First day at conference

 

First day at UNISON LG conference

Whilst our General Secretary was all over the telly getting our message out we were firming up pour commitment to defend our pension with the first big debate of conference. The highlight of the pensions debate was Sean Fox London regional delegates speech which brought cheers from the floor of conference. Conference decided to mount the strongest possible campaign including early coordinated strike action to defend our pensions.

 

It was pleasing that the service group executives early opposition to the word "early" in the above sentence had been dropped by the time we got to conference.

 

Conference heard about the particular impact of cuts to our pension scheme on women and low paid black women.

Conference then passed Comp A which was a composite from 10 different unison bodies and ran to 5 pages long! This set out a detailed response to the unnecessary public spending cuts being inflicted on LG by the coalition government.

The afternoon session continued hearing motions on cuts and conference passed motions on Women and Cuts LGBT and cuts.

 

Jon Rogers gave an impassioned speech on Motion 17 in opposition to privatisation when he called on the Labour Party to stand up for public services by reciting from heart to conference floor the old wording of Clause 4 (Many of us thought he was swearing allegiance eyes closed but not quite hand over heart lol)

 

I spoke on Motion 12 Defending LG Jobs and services for all (text of my of the speech at bottom of this post for those whoa re interested).

Conference also heard a passionate defence of our library's.

 

 

I have been live tweeting so follow me on @marshajane if you want updates throughout the day and the full text of all motions past will be available on UNISONs conference database www.unison.org.uk/conference

Off now for the second day where we will debate attacks on terms and conditions, Housing, Social Work and Education.

Mj

 

 

Speech on Motion 12

Conference for a generation we have been working to improve public service provision for LGBT people.

The cuts agenda from this condem coalition of millionaires seek to reverse the positive gains we have made in recent years.

Where I work in Havering, I worked closely with the employer and the Albert Kennedy Trust ( www.akt.org.uk who specialise in helping young LGBT people who are homeless) to ensure that our policies, housing procedures were LGBT friendly. So now we have some great policies but no houses.

Young LGBT people face particular issues on becoming homeless and are more likely to become homeless - even without an EIA its easy to see that LGBT youth are disproportionately disadvantaged by public sector cuts.

The motion highlights cuts in youth service provision and in Havering they are moving from a universal youth service to a targeted youth service, the LGBT youth service in particular is at risk of being cut as it is not deemed to need a targeted service, the employer has believes that LGBT services can be provided through other means

Yet it is not clear what those other means are, everyone here will know that young LGBt people are more likely to be bullies, more likely to suffer mental health issues and more likely to self harm., yet all over the country they will be denied the specialist help that they need.

They are cutting a service which quite simply saves lives.

In Havering as you'd expect we have been fighting against this and last month held a hugely successful lobby of the council with many young service users including young LGBT service users fighting alongside UNISON and our sister unions to defend our youth service.

It is hugely important we support this motion because in fighting the cuts we must keep faith with our commitment to equality.

I urge you to vote for this motion and go back to your branches and engage with young LGBT service users to campaign against the cuts.