Personal injury

Every UNISON member is entitled to use the union’s free personal injury legal service through the union’s solicitors Thompsons. They will often take cases that claim companies and ‘no-win no fee’ solicitors will not. Also, they don’t take any cut of damages awarded. This is one of the many benefits of your membership.

Last month, a member of the West Sussex branch received £19,000 from the union’s personal injury service. He was moving a service user on a vehicle without appropriate equipment. The employer’s insurers refused to negotiate, so Thompsons started court proceedings for our member. After this vindication, our Health and Safety Reps are taking up the relevant H&S issues with managers.

Privatisation-who supports it?

Less and less of us. A YouGov poll published in October found more support than ever for publicly run services: 68% want energy companies renationalised, 66% want rail in public ownership, and 84% want the NHS returned fully to public provision. Sadly, the County Council’s ‘Future Council’ programme is out of step with the times and commits the Council to finding ‘partners’ to work with whenever it can. UNISON will stand up to this madness and will advocate tirelessly for accountable public services run for public benefit, not private profit. If you agree with us, join us as one of our 100+ UNISON Workplace Reps.

Reasonable ‘Reasonable Adjustments’?

If disabled UNISON members are having problems securing Reasonable Adjustments from your employer please get in touch with the Branch office so that we can take this up. If you do have a disability, such as a visual impairment, dyslexia and so on, your employer must take steps to ensure you have the correct equipment installed to enable you to fulfil your role at no cost to yourself.

Support for Adult Social Work members

Members working alongside health service colleagues in Mental Health teams are facing increasing workloads and pressures, so UNISON conducted a joint survey with our sister branch in Sussex Partnership Trust. We are now engaged in discussions with the Trust to ensure that our members are properly supported and not overwhelmed with work, and have secured some improvements to staff resources, with the promise of more to come.

UNISON Reps Wendy Wilson, Di Knight, and Karen Daubney have been working hard to put members’ views forward on Adult Services Redesign. The first phase of change to the management structure begins shortly.