That Unison has abandoned women?

[WandsOut]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/09/trade-union-accused-betraying-women-pushing-trans-agenda/

Unison, one of Britain’s largest trade unions, represents around 1.3 million workers including nurses and midwives. While only women are permitted access to its women’s conference, it has produced a guide saying anyone “identifying as women” is eligible to attend, even if they are “still attending work as a man”.
The motion, which insiders said they believed would likely pass, states 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.”
It adds “women’s rights are not diminished by trans people having more rights” and calls for literature to be created “to counter the idea that an increase in trans rights would mean a decrease in the rights of others”.
AIBU to think that Unison have lost the plot and are now willfully putting women in danger from their aggressive activist tactics?

Unison will not protect women harassed at work by male colleagues who say they are women. They are prioritising men's sexual feelings over women's material reality.

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.

bunch of tossers.

looks like I need better representation

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.

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

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

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…

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

Shouldn't unison members get a vote on this?

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

So what does a conference vote mean in effect?

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?

What's a party vote?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

@Coconuthotchocolate nope they are as bad
completely captured

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.

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.

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

PCS member here, they all have pronouns.