Congress notes research highlighting that women are paying a heavy price for the changes to tax, benefits and tax credits with pregnant women, single parents and low-income families the hardest hit.

Already the impact of this government’s economic strategy can be seen in rising unemployment amongst women. April 2011 saw the highest number of women claiming out-of-work benefits for 15 years.

Congress recognises that support for low-income families, disabled people and carers is crucial to the struggle for equality in the UK.

Congress welcomes the TUC-coordinated campaign to resist the cuts and notes with pleasure that half a million people took to the streets to March for the Alternative in March 2011.

Congress agrees that the TUC will:

• i. continue to raise awareness of the disproportionate impact of cuts on low-income families, women, black and disabled workers.
• ii. support trade union campaigns promoting an alternative to the coalition’s welfare and public spending cuts
• iii. support affiliates in their work to reach out to low-income working families, women, disabled and black workers to ensure their voice is heard in campaigns against the cuts.

Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers

Amendment

Add a final sub-paragraph after iii.:

“iv. highlight the specific impact of cuts on child poverty and the risk of recent progress in this area being reversed, and continue to promote the TUC’s own recommendations for addressing child poverty.”

Chartered Society of Physiotherapy

Congress believes that the coalition government’s assertion that the Comprehensive Spending Review is based on fairness is a fallacy. Congress is also deeply concerned at increasing women’s poverty, job insecurity, the impact on their families for decades to come, and the growing employer backlash against women’s rights as workers and trade unionists.

It is predicted that at least half a million public sector workers will lose their jobs. Congress believes that these cuts in jobs, services, pay and pensions are driven by ideological dogma, evidenced by the government’s refusal to consider the very real alternatives, including taxing banks and financial institutions that caused the credit crunch, a fairer tax system, and growing, not shrinking, our public services to provide jobs and boost the economy.

Services targeted include adult social care, children’s services and mental health services. When services are run for private profit, quality of care and service falls, and it is inevitable that as services return to critical care rather than early intervention, women will bear the brunt of these cuts, as service providers and carers. The proposed privatisation of the health service beginning with the GP commissioning process will impact severely on women’s health, welfare and work. This will lead to a reduction in qualified health staff including nurses and needs to be resisted and opposed. There is clear evidence that mortality and morbidity decreases as numbers of professionally qualified staff increase.

Women have felt the impact of redundancies and closures on top of pay freezes and recession. Women in the public sector have been hard hit and the unions have come together to say this is unfair and wrong.

Women generally make up a high number of public workers, and disabled women are targeted not only in this way but also by the benefit cuts such as the replacement of Disabled Living Allowance with new personal independence payments which will have far tighter eligibility criteria, by the access to work changes, by cuts to NHS services of particular value to disabled people, and reductions in funding to local authorities for supported employment.

Congress asserts that the coalition government’s plans undermine the status of women as equal partners with men in the world of work, home and society as a whole.

Congress commends the TUC on the campaign All Together for Public Services and asks that the TUC recognises that it is not only employed women who are vulnerable, but the many women who work freelance and casual contracts. Congress highlights this and feels convinced that equality legislation aimed at protecting these and other women will be watered down if possible by the coalition government, whilst seeking to create ‘The Big Society’.

Congress welcomes the growing mass opposition to the government’s cuts programme, including the inspiring protests by students, young people, disabled groups and black communities. Women facing the multiple impacts of cuts have been at the forefront of these protests.

