Motion 1

Conference recognises that “period poverty” has existed for generations across the United Kingdom.
In recent newspaper articles, reports have found that girls have been missing school to deal with their period within the confines of their own homes, and women have been using alternative materials, including “newspapers” and “socks” because they simply cannot afford to pay for sanitary products. Not only does this raise questions about the impacts on girl’s education but it also highlights the serious threats to women’s health.

Whilst conference welcomes the Labour parties promise to invest £10m to ending “period poverty” in schools in England, more needs to be done to help vulnerable women and girls on low incomes who sit outside the parameters of the educational system.

Conference notes that in July this year, The Scottish government’s pilot project designed to tackle “period poverty” was introduced offering free sanitary provisions to women and girls on low incomes. Conference welcomes this progression and recognises that this may be the first step to help provide sensitive and dignified solutions to make these products easily accessible to those who need them.

Conference agrees that we need to end period poverty and improve access to sanitary products right across the country. Therefore the NEC are instructed to campaign for pilot schemes in other regions of the country and lobby ministers and all relevant bodies for a consultation Member’s Bill proposal that will seek
to give all women in United Kingdom the right to access these products for free, regardless of their income.

Women’s Conference

Motion Was Carrried

Motion 2

Conference notes with concern the increasing number of reports in the media about the rise of mental health issues in children in the UK.

A report by the Association of School and College Leaders’ (ASCL) in 2017 found
that over the past five years:

. 79% of heads saw an increase in self-harm or suicidal thoughts among students.
. 40% reported a big rise in cyber-bullying
. 53% of those who had referred a pupil to Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Services (CAMHS) rated them poor or very poor.
. Overall, 80% of respondents wanted to see CAMHS expanded in their area.

Conference believes that this issue must be addressed as a matter of urgency
and the Trade Unions need to lead the fight in improving access to mental health support for children. Conference therefore instructs the NEC to work with other likeminded unions and the DAC to campaign for improved provision for young people’s mental health services.

Disability Conference

Motion Was Carrried

Emergency Motion 2

Following the apology made by the Home Secretary and The Prime Minister on 17th April 2018, conference notes the disgusting developments concerning the children of Windrush and strongly condemns this government for these racist policies.

This conference calls upon the NEC to ensure that this issue is not allowed to fall off the radar.

Conference further requests that we lobby the government to seek clarification on exact numbers of

• Caribbean mend and women that have been deported
• Caribbean men and women who have been refused NHS treatment and
• How the government will address the detriment they have faced

Greater Manchester Branch
South London, Surrey & North Hampshire

Motion Was Carrried

Motion 3

This Conference is concerned that the UK state pension is almost at the bottom in the list of state pensions in European economies despite the fact that the UK economy measured by GDP is the 5th largest in the world.

Conference notes that the National Insurance (NI) Fund, after allocating a fixed proportion for funding of the NHS, provides for the state pension plus a range of unemployment and other benefits and is funded by employers and employees through National Insurance Contributions.

Conference notes that over many years the N I Fund has been in surplus, even after allowing for a prudent margin for unexpected calls on the fund, for example a sudden rapid increase in unemployment. However over the same years governments of all political persuasions have, through the Debt Management Office borrowed the fund surplus to reduce the overall cost of government borrowing.

Conference instructs the NEC to work with the RMAC to campaign for an increase in the state pension to be funded through the surplus in the NI Fund.

Conference further instructs the NEC to work with the RMAC to campaign for control of the NI Fund to be taken away from government and Treasury and transferred to independent Commissioners with a statutory duty to utilise the whole of the Fund balances, after setting aside a modest contingency, to fund increases in the NHS, state pensions and other benefits.

Kent Invicta

Motion Was Carrried

Motion 4

Conference notes that as life expectancy increases more couples are likely to grow old together and therefore potentially incur more social and / or health care costs, whilst being supported at home.

The changes are in place now, that if support in the home becomes 10% above the cost to go into a nursing / care home then councils are starting to enforce this rule potentially separating a couple.

The NEC is instructed to use the full weight of the Union to explore every
avenue possible to prevent this practice from continuing and to ensure dignity
and respect for couples in this situation.

North Wales and Marches

Motion Was Carrried

Motion 9

Conference condemns the government’s misnamed“Universal Credit” schemes as an extension of past Tory/Lib Dem and current Tory policies crafted to shift to the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, the burden of the bank-driven World debt crisis of 2008.

