That Unison has abandoned women?

Also any union run by women. The internalised misogyny is very deep.

PCS member here, they all have pronouns.

Christina McAnea's IWD piece is affirmative, rousing and with nary a word about the genderists. I understand that this, itself, may take some determination in the union environment, but I wish she'd managed at least to allude to genderism among the growing threats to women's rights.

https://www.unison.org.uk/news/general-secretarys-blog/2025/03/opinion-standing-in-solidarity-with-women-everywhere/

Written for International Women’s day, and how they support women.

@Coconuthotchocolate nope they are as bad
completely captured

Flaming hell! So unison seems to be out for me now. Are Unite any better?

Thanks for the explanation. I thought policy changes would have been put to the wider members before going through, but apparently not!

The excellent Women's Rights Network reported on this in their weekly newsletter:

[in part]

"...On 13 February, Unison’s National Women’s Conference heard a motion formalising the belief that men are women, and women’s rights are enhanced by men being able to claim to be women. WRN union members took their challenge to the conference to show support for women’s rights.

Part of the motion that claims “Trans women are women” states, “This conference notes ... That gender critical groups and individuals often organise around women-only spaces and the idea that Trans people having rights means that women will lose rights. This is a reactionary idea that has always been used when those facing discrimination organise and fightback.

“Therefore that women have a vested interest in standing alongside our Trans comrades in solidarity and in resistance and all of us fighting back together.”

The motion capitalises Trans but not women.

Without going to a members’ ballot, the conference heard the motion and passed it without any word of dissent in the room, despite visible dissent outside. Unison inferred the lack of internal opposition as meaning there is no conflict with women or Women’s Rights. However, we’ve seen how women are treated when they assert boundaries with men of any claimed identity.

It’s not consent if you make me scared to say ‘No’...."

https://www.womensrights.network/so/f3PK9_u8X?languageTag=en

UNISON's Womens Conference does not set UNISON's National Policy. At some point the Women's Committee will have to decide which of the Women's Conference policies they want to put forward for potential adoption at the National Delegate Conference. From memory they can only submit a limited number of policy motions (I'm thinking 2 but that seems low) to the National Delegate Conference.

But @WhereAreWeNow branch secretaries should put forward the conference motions to their branch, that’s what I did. But to vote you need a quorum, if not enough people attended you couldn’t vote. Out of my 1.5k members almost always the same faces showed up and it was usually about 30 people.

I have attended the women , black workers and national conferences of Unison though the last time was many years ago. I was a rep with NALGO for a couple, of years and then they merged with COHSE and NUPE.

@Fangisnotacoward
Branch secretaries should put the motions forward at branch meetings and people will vote, so you take the majority vote from your branch. The branch reps should then vote as directed by their branch. But you do not have to do this. Plus if a branch meeting is dominated by people of a particular political persuasion they have used the vote in a perfectly ok manner. I used to have and I’m interested if this still happens a Block vote at conference. My branch had 1.5k members so a small one whereas my friend was head of a huge city council and had thousands of members. So when she voted her votes counted for a lot more than mine.

The biggest issue with trade unions and it has always been thus is most are dominated by the extreme left. I was in UNISON when many SWP members sought office. I was called a reformist with bile quite frankly on a few occasions. Many just use it as a political axe to grind. They have no real interest in their members and its a real problem.

That's not how unions work. Policies are set by conferences, not all member votes.
So this motion going through means this is now official Unison policy. Depressing.

What's a party vote?

No idea, but I would have thought a change like this would go to all members, not just those in attendance at the conference.

I'm not exactly how it works, but I wonder if it is passed at the conference its put to the wider members of the party?

So what does a conference vote mean in effect?

Ah, just seen this was a conference vote. Not an overall party vote...

Shouldn't unison members get a vote on this?

They utterly disgust me. Any woman in Unison who voted for this is a traitor quite frankly.

https://www.unison.org.uk/news/article/2025/02/unite-for-more-rights/#:~:text=The%20key%20points%20that%20were,always%20fought%20for%20marginalised%20workers

Looks like the motion was passed…

That would be the logical conclusion. But logic doesn't seem to apply to this subject.

A couple of posters have asked if RCN is a better bet. Sadly I don't think so. The RCN hounded out a GC staff member https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/nurses-union-accused-of-hounding-out-policy-officer-over-trans-rights-work-3285569

Historically, as pp say, unions have been crap for women. They traditionally see working women as a threat to those entitled to be the work force; men. I mean it's as simple as that really.

bunch of tossers.

looks like I need better representation

It’s just grim @Ladyof2025. The only solution is for women to leave the Unison ladymen fanclub. They can have the whole rotten union to themselves without the validation from women that they demand.

My story may not be strictly relevant but I would like to share it anyway. I put many years of work into my union and after I retired I was invited to be an honorary remember of a Facebook group set up for women members of my former Union.

I was only in the group for about a week when I was suddenly banned by the group owner, who said that she had looked at my Facebook timeline was full of transphobic bigotry.

Out of interest I had a look at her profile, and saw something I had not noticed from the tiny thumbnail picture that I previously seen. This was that the person was quite obviously male. So how about that? This so-called female only Facebook group for union members is actually run by a man in a dress who has the power to eject anybody from the group if they don't believe in his ideological stance. And that is how they do it. That's how they get the so-called unanimous agreement full stop because they have already ejected anybody who might vote the other way.

Does anybody know which union Sandie Peggie is/was in? I presume RCN but am not sure.
I asked on FWR board but nobody has answered.
I’m a RCN member so would like to hear their stance on this (literal) bollocks.
Trans handmaidens piss me off more than actual blokes in frocks so the women who must have voted for this should be ashamed of themselves.
I expect though that as with other associations this nonsense was proposed and voted through by a few delusional members in positions of power. I doubt that a vote of ALL members of Unison would have passed such a motion.
Middle class twats radicalised at captured universities spreading their pet cause and misinformed others either of the #be kind brigade or just too frightened to swim against the tide having seen how anyone who stands up against gender ideology has been villified and cancelled.