COVID19 – Important Branch Secretary Statement

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Statement issued by UNISON Derby City Branch Secretary Becky Everett on Wednesday 18th March 2020

We are receiving a high amount of calls from our members regarding the Coronavirus, we fully understand your worries and concerns.

The advice on Coronavirus is changing daily, so always check reputable news bulletins and Public Health England for the latest updates. We would advise against Social Media for getting advice as this is not always factual.

UNISON Derby City Branch organises within numerous employers and we will not be able to give separate updates to members in each individual workplace. Your employer should be keeping you updated. This is also new territory to the employers and many are also seeking our guidance.

Our main priority currently is to ensure the Health and Safety of members and their families along with the people they look after as part of their jobs.

This advice will be updated as employers respond to our requests for more information. We will, of course update our website as and when we receive guidelines from any of our employers.

If you need advice on workplace issues, please email help@derbyunison.org in the first instance. Or call direct on the Derby City Mobile on 07789 556487 We will respond at the earliest opportunity. If you leave a voice message or text message please ensure you tell us your name, job title and workplace.

Branch Officers have been advised, to avoid face to face meetings, Members will still receive a personal service by receiving a dedicated time slot for phone calls to discuss issues.

There is a chance that Branch Officers may need to be off work, we are a dedicated team and will ensure that messages and emails are acknowledged. At times we may have reduced staffing so please bear with us.

Kind regards

Becky Everett, Derby City Branch Secretary

UNISON Community Conference 2020

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Unison Community Conference started with focussed meetings on service areas. I attended the housing association session which looked at issues facing housing staff across the country, discussed best practice and challenges still very prevalent in the sectors. Issues discussed ranged from universal credit challenges, leaseholder issues, staffing issues, support networks, mental health issues, working with tenants, staff bonuses. Outcomes from this were for a specific newsletter for housing related information and support to be put together to share best practice and inform of useful information.

Following this useful session the Community Seminar began and conference welcomed Christine McNea spoke to conference about the challenges affecting those working in the community sector. Questions were raised to the group around, rough sleeping, sleep ins, community sector increasing inside, housing associations related pay scale increase for work to be done, and other community related issues.

Saturday began we attended the Workshop on Deepening engagement in your unison, this turned out to be very useful and gave us some ideas for future planning for the branch to ensure that we can reach out to members across all sectors of our branch and make sure we include them all in future branch activities where possible.

There was then a speech from RT HON Mark Drakeford AM (First Minister of Wales) who covered issues which related to the Housing Crisis, Right to Buy, community issues, success stories from Wales and also fielded questions from delegates,

 

 

You can see more about Mark here…

and you can read his profile here…
https://www.assembly.wales/en/memhome/Pages/MemberProfile.aspx?mid=253

Following this a lunch break the main business began, the annual report and other information was now brought to conference, you can read this here…

https://www.unison.org.uk/events/2020-community-conference/

Motions now to be discussed were the following…

  • Engaging Branches in the community sector in LGBT+ Recruitment and Organising – Motion Carried
  • Recruitment and Organising – Motion Carried
  • Health and Safety Representation – Motion Carried
  • Racism in Community Workplaces – Motion Carried
  • Community Services for Women – a lifeline removed – Motion Carried
  • Community Employers, Accessibility Passports and Access to Work – Motion Carried
  • Sleeping in, losing out – Motion Carried
  • Making it fair for social care – Motion Carried
  • Right to buy and shared ownership in Housing Associations in England – Motion Carried
  • Supporting People – Motion Carried
  • National standards for social care – protecting disabled workers – Motion Carried
  • Branch Structures – Motion Carried
  • Inclusive Workplace Policies for Non-Binary members in the community Sector – Motion Carried
  • Recruitment and organising Black members in the fragmented workforce – Motion Carried
  • promoting the EU settlement scheme to community members – Motion Carried
  • Stop ‘First Homes’ proposals – Motion Carried

This brought to a close the Community Conference 2020 until next year.