The union submitted two motions for the conference agenda on 'Supporting Women Carers' and 'Women's Under-Representation in Policy and Decision Making'.
Ruth Cross – Usdaw Equalities Officer says: “Women remain under-represented in political spaces and peace processes. This sets back gender equality and global peace. Sexism, misogyny, and violence violate women’s right to participate equally in political and public life. Attacks on women in public life are also increasing and more women are withdrawing from public life as a result. Women are excluded from peace processes, and impunity for atrocities against women and girls is widespread.
“The number of people needing humanitarian aid is growing. We face the largest global food crisis in modern history. Much of this is driven by armed conflicts. More than 600 million women and girls lived in conflict-affected countries in 2022, a 50 per cent increase since 2017. Women are more affected by these problems, but their participation contributes to their resolution and longer-lasting peace.
“Evidence shows women bring lived experience to political decision-making resulting in decisions that address violence, human rights abuses and promote more equal access to resources and services. We call for investment in women’s organisations in crisis settings, measures to increase the meaningful participation of women in mediation and peace processes, parity in political and electoral processes, and greater protections for women in conflict-affected countries.”
Ruth Cross continued: “Recent census data confirming that women continue to be more likely to provide unpaid care in every age group. Providing care has an impact on most aspects of women’s daily lives, decision making and financial circumstances, and yet their care responsibilities and the effort required to make themselves available to do their jobs is frequently invisible to or ignored by employers.
“Due to this lack of recognition and support, women carers are often compelled to reduce hours of work, take unpaid, sick leave, or give up work altogether. This has a knock-on effect on income. While we welcomes the Carers Leave Act as a step in the right direction and acknowledge that it gives us a base from which to negotiate improvements, without pay it will make little practical difference to low paid women carers.”
Usdaw is calling on the TUC to continue to press for:
- Flexible and paid employment rights that explicitly value the contribution of unpaid carers, no matter what kind of job or contract they have.
- Improved access to quality and reliable social care.
- Social security that prevents and protects against poverty and enables people to work and care.
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is one of the fastest growing unions in the TUC and the UK's fifth biggest trade union with around 360,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion