"After some very moving contributions, TUC unanimously supports gender self-declaration"

[R0wantrees]

Comment by Ian Murch, Treasurer at National Union Of Teachers section of National Education Union

twitter.com/ianmurch/status/1039470003920293888

Lucy Masood:
"Proud of the FBU and PaulEmbery for ensuring that we did not vote to support the GRA Self ID resolution at the TUC today. The FBU cares and listens to its female members"

twitter.com/luluchops1/status/1039475527139164160

Reposting. You will have more impact if you stay in the union until such time as you have received a satisfactory answer.

*There are some good instructions from WPUK

1. Contact your union and ask

-how the decision was made -what consultation took place

1. Mark your emails for attention General Secretary & Women’s Officer - use their names if you have them.
2. Cc to your local/regional rep or office and make it clear you are expecting a reply.
3. Follow up in 7 days.
4. Please send WPUK any responses*

Find your union: www.tuc.org.uk/unions

The email for @unitetheunion is missing from the TUC link. Their own website says to use this email executive.council @ unitetheunion. org

Cancelled my Unison membership. Asked for the contact details of their Woman’s Officer, their helpline didn’t even know such a post existed. This is a Union who’s membership is 2/3 female, that’s nearly a million female members.
They did give me a phone number of their membership participation unit, which went straight to ansaphone, with a message saying the person on this number is out of the office.

Imprecis it looks like it would be Sharon Greene details on the bottom of this page.

www.unison.org.uk/about/what-we-do/fairness-equality/women/

Unison seems to be in the position that not all have women's officers in local branches but advise you to speak to your equalities officer - who may well have a different agenda (e.g., the UNISON speaker who spoke in support of this yesterday).

Regional contacts for women's officers

www.unison.org.uk/about/what-we-do/fairness-equality/women/group-structure-and-contacts/

Is there any chance that Sharon Greene who is listed is the overall Women's Officer? As recently as 2015/6 she is referred to as such:

www.lrdpublications.org.uk/printarticle.php?pub=LR&iss=1812&id=idp184832

Sharon Greene
UNISON Centre
130 Euston Road
London
NW1 2AY
[email protected]

Twitter for UNISON national women's officer (which might be her)

twitter.com/unisonnwo?lang=en

The National Union of Journalists abstained, I've heard.

So not so unanimous after all.

Well done NUJ and FBU!

Oh, that is good news as I’m about to rejoin the NUJ. Phew!

I've just emailed UCU and asked to end my membership. I'll be making it clear why, the miserable fuckers. How dare they? How DARE they? They're supposed to pretend to represent us. I bet women in academia would have had some extremely clear cut responses so they didn't dare.

I’m getting it from union GC women that we need to remain union members, get in touch with them if they voted for this and register your views with them. I think WPUK have information on doing this. From what I understand the TUC are about a year behind with their motions so they’re not reflected the conversations that are going on now on the unions.

The National Union of Journalists abstained, I've heard.

Thank you NUJ!

@River

Info up thread

Stay in your union until you've done the following:

1. Contact your union and ask

-how the decision was made -what consultation took place

1. Mark your emails for attention General Secretary & Women’s Officer - use their names if you have them.
2. Cc to your local/regional rep or office and make it clear you are expecting a reply.
3. Follow up in 7 days.
4. Please send WPUK any responses

Find your union: www.tuc.org.uk/unions

There will be more information to follow......

So not "unanimous" at all then.

I do appreciate the info about the Unison WO, I had actually looked it up on line before I called. My point was that their help line didn’t know it, or that the post actually existed. I agree that we will be taken more seriously by staying in the Unions, but I was so angry that I had to do something immediate.

It is no good the TUC being a year behind the conversations taking place now, we needed a big gesture with 5 weeks to go before the end of the consultation, and they have fucked that up good and proper.

Can you tell I am still angry? 🤣

Thank you so much, everyone, for the encouragement and advice - in the end the meeting was too short to get through the things already on the agenda properly and I had to leave before the end to get to another meeting, so it really wasn't the time and place. But I shall take a deep breath and write, using the helpful suggestions upthread - and I hope we can make a space to discuss it all properly.

If the advice is to stay in unions, would it be daft to suggest that posters stand for election as branch officers? If there is no Women's Officer, stand as one.
Great thread, and great work. Thank you.

Lesbians and bisexual women should stand for LGBT positions too!

Lesbians and bisexual women should stand for LGBT positions too
Shows my age, we didn't have those posts in evil Clause 28 times.

Royal College of Midwives is in TUC apparently. It would be interesting to see how they voted.

Royal College of Nursing does not appear to be in TUC.

Members of both R Colleges are already pretty fed up due to the appalling ineptitude around the Pay award.

Thank you to everyone who has taken action. I wish I was in a union so I could take action but am self employed.

It's an incredibly important way of officially kicking up a massive stink. This can absolutely be complained about in a woman centred way.

Royal College of Nursing does not appear to be in TUC.

I can't link the document but the RCN isn't in the TUC tho' there's an ongoing movement to make the jump. (2017 Minutes)

m.facebook.com/653256936/posts/10155635543976937/

I’ve just seen this from someone who represented UCU at TUC. The tone of it is utterly infuriating - “a small but vocal minority”, indeed. How do they know how many members object to this when they’ve never bothered to consult us? This is not a small issue! I’ve always thought that unions were about representing the membership, not pushing the political agenda of individual reps. I’m so fucking furious that I’m resigning my membership tomorrow.

I’ve always thought that unions were about representing the membership, not pushing the political agenda of individual reps. I’m so fucking furious that I’m resigning my membership tomorrow.

Is it worth seeing what Kathleen Stock is going to do? She tweeted the UCU about this, likewise several others?

twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1039785722159489025

I think it's worth following the WPUK procedure linked above but it's interesting to see this Twitter thread:

Tweet me: 1. Your union name; 2. How you were consulted regarding union position on selfID.

twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1039771985759412224

To which there were so many responses that she updated:

OK. It is immediately obvious that it will be easier to start with who WAS consulted (outside of an LGBT committee).

twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1039790900292059136

but it's interesting to see this Twitter thread

Wow. It certainly is. One of the posters in the thread got a tweet back from her regional union branch saying that it had been discussed at branch meetings for the past couple of years and had gone to the TUC LBGT+ Conference as well as TUC Congress.

The poster replied that she had attended branch meetings over the past two years and it had never been discussed.

There has been no further reply. I wonder why not?

Would branch meetings have minutes that could be used to prove whether or not that was an outright lie?