Library news

• Building on the Year of LGBT+ Workers

  17-06-2024 17:07
  
  Local government delegates in Brighton have been celebrating the successes of the union’s Year of LGBT+ Workers, while accepting that the fight to achieve LGBT+ equality and acceptance is far from over.
  A composite motion noted that the year devoted to LGBT+ workers is providing an opportunity to promote UNISON as the union for LGBT+ workers in local government, raise awareness of LGBT+ rights, challenge discrimination, negotiate LGBT+ inclusive policies and recruit and activate LGBT+ memb
  
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• WET conference: Invest to protect our environment

  17-06-2024 12:43
  
  Image: Steve Forrest/Workers’ photos
  A key theme at Sunday’s water, environment and transport (WET) conference in Brighton was a lack of investment in the country’s environment.
  Opening business was a motion discussing the Canal and River Trust funding. It noted that, in July 2023, the government announced a reduced grant to the trust from 2027. This funding reduction is equivalent to £300 million in real terms and, in Canal and River Trust’s own words, “will
  
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• WET conference examines failure of privatisation

  17-06-2024 10:55
  
  Image: Steve Forrest
  UNISON’s water, environment and transport conference, held in Brighton on Sunday, was dominated by an examination of the failures of privatisation in the water industry.
  The conference came during renewed media scrutiny of water companies after a new report came to light highlighting thousands of instances of sewage being discharged into waterways in dry weather in 2022, in “illegal spills”.
  On this note, one motion took aim at the situation calling the cur
  
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• Young members are ‘the future of our union’

  17-06-2024 10:26
  
  Image: Steve Forrest
  UNISON local government delegates have affirmed their commitment to supporting and developing young members and activists within their service group.
  Meeting on the first day of their conference in Brighton yesterday, they heard that young members are “the future of the union”.
  But they also accepted that, while there have been recent strides in recruiting young workers, young members are still under-represented as activists.
  Proposing the motion on the topic for
  
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• Opinion: Seeing the reality of life in occupied Palestine

  17-06-2024 10:08
  
  By UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea
  Travelling from Amman in Jordan to Ramallah the administrative centre of the Palestinian West Bank, as I did recently, gave me a first-hand view of the grim reality of being in an occupied territory.
  I was there in the last week in May as part of an international trade union delegation, at the request of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU).
  It was the first time all eight international union federations had come together, repres
  
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• ‘Essential services are crumbling before our eyes’

  17-06-2024 09:32
  
                                                              Christina McAnea in Brighton. Image: Steve Forrest
  UNISON’s local government conference opened in Brighton yesterday with an urgent call to a likely Labour government to rescue services that are suffering from “a disastrous funding crisis.”
  General secretary Christina McA
  
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• Cuts to children’s centres hitting the most disadvantaged

  17-06-2024 01:01
  
  Children’s centre closures across England have devastated communities and left vulnerable families without access to vital education and health support, says UNISON today (Monday).​
  Freedom of Information (FoI) requests by the union reveal that over a third (38%) of council-run children’s centres in England have closed since 2010 when the government implemented austerity measures and slashed councils’ financial support.
  There were at least 3,106 council-run children&rsquo
  
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