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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 30, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 30, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 30, 2018
After the union was officially recognised as the UK’s biggest (have we mentioned that already?), November – or Grovember, as we renamed it – saw everyone at UNISON energised around boosting membership to make us “stronger together”.
Activists everywhere hit the floor running, signing up new members around the regions. Stalls were staged, floors walked and dogs nominated as Grovember mascots – well, one called Oscar (pictured above) was – and all in all, it was a rip-roaring success.
LGBT conference met in Harrogate, where delegates unanimously backed a call to change the group name to be LGBT+ to increase inclusivity.
This will now be taken to the union’s national delegate conference in Liverpool next June, where it will need to be passed by a 2/3 majority to allow for a rule change.
The conference also saw recruitment awards go to Cardiff City Branch’s LGBT group (pictured above) – only founded in January and already having doubled its membership – Scotland and the North West.
In Yorkshire, the University of Bradford climbed down on redundancy numbers after a four-day strike.
And the security team at Leicester University were also able to celebrate after the employer dropped its plan to reduce hours and cut pay after a magnificent branch campaign, including 100% backing for industrial action.
On 23 November, UNISON once again marked the invaluable contribution of school support staff with Stars in Our Schools.
From St David’s Pimary, Cwmbran to Princes Risborough School, Buckinghamshire; from Clapton Girls’ Academy in London to South Wellfield First School in Whitley Bay; from Markhland Hill School in Bolton to Monseaton Middle School, Renfrew High School to Penistone Grammar School to All Saints Plymouth to Thorpedene Primary in Southend-on-Sea, there were celebrations, certificates – and, of course, cake.
We picked one photo to show you here, taken at the Olive School, Bolton, of a beautiful tea party for support staff, organised by parent Shura.
And we heard the inspirational story of UNISON member Karen Brownhill, a school communications practitioner at St Giles Special School in Derby, who has just won a major award for school support staff.
As general secretary Dave Prentis said, “our school support staff are incredible”.
But UNISON has heroes everywhere – and Margaret Canavan (above centre) is officially a health hero after being named ‘operational support worker of the year’ at the Our Health Heroes awards in London.
Affectionately known as Mags, Margaret is a ward housekeeper at Belfast City Hospital and has worked in the NHS for over 25 years.
And in the final week of the month, the union hosted the launch event for Show Racism the Red Card’s school competition, with guests including Leroy Rosenior, Rachel Yankey, Carlton Cole and Paul Cannoville.
Phew! Anyone else ready for Christmas now?
The article Remember, remember, glorious Grovember first appeared on the UNISON National site.
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 30, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 30, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 30, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 30, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 30, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 30, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 29, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 29, 2018
It was great to be in Lewisham this morning to see another council sign UNISON’s Ethical Care Charter. Mayor Damien Egan – elected only a few months ago – made signing our pledge for decent care, decent pay and decent conditions one of his election promises. So it was my pleasure to sign the charter on behalf of UNISON alongside him this morning.
They become the latest of many local authorities to show their dedication to their most vulnerable residents.
I was also pleased to see care workers invited to be part of the signing ceremony. That’s because today was about more people signing a piece of paper – it’s about making changes which benefit care workers and those who rely on them.
Decent quality care is something which benefits the whole community. So it’s good to see another council making this crucial commitment to pay the real living wage to care workers, guarantee training and ensure decent standards for those need care in their homes.
Care workers provide an exceptional service, so they deserve to be treated with respect. Today’s signing – and every council who signs up to the charter – helps ensure more care workers benefit. And that can only be good for all of us.
The article Blog: Decent quality care is something which benefits the whole community first appeared on the UNISON National site.
Following the serious assault of a female community support worker at Ailsa Hospital in Ayr, UNISON president Gordon McKay, who worked at Ailsa Hospital for many years, said:
“Our first thoughts are for the member of staff and her family. It is shocking that someone who is dedicated to providing high quality healthcare to the people of Scotland should be attacked at work.
“In the longer term serious questions need to be asked and answered by senior management of NHS Ayrshire and Arran over why it would appear they were leading patients, relatives and staff in the hospital to believe that CCTV was operating as a safety measure when they knew it wasn’t.
“Anyone who takes a decision which misleads people about safety matters must be held to account.”
Notes to editors:
– UNISON is the UK’s largest union, with more than 1.3 million members providing public services – in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in both the public and private sectors.
Media contacts:
Trisha Hamilton T: 0141 342 2877 M: 07943 507307 E: t.hamilton@unison.co.uk
Sandra Hunter T: 01563 825759 E: sandra.hunter@aapct.scot.nhs.uk
The article UNISON comments on Ailsa hospital attack first appeared on the UNISON National site.
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 29, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 29, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 29, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 29, 2018
Dinner ladies at Ladywood school in Grimethorpe return to work today, having seen off a bid to make them all redundant.
The school meals supervisors in the historic mining village just outside Barnsley, South Yorkshire, had taken 36 days of strike, beginning in September.
