Black’ – with a capital B – is used to indicate people with a shared history. ‘Black’ is used in a broad political sense to describe people in the UK who have suffered from colonialism and enslavement in the past and continue to experience racism and diminished opportunities today. 

Download the Year of Black Workers leaflet here

The article The Year of Black Workers first appeared on the UNISON National site.