UCU: Women, Covid, care and workload

Motion

Motion text: Congress notes:
1. Full lockdown, including closure of schools, nurseries and adult care provision has created additional labour, heavily impacting women members
2. This labour continues during partial lockdowns when dependents and vulnerable adults are at home in isolation.
Congress believes:
a. The failure to plan for and fund large-scale social care needs during the pandemic is a threat to women’s rights
b. The detriment is especially strong for casualised workers
c. Treating women and other carers as an unpaid labour reserve is discriminatory and harmful
d. Carers are entitled to a reasonable adjustment in workload
e. When schools / care provision closes carers must have the right to a reduced workload without detriment
Congress calls on UCU to:
i. Urgently develop national policy and campaign to negotiate reduced workload for Covid carers
ii. Campaign for carers to be included in equality legislation
iii. Facilitate branches in demanding reasonable workload adjustments for carers with national support.