UNISON reached an agreement with the school management to address the deficit in the school’s budget without any redundancies, due to expected natural staff turnover.
The school had planned to have teaching assistants cover the work done by the school meals workers, leading to them joining the strike.
“It was completely unacceptable to attempt to make the dinner ladies redundant when job losses were unnecessary,” said union area organiser Jordan Stapleton after the settlement was agreed.
“Where schools do need to make savings they need to know that low-paid women are not easy targets and the contributions they make to our communities cannot be underestimated.”
The article Grimethorpe dinner ladies save their jobs first appeared on the UNISON National site.
Everyone deserves the right to be treated with dignity and fairness, protected from violence and fear. Our children deserve that most of all. These rights are enshrined in the UN convention on the rights of the child, which celebrated its 29th anniversary last week.
Yet for too many Palestinian children, those rights have been taken from them by the cruel and callous actions of the Israeli government.
This morning I was at 10 Downing Street, standing alongside friends from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, to demand that Theresa May take action to end to the mistreatment of Palestinian children under Israeli military detention, and for the rights of children to be upheld in accordance with international law.
Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military law; orders that have been issued by army generals since 1967. Alleged crimes – from traffic offences to building without a permit – are tried in a military court, by a military judge. Conviction rates are unbelievably high – over 99% – including for children.
Israel is the only country in the world to systematically prosecute children in military courts. Every year between 500-700 Palestinian children are arrested and prosecuted by the Israeli military. They face ill-treatment from the time of their arrest to their conviction and sentencing. Children as young as 12 are regularly taken from their homes at gunpoint by soldiers in the middle of the night, with little or no explanation to their parents of their alleged crime, or where they are being taken. They can be blindfolded, bound and shackled, locked in solitary confinement, and even interrogated without the presence of a lawyer or family member.
In June delegates at UNISON’s National Delegate Conference had a moving debate and unanimously passed policy calling on the Israeli government to end the abhorrent practice of military detention for children. Since then our international committee have developed a whole new programme of work with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) to take forward our plans, including lobbies of Parliament, an exhibition, petitions and a speaker tour.
Only yesterday, UNISON members and PSC activists were in Parliament meeting their MPs and demanding justice and rights for Palestinian children. Their call was simple; the Israeli government should comply with the UN convention on the rights of the child, and treat children prosecuted for an alleged offence in accordance with international juvenile justice standards.
For UNISON, children’s rights matter. Hundreds of thousands of our members have the enormous responsibility for the care and protection of children, whether they work in health, justice, education or many other services, or are parents, grandparents or carers. And as an internationalist union we have an obligation to speak out in solidarity with the vulnerable and oppressed when their rights are denied.
I’m proud that UNISON is campaigning against the mistreatment of Palestinian child prisoners. I hope you will stand with us as we demand that the UK government speak out and take action to end this gross denial of international law and children’s rights. And we will not stop until the reprehensible and self-defeating punishment of Palestinian children by the Israeli state ends once and for all.
The article Blog: Our union stands against cruel and callous actions of the Israeli government first appeared on the UNISON National site.
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 29, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 29, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 29, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 29, 2018
Universal Credit has “real problems”. Not my words but those of Amber Rudd, the fifth Secretary of State for Work and Pensions since 2016. Her description is a masterclass in political understatement.
Universal Credit has been a disaster. Now six years behind schedule, each of the programme’s many (and necessary) delays have only served to reveal more of its inherent flaws. Those already suffering from its implementation know only too well the damage it has already caused. And millions more fear being subjected to Universal Credit in future.
Only a few weeks ago, MPs on the Work and Pensions Select Committee savaged the Universal Credit sanctions regime, describing it as “pointlessly cruel”. They found that single parents, care leavers and people with disabilities and health conditions were “disproportionately vulnerable” to – and affected by – sanctions.
Instead of making life easier for the millions of households who rely on social security, Universal Credit is driving people into debt. Forced to wait a minimum of five weeks for their first payment, claimants face excessive deductions and fluctuating payments that they can’t predict and don’t understand, with inevitable dire consequences.
Far from making it easier to receive support, Universal Credit is simply making it easier for many of the poorest in our society – including the low-paid – to fall further into poverty. One UNISON member recently told us that signing up to the new “easy system” was quite the opposite. It took four and a half hours just to confirm who she was. She tried her passport, birth certificate, and her provisional driving licence to ‘verify’ her identity, but was turned down each time.
Those who have compared the rollout of Universal Credit to the Poll Tax are, if anything, understating the anger that is growing amongst those already hammered by a decade of austerity. Clearly the government senses the risks. That’s why it has announced a further delay in starting to move 3 million people across from tax credits and housing benefit to Universal Credit.
Yet the safeguards to prevent vulnerable people going without money, food or being unable to heat their homes simply aren’t there. We are only months away from the next Universal Credit crisis. MPs will debate the plans later this month – yet as things stand, the government will be proceeding as planned.