Universal credit will, for people in or out of work, conflate or replace most of the
discrete benefits to which they are now entitled. The LGA shows an expectation of average weekly income cuts of £11.18 from the change to Universal Credit but with potentially devastating immediate income gaps of several weeks for the very neediest.

These benefits can include those for housing, child care, disability, limited capability for work, caring etc.

Conference is concerned that the government’s arrangements are too incompetently orchestrated to avoid severe financial distress amongst the Country’s most vulnerable and neediest individuals, families and children.

Conference instructs the NEC to campaign strongly for the government to listen to the people, listen to even some members of the Parliamentary Conservative Party who see their votes slipping way, and abandon its Universal Credit proposals.

North West Regional Committee

Motion Was Carrried

Motion 10

Conference believes that the NHS, which is 70 years old this year, is the single biggest gain for working people and must be defended.

The enormous crisis in the NHS has been created by years of Tory underfunding
and privatisation which has resulted in massive staff shortages and resulting in
increasing workloads.

PFI is a huge drain on resources but a source of bumper profits for big business
– over the next five years, almost £1bn of taxpayer funds will go to PFI
companies in the form of pre-tax profits.

Conference further believes that the Government’s Sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) are a further vicious cuts offensive NHS workers have been part of the public sector pay freeze, while many have been outsourced into private sector profiteers.

Conference salutes last year’s struggle of outsourced workers such as those in
Barts NHS Trust in East London, working for SERCO.

Conference instructs the NEC to:
. Campaign in the CWU to encourage members to get involved in both national and local campaigns to save the NHS.
. Call on the TUC to demand that the unions call a national Saturday demonstration to fight Tory NHS cuts.
.Calls for a future Labour Government to take outsourced workers back into the NHS, reverse all health cuts with a massive increase in funding and investment, ends and reverses privatisation, including cancelling all PFI contracts and takes the pharmaceutical companies into public ownership.

Coventry

Motion Was Carrried

Motion 15

Conference notes the announcement by Justine Greening of a Government consultation on reviewing the Gender Recognition Act.

Conference deplores the discrimination, prejudice, hate crimes and violence many transgendered people face in our society and instructs the NEC to ensure that any CWU submission on this issue will be in line with the following principles:

1. To support a social model of gender reassignment so that trans people are
not reliant on a medical diagnosis of illness and a lengthy derogatory
process before they are recognised for who they are.

2. To support the right for people to be acknowledged as gender non-binary
at work and in wider society.

3. To maintain monitoring at work and in society that can help identify
discrimination against women and men.

4. To support the right of all women (including trans women) to continue
accessing safe spaces such as domestic violence agencies and rape crisis
centres.

LGBT Conference

Motion Was Carrried

Motion 16

This conference is aware of the ongoing inequality forced on mothers and fathers when it comes to childcare. It is unacceptable and discriminating towards some of our members, especially those who are unmarried.

All mothers receive parental responsibility; however, this is still not the case for
most fathers. As stated on the gov.uk website there are only 3 ways for a father
to gain parental responsibility.

This can be done through means of joint registration at birth, a parental responsibility agreement or a court order. Fathers are still discriminated against within the workplace when it comes to time off to care for children.

Conference instructs the NEC, with the assistance of the National Young Worker’s Committee, to press Government to equalise Parental Leave so that both mothers and fathers are treated equally when it comes to child care and leave.

National Young Workers Conference

Motion Was Carrried

Motion 17

On Monday 10 September 2012 a coach bound for Liverpool carrying 53 people from the Bestival music festival on the Isle of Wight, left the road and crashed into a tree instantly killing Michael Molloy (18), Kerry Ogden (23) and the coach driver, Colin Daulby (63), and left others with life changing injuries.

The inquest into the crash found that the front nearside tyre which was actually older than the coach itself, at 19 years, was responsible for the crash. In 2014, Liverpool City Council unanimously agreed a motion in support of Michael’s mother Frances, calling for a change in the law requiring a ban on tyres older than six years on commercial vehicles.

Despite the wide spread public and political support for this campaign, no change in the law has been made, shamefully leaving others at risk from faulty and dangerous tyres.

Conference notes that Frances Molloy has launched “Tyred” – the official campaign to pressure Government – to change the law to ban the use of tyres older than ten years on commercial vehicles.

Conference wholeheartedly supports “Tyred” and instructs the NEC to write to the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition to call together cross-party support for a change in the law.

Conference further instructs the NEC to support the “Tyred” campaign until such a change in the law is achieved.

Mersey

Motion Was Carrried

Day One Afternoon Session