A Manifesto for Real Change in Community
Our members working in the Community sector have faced some huge challenges over the last couple of years. The impact of Covid on top of an already difficult funding situation for many charities and community organisations has been dramatic. The threat of job losses, reductions in working hours and pressure on pay and conditions are a constant threat.
All this means that if UNISON is to defend and advance the interests of our members, we need to have a plan and a strategy to address the specific issues our members face in Community. The overwhelming characteristic of the Service Group lies in its diversity. To be effective our branches and activists need to be flexible and adequately resourced to meet the needs of Community members. Many members work for very small organisations, where we don’t have shop stewards or union recognition. Others work in big national charities where the members we have are spread around the country. While other Community members work for organisations where Unison’s organisation is spread across multiple branches.
This Spring UNISON members will be asked to vote for Regional Representatives for the union’s Community Service Group Executive. The role of that committee is to oversee, guide and develop UNISON’s work within the Service Group.
We are standing under the banner of “Time for Real Change”
What do we mean by Real Change in Community?
We need to become an Organising union. Simply “servicing” the members on an individual basis doesn’t start to address the issues we face. Issues like the fight for union recognition, are directly connected to the struggle to improve working conditions, to address the issue of low pay and bad working practices.
We need to organise to ensure our members receive proper sick pay, weekend and night shift enhanced payments, flexible working, family friendly working arrangements. Why should our members accept poor terms of conditions, simply because they work for a charity or community organisation?
We need to help Community members to get active in the union. Every steward and workplace contact in a Community sector workplace is like gold dust. Having activists on the ground helps us to understand the issues members face. It means members have a first point of contact with the union and it means that we can reach our members easily with the information and support they need.
We need targeted resources to help our members organise. Some branches cover dozens and even hundreds of employers. A big chunk of these are in the community sector. We need to push for a positive strategy to strengthen the Service Group. The resources we invest in UNISON’s Community Service Group will pay off in a big way over time.
The struggle for a real Living Wage is essential to support workers across the services we deliver. Fighting on the political level as well as on the ground to end low pay will disproportionately benefit members in the Community Service Group
UNISON members working across the Community and Voluntary Sector face the indignity of substandard terms and conditions of employment caused by the privatisation of public services. Privatisation causes huge wage inequalities with frontline UNISON members viewed as expendable whilst top CEO s receive 6 figure salaries. UNISON Community Service Group Executive can be in the frontline in demanding change, but change will only come through radical grassroots trade unionism. It’s time for change
Women, Black members, LGBT+, Disabled and Young members are over represented in low paid and precarious work. Many work in the Community, often in “charities” whose charitable aims are not reflected in the way they treat their staff. We need an organising union that challenges all discrimination in the workplace. We cannot solve these problems solely on an individual basis. We need to get organised to fight for Real Change. Lip service is not enough.
UNISON needs clarity and consistency in the way we organise Community members. Community members need to be in branches that want to organise and service them. Some branches do neither. That needs to change, we need to develop structures that reflect the needs of our members. We need to develop leadership at all levels of the union with a clear understanding of the issues our sector faces.
Our members need Real Change in the way that UNISON works for us.
We are standing in this election to effect change. For too long seats on the Community Service Group Executive have stood empty. We have many talented members and activists in our union. We want to involve more and more people in UNISON’s work. We believe there is huge potential to improve the experience of our members in work. But to do that we need to get organised. Its Time for Real Change.
Vote for Real Change
Fight low pay and discrimination
We need an organising union
Positive action to develop UNISON’s Community Service Group