Carrying on regardless means – according to Resolution Foundation analysis – 3 million people being worse off under Universal Credit. It also means no change in the work allowance for single people and couples without children – which we’ve shown benefits the Treasury more than it benefits working people. Every year in the Budget – and the recent one was no different – the Chancellor stands up and trumpets the increase in the national living wage as a major boost for low-paid workers. Yet in reality, thousands of workers on the minimum wage will only see a fraction of any increase because of cuts previously made to the universal credit work allowance.
A system where those who work hard on low pay don’t actually see most of any pay rise and where the biggest winner is HM Treasury is not only unfair it’s utterly perverse. This government claims to care about ‘strivers, grafters and carers’, but what they’ve really done is carelessly and callously take from some of those most in need of support.
It’s difficult to imagine any circumstances where Universal Credit can be rolled out without causing untold damage to millions who have been crushed by austerity. It’s difficult to see how Universal Credit can deliver anything but misery. It’s difficult to see how any government – even this one – can justify ploughing on regardless in the face of such overwhelming evidence.
And the consequences of doing so don’t bear thinking about.
This was originally posted at the New Statesman
The article Blog: Universal credit has been a disaster for the poor and vulnerable – it must be halted first appeared on the UNISON National site.
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 28, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 28, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 28, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 28, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 28, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 28, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 28, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 28, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 28, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 28, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 27, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 27, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 27, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 27, 2018
Tuesday 27 November 2018
For immediate release
UNISON comments on new guidance for creation of NHS subsidiary companies
Commenting on the new guidance issued by NHS Improvement for trusts considering creating subsidiaries, UNISON head of health Sara Gorton said: “The guidance is a step in the right direction but could have gone much further.
“While there now is a requirement for trusts to report any plans for subsidiary companies, the guidance fails to ensure such plans are truly transparent and made public from the outset. Engaging with staff is a start but what is really needed is their full support before anything goes ahead.
“The new rules should be enough to stop most trusts from arbitrarily setting up new companies that cause more harm for staff and patients than good. But this will depend on NHS Improvement being serious and strict about enforcing the guidance. UNISON will be making full use of this guidance in our scrutiny of any future trust plans to set up subsidiaries.”
Notes to editors:
– UNISON is the UK’s largest union, with more than 1.3 million members providing public services – in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in both the public and private sectors.
The article UNISON comments on new guidance for creation of NHS subsidiary companies first appeared on the UNISON National site.
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 27, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 27, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 27, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 26, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 26, 2018
UNISON member Margaret Canavan (above centre) is officially a health hero after being named ‘operational support worker of the year’ at the Our Health Heroes awards in London.
Affectionately known as Mags, Margaret is a ward housekeeper at Belfast City Hospital and has worked in the NHS for over 25 years.
In her current role, Mags helped to turn a disused space into a warm and vibrant activity room for patients with dementia and delirium and spent many hours of her own time turning her vision into a reality.
She received her award at the third annual Our Health Heroes from UNISON head of health Sara Gorton, who said: “Healthcare support staff work tirelessly in the NHS every day to ensure patients are getting the best possible care.
“The deserving winners of the Our Health Heroes awards go above and beyond and are a true asset to the NHS.
“The efforts of support staff can often be overlooked. These dedicated employees need to be celebrated, recognised, valued and rewarded.”
The article Margaret Canavan – a true health hero first appeared on the UNISON National site.
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 26, 2018
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— Playground Markings (@playareamarking) November 26, 2018
Join UNISON activists across the country on Thursday 6 December for SOS Day!
This year, we are focusing on the role our members in local government play in keeping people safe. Workers in trading standards, environmental health, social services, schools and many others are the unsung heroes of our communities.
Cuts to council budgets have put jobs under pressure and our communities at risk.
Less money is spent on prevention and enforcement. Staff shortages, long hours and high levels of stress take their toll on staff and risk putting people and communities at risk.
Tell us how cuts have affected your job and the service you work in.
Whether your job has obvious and high profile impact on people’s safety, or whether it’s a role that doesn’t often get any limelight but has safety implications that might surprise people, we’d like to hear from you.
So please get in touch at sos@unison.co.uk.
Tell us how cuts affect how you are able to deliver your service and protect our communities. Interviews can be anonymous and will help us write about your role protecting neighbourhoods.
Plan what your branch will do on SOS Day to show our members that we are fighting against further cuts to the services they work in.
It can be as simple as holding a workplace meeting, talking to workers in public safety-related roles about how cuts have impacted their jobs and local services, or something much bigger.
Take a look at our cuts campaigning toolkit for more ideas:
Download the Save Our local Services toolkit
You can also order SOS materials, including leaflets, posters, badges and pens, using our online catalogue.
Help us to raise awareness of the impact of cuts on public safety. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook:
Facebook – UNISON LG Campaigns:
The article Save our services – celebrate our unsung heroes first appeared on the UNISON National site.