Congress calls on the TUC, with affiliates, to:

• i. use all means possible to exert pressure on the government and politicians at local, regional and national level to withdraw from this attack on our communities, to look again at an alternative budget and to commit to properly funded, publicly provided services
• ii. protect our achievements and gains through ‘eternal vigilance’
• iii. fight for the rights of women workers and expose their actual financial losses as part of our campaign against job and service cuts
• iv. ensure women’s equality is central to the trade union campaign for jobs, growth and justice – for an alternative to the cuts
• v. advance the aims of a Women’s Charter including mandatory equal pay audits; decent pensions for all women; family/children’s rights; statutory rights for union equality reps and equality impact assessments
• vi. organise and support working women for the TUC rally on 26 March 2011
• vii. link up with TU Council of the Isles Women’s Committees, community and women’s organisations who share these aims
• viii.work with women’s organisations and campaigning groups involved in anti-cuts campaigns
• ix. work with affiliates in delivering a campaign to raise awareness of this unfairness and supporting women workers to oppose detrimental changes to benefits and cuts to services
• x. highlight the disproportionate impact on women of government cuts
• xi. support women in communities fighting to defend public services
• xii. build support for co-ordinated industrial action in defence of public service jobs and conditions in line with TUC policy.

TUC Women’s Conference (this motion is exempt from the 250-word limit)

Congress notes that UNISON has more than a million members delivering essential services to the public. These services matter to the most vulnerable people in society.

Black unemployment has increased sharply and these figures are likely to worsen as cutbacks take effect.

Specialist services provided by the black voluntary sector are already under threat and it is likely that many will face extinction as a result of cuts to grant funding. Analysis by IPPR revealed that nearly half (48 per cent) of young black people are unemployed, compared to 20 per cent for young white people.

Congress believes that defending public services is a vital issue for black communities in the UK. It calls upon the TUC and TUC affiliates to ensure that:

• i. race equality is a key part of the TUC and affiliates’ anti-cuts campaigns both nationally and within local communities
• ii. equality impact assessments are used to challenge cutbacks and highlight its discriminatory effect on service provision
• iii. negotiating, bargaining and organising around race equality is increased, not decreased.

TUC Black Workers’ Conference (this motion is exempt from the 250-word limit)

Congress opposes the cuts in the health services that support people with mental health conditions. The impact of public service cuts on workplace stress and mental health should become a factor in the TUC All Together for Public Services campaign with a briefing detailing the cumulative impact of cuts in public services on people with mental health conditions.

Trade unions need to protect and support the mental health of their members. We need to create workplaces where mental health issues are addressed and supported appropriately. Our members need to know their rights and new rights under the Equality Act 2010 and what this means in practical terms. Congress calls on the TUC General Council to:

• i. ensure trade unions are aware of the legislative framework that can support mental health and well-being
• ii. support trade unions in negotiating workplace policies that support mental health, including disability leave agreements
• iii. encourage trade unions to tackle workplace cultures that inhibit disclosure of mental health as impairment.

TUC Disability Conference (this motion is exempt from the 250-word limit)

Congress is deeply concerned about the effect of the comprehensive spending review cuts and other coalition government policies on the LGBT community. The devastating impact of the public sector cuts is well documented. The lack of data on LGBT people makes the impact on them less easy to quantify.

Congress knows that:

• i. Workplace discrimination remains widespread. In the fear and uncertainty of cuts – homo/bi/trans phobia can run rampant. LGBT workers fear to complain while jobs are threatened.
• ii. Services for LGBT people don’t win popularity contests and are among the first to be cut.
• iii. When times are hard, LGBT people need public services more than ever. Services change and save lives.

Of particular concern are the following:

• a. The planned cuts of around 20 per cent in police funding over the next five years are likely to affect the recording and investigation of homophobic and transphobic hate crime.
• b. The reduction or removal of central and local government funding for LGBT voluntary sector groups will have a serious impact on health and support services for the LGBT community.
• c. The £20bn efficiency savings in the NHS as well as the move to GP commissioning of hospital services may result in prejudicial allocation of services to the LGBT community. Of particular concern is the likely impact on trans healthcare, and the potential for the denial of gender reassignment treatment. Already at least one Trust has announced its intention to halt gender reassignment surgery, and others have stated their intention to cut back “non-essential” procedures. In addition, cuts to mental health services are likely to affect LGBT people disproportionately.

