Unison elections - female only seats are not so

I'm with Affinity. I've needed their help twice and they were great both times.

Does the union have to pay the postage of any returned ballots? If so I would spoil my ballot with an appropriate comment and post it back to them and then leave the union.

We must be in the same area. What a choice…

I have heard positive things about Affinity Union. I'm not a member but I understand they identify as a professional union and not student activists?

They say:
"Affinity has no political viewpoint; we’re entirely apolitical and are concerned only with the need to defend all our members’ rights under the law, irrespective of ethnicity, religious belief or colour and irrespective of which side of political debates their views might fall. Our commitment to political and ideological neutrality will not change".

https://workaffinity.co.uk/freedom-of-speech-its-all-or-nothing/

In our area we have a choice between someone who specifically says they are a trans ally and someone who campaigns for palestine, so anti Jewish. I've ripped my ballot paper up and feel I must leave unison as they don't represent me

The EHRC advice is not out and the previous pro-trans advice still stands. Also the revised advice has now been revised at the insistence of Philipson (I know this because my MP wrote to tell me so since I had asked why the new advice has not been put to Parliament).
If the seats are for women then Unison is breaking the law allowing a man to stand.

I got my candidates’ election addresses today and there were only two. Both pushing transgender rights at the forefront of their campaign along with other lefty woke shit. I’m leaving this union.

But then so is a Women's Officer!!!

I hope this starts to happen because I imagine there are important and distinct issues facing trans people that would be better addressed seperately. You would also be able to balance rights more fairly - look at the restrictions around demanding disabled access facilities!

You can't do that, that would be 'segregation'.

There is one thing I really don't understand. If these organisations wanted to support transgender people, why don't they? Why don't they have a Transgender Officer, alongside the Women's and Disability Officers? No one would oppose that. There would never be any conflict or if there was, it could be clearly explained and discussed.

You can mix Protected Characteristics but I don't think I've often seen "Race and Disability Officer" etc as it cheapens each issue.

Why don't Unsion just create a Transgender Officer seat?

A Unison member should contact the Certification Officer:
Complain to the Certification Officer about a trade union or an employers’ association - GOV.UK

I know it's only been a couple of weeks, but in parallel with the EHRC developing its guidance, the CO should really be on the case when it comes to unions.

This has made the Telegraph today.

I've noticed a few candidates have included a line about not "raising issues for factional reasons" and I'm somewhat intrigued by what exactly that means. Could go either way, really. There is also someone (not Ellie) proudly talking about having "spearheaded the Trans Ally Training" which apparently resulted in an "almost 300% increase in union activists who are part of the trans community ". No, thank you.

I was (amidst the rage) quite amused at the "statement cut at word limit" - why do they always BLETHER so much? It's like the TIMs who come on here to tell us how evil we are - they all need to learn to edit.

Every now and then my husband suggests I am "obsessed" with this issue. Then something happens like I get a ballot paper through with a bloke standing for a woman's seat when there was another option available and it's so bloody obvious they are trolling us.

Has anyone on X seen anything about this please? Is he still standing?

I would have thought so.

I think it also indirectly discriminates against men as it only allows 1 type of man to stand (a trans woman) but not all men.

I agree this person should not be standing for a female-only seat. I would assume, though, that the election papers were already at the printer's or being packed up ready to post out when the Supreme Court ruling came through. What one would hope is that someone with common sense at Unison is listening to a competent lawyer who is pointing out that the law on this area is now absolutely clear-cut, unlike the position two weeks ago - if your rules say female candidates only, that means biologically female, not a candidate who is biologically male but identifes as female, with or without a Gender Recognition Certificate.

It's up to Unison members to decide whether they want to get rid of female-only committee posts or not. I am not a union member but I'd have thought the optics of saying 'If we can't have a trans-identified male in a female-only post we won't have a female-only post at all!' would be rather poor. Isn't it the case that the majority of Unison members are female?

I see that a number of posters agree that this situation is discriminating against women. I have to ask, is it not also breaking the EA directly, bh allowing a man to stand in a place advertised as being for a woman?

My pack only came today I will be reading the addresses with interest

I had no idea who to vote for, so as I read the booklets I crossed out each name as I found something off-putting - I think for this guy I got as far has his "she/her" pronouns?

Ultimately I used all my votes on people who did not offend me with their election addresses, or recent twitter posts.

Bumping this as it is so important.

The candidate in question seems really shit, regardless of sex or gender identity. There’s not one mention of what he would do for female disabled members in that drivel he’s written. In fact it gets cut off mid sentence as he’s failed to adhere to the word limit.

I’ll be voting for the other candidates who have better explained what they hope to do for disabled members, then cancel my direct debit.

Surely they’re breaking the law? Report to the police, to the women & equalities minister and to her shadow. This is exactly what the SC judgement is supposed to stop

https://www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2025/04/NEC-2025-notice-of-election-Contested-seats.pdf

https://www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2024/12/Election-procedures.pdf

So, just posting links to the seat categories, and rules again.

To reiterate the poster above, under eligibility rules, No 12, it states that

“Only members from specified categories, such as female seats and low pay reserved seats, can be nominated for those seats.”

Following the SC ruling, we know those from the specified female category must be a biological female. So, there should be no biological males contesting the seats in those categories specified for females.

Could be. As I said, I could be wrong.

It is definitely direct discrimination against men though.