Women

RMT regional women's officer Carol Foster reports from the recent national RMT Women's Conference ...

People often ask me ‘why do we need a women’s conference?’

Why indeed? As I write, the Met Police have let a second rapist go; it seems that the Home Office targets place a higher priority on property crime than on sex offences.

The RMT national Women’s Conference met @ The Royal Station Hotel in Newcastle on 6th & 7th March 2009. As ever plenty of lively debate.

There was a talk by Etienne Attala from Thompsons on flexible working & Age Discrimination.

Becky Crocker, our regional Young Members' Officer, was an RMT delegate to the recent TUC Women's Conference. She wrote this report for the socialist newspaper Solidarity. We nicked it from their website, here!

This conference opened my eyes to a different side of the labour movement. Among the 250 delegates, there were some militant trade unionists, but their voice was drowned out by the overwhelming conservatism.

The new issue of our regional women's newsletter urges women to vote Yes in the industrial action ballot. It also includes an article on domestic violence, some useful contacts, and news of events past and future.

Click '1 attachment' / file name to download it.

This resolution, submitted by Swansea No. 1 Branch, was passed unanimously by RMT Women's Conference. It will now be submitted to RMT's 2009 Annual General Meeting.

That this Conference believes that Human Trafficking is a scandalous violation of human dignity.

In the UK the abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed on 25th March 1807. Two hundred years later there are still slaves in Britain.

This resolution, submitted by LU Engineering Branch, was passed unanimiously by RMT Women's Conference 2009.

This resolution, submitted by LU Engineering Branch, was passed unanimously by RMT Women's Conference. It will now be submitted to RMT's 2009 Annual General Meeting.

This resolution, submitted by LU Engineering Branch, was passed unanimously by RMT Women's Conference 2009.

This resolution, submitted by Stratford No. 1 Branch, was passed by RMT Women's Conference 2009.

That this Conference asks the Union to produce a quarterly Woman's newsletter and also asks members of the Woman's Advisory Committee to contribute material.

This resolution, submitted by Camden No. 3 Branch, was passed by RMT Women's Conference 2009.

That this Conference mourns the deaths of over 1,000 Palestinians during Israel's brutal assault on Gaza in December and January, including hundreds of women and children.

While not condoning rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, or the regressive and sexist policies of Hamas, we unreservedly condemn Israel's actions in carrying out this attack, and its siege of Gaza.

This resolution, submitted by Camden No. 3 Branch, was passed unanimiously by RMT Women's Conference 2009.

That this Conference notes that the economic crisis will hit working class women hard.

We note that within our industry, redundancies are already planned in administrative grades, dominated by women and are likely in the subcontracted jobs like cleaning, also dominated by women.

Women predominantly occupy the lowest paid grades in our industry, and are therefore vulnerable to the poverty inflicted by the economic crisis.