National Women's Conference (15 - 17 Feb 07)

Bournemouth International Centre

Six women from Devon County Unison Branch set off for the Conference on Thursday. Shirley-Ann Ludley and Ann Hydes were your delegates and Rose Gander, Pauline Roberts, Sally Ellis and Katy Nash were visitors. Three of us had been to Women's Conference before and 3 had not but all six of us came away on Saturday feeling inspired and more committed.

On Thursday your delegates made it to the Gender Duty Seminar. In April 2007 there will be a legal requirement for our employers to do Equality Impact Assessments (EIA).

The EIA's will be useful in:

Stopping privatisation - If your employer is proposing to contract-out a service, use the new duties to make sure there has been an EIA. The chances are that the contractor will have lower equality standards for staff and service delivery and you can use this to argue for the service to be kept in-house.

Getting consulted - If your employer is proposing changes to working patterns, make sure they have complied with their legal equality duties by consulting with staff and unions first. If the changes might have a detrimental impact on some staff, argue for changes on equality grounds.'

Thursday evening all the South West delegates and visitors met to discuss the next days agenda (and the implications!), followed by a very enjoyable meal together, the company and conversation were fascinating.

Friday, we all met for an early breakfast giving us the opportunity to sort out how the votes should be used.

We had a number of speakers:

• Malcolm Cantello - Unison President
• Frances O'Grady - Deputy General Secretary, TUC
• Lucia Matibenga - Zimbabwe TUC
  and
• Laura Williams - Senior Researcher, The Work Foundation.

My favourite speaker of the day was Lucia Matibenga, what a woman, what a trade unionist, what a campaigner. In the introduction we heard how she had been raped, tortured and imprisoned for her trade union activities. She spoke about the Dignity Period Campaign and the huge difference the donations for tampons and sanitary pads had made to her 'sisters' in a country where there is 1600% inflation, an average wage of £12 per month, and sanitary protection, each month, would cost approx £6. She also said that the issues we would be discussing at conference were the same issues confronting the women in Zimbabwe, i.e. Domestic Abuse, Poverty, Healthcare etc. There was a bucket collection at the conference, beneficiaries were Dignity and Gemma's Fund.

Friday evening most of the Devon County Delegation met up for dinner then some went on to the Disco, arranged by the South West Region as a fundraiser for a Cornwall Women's Charity, another enjoyable day over.

Anyone wishing to attend National Women's Conference, the dates for the next one is 14 to 16 Feb 08 at Harrogate - We will possibly need names to be put forward in Oct 07.

Friday and Saturday:

* Denotes the motions we voted to be taken to National Delegates Conference. We also voted for Sharon Foster in the Hustings for National Delegate Conference.

Ann Hydes
Women's Officer
ann.hydes@devon.gov.uk