Our motion on protection and membership for casualised workers submitted to UNISON NDC19
We are glad that our motion on casualisation submitted to UNISON National Delegate Conference 2019 has been approved by the Standing Orders Committee (so it will be voted on in June).
UNISON reps from other branches – please support this motion!
Protection and membership for casualised workers
Conference notes:
• That millions of working-age people in the UK work on zero-hours, fixed-term, casual, part-time contracts or ‘work arrangements’. Others work through agencies, and many have been forcibly outsourced to wholly-owned subsidiary companies, with their rights diminished;
• The casualisation of work is affecting our collective power, and it keeps many of us in dire poverty and insecurity;
• That casual workers face difficulty in gaining union membership, and to have access to facilities time;
• To deny access to casualised workers is to play into the hands of those who don’t want unions to grow or for workers to be united;
• Young people are especially affected by the erosion of working rights – many start their working life by holding insecure job roles. 2019 is the year of Young People in UNISON, and as such we need to make sure that no young worker who wants to join UNISON, is deterred from becoming a member;
• We can learn from how other unions have managed to put casualisation on the national agenda (for instance, in Higher Education), showing how precarity and poverty can be fought against.
Conference resolves:
• By NDC 2020, National Executive Council to create and present a recruitment strategy to actively attract casualised workers;
• National Executive Council to ensure membership and support are available to casualised workers;
• National Executive Council to create and distribute literature and posters that can be personalised by any branch, with the following information:
o why casualisation matters;
o how casualised workers can organise themselves;
o what their rights are;
o how to fight against casualisation and outsourcing;
o how officers and reps can best support casualised workers;
• The training and learning team to offer training on casualisation as an organising and workplace issue;
• To encourage UNISON branches in all sectors to elect anti-casualisation officers;
• To put casualisation on the national agenda by making it a priority in national bargaining talks.