There has never been a greater need for unions to be publicly demanding LGBT equality. Congress calls on the TUC and affiliates to work with their LGBT groups to:

• A. highlight attacks on LGBT workers and services
• B. maintain a high profile commitment to LGBT equality in all negotiating, organising and campaigning
• C. campaign against the erosion of the equalities agenda
• D. continue to defend the vital importance of services that meet the needs of all.

The anti-cuts march on 26 March was also about the alternative to the proposed government cuts to jobs and services. Congress calls on the TUC and affiliates, in the continuing campaign against the cuts, to:

• 1. campaign for the implementation of the Robin Hood Tax
• 2. urge the government to take action on tax avoidance and evasion as part of the campaign, and to use the Single Equality Duty and Equality Impact Assessments to challenge the impact of financial decisions on LGBT and other communities.

TUC Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Conference (this motion is exempt from the 250-word limit)

This presents a powerful tool and negotiating lever for unions in protecting their members. Congress calls on the General Council to work with affiliated unions to ensure that all union representatives are equipped to understand and use the public sector equality duty in collective bargaining by the provision of training, sharing of good practice, and the development of briefing and training materials. Most important will be continuing to ensure equality considerations are mainstreamed into collective bargaining and for the benefit of all members, rather than being seen as the concern of a limited few.

Further, Congress calls on the General Council and affiliated unions to campaign for the continued need to assess properly the impacts of policies, to ensure that they genuinely pay due regard to equality and diversity and ensure that increasingly limited public funds are spent in way that truly benefits the whole of UK society.

FDA

Congress is concerned, in particular, about the proposals which would (inter alia):

• i. repeal the “general duty” contained within Section 3 of the 2006 Act
• ii. amend the equality duties contained in Section 8
• iii. amend the requirements to monitor progress and to provide reports contained within Section 12
• iv. change the core functions of the EHRC, which would not enhance its human rights remit
• v. remove the EHRC’s “good relations duty”
• vi. repeal the EHRC’s power to make provision for conciliation services
• vii. remove key elements of the EHRC’s responsibility for providing information, advice and support.

Congress, therefore, calls on the General Council to continue to campaign publicly against these proposals and to oppose any changes to the 2006 Act which would undermine the important work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission across the UK.

The Educational Institute of Scotland

Congress notes that the Prime Minster, David Cameron, in a speech at the Munich Security Council, stated that multiculturalism in Britain had “failed”. He made a direct connection between this supposed failure and the growth of terrorism. Congress rejects this approach, which gives aid and encouragement to racism.

Congress condemns his Government’s cynical cuts to English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) provision. These plans are a huge blow for community cohesion, hit women the hardest and fly in the face of David Cameron’s call for immigrants to learn English.

Congress declares its continued support for an endorsement of multiculturalism in the promotion of social and economic policy. In a globalised economy the diverse nature of UK society allows the country to directly connect with the most dynamic parts of the world economy. The skills and connections of multicultural Britain should be used to open markets for British business in the developing economies.

Congress also believes that the specific needs of ethnic minorities must be addressed in our society. Trade unions are committed to ensuring that the diverse needs of all faith communities, and those of no faith, should be recognised by the provision of prayer rooms in workplaces, and by allowing leave to be utilised for religious holidays.

Congress is concerned that Coalition plans to subjectively limit the annual number of non-EU migrants allowed to work in the UK undermines the contribution they make to the UK economy and encourages the far right and others to blame migrants for economic problems that are nothing to do with them.

Congress supports continued campaigning against the fascists of the BNP and the violent Islamophobes of the EDL.

Congress welcomes the initiatives of such campaigns as Unite Against Fascism, Hope not Hate, and One Society Many Cultures. Congress calls upon the General Council to ensure their actions are promoted by the TUC.

Further, the General Council should:

• a. incorporate the campaign against the far right into campaigning to defend public services
• b. support the campaign to ban EDL/SDL/WDL from holding demonstrations and rallies
• c. produce publicity exposing the far right, and promoting an agenda for public services, social justice and growth.

Mover: Communications Workers’ Union

Seconder: UNISON

Supporters: University and College Union; Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association