Retired Members Conference

November 10 2022

 

The Unions Retired Members Conference is only a week away and Branches and delegates are reminded to register their attendance with CWU Headquarters. We have received a number of motions that range from protecting retired members from the energy crisis, death grant information, future retired members conference dates and many other issues. We will also be voting on the retired members’ delegates entitled to attend next year’s Annual Conference as delegates on behalf of retired members nationally. This year’s conference is particularly important given the aftermath of the Covid Crisis, the political and economic crisis and attacks on pensioners and the elderlies entitlements.

 

The Conservative Government is considering a whole range of austerity measures that may affect our retired members. Although the Conservative Party manifesto committed them to protecting lock, introduce improvements to social care provision and resolve the WASPI women issues, these promises have already been broken. Our Union is involved in the biggest industrial action struggles in its history and our working members are all taking industrial action in defense of their terms, conditions and pay. According to many economists the UK is facing the biggest recession in a century and we await the announcement of the government’s economic measures due to be published on 15 November.

 

The next General Election is due in about two years time and it looks like the battle ground will be located in those Redwall seats that went from Labour to Conservative at the last election. However there is another important area that will have a significant effect on the election outcome and that is how those over the age of 50 will vote. It’s an established fact that once people go beyond the age of 50 they are more likely to vote Conservative and by the age of 70 over 70% are inclined to vote for the Tories. This age group is also the most likely to actually vote in a general election. It’s also an established fact that there is very little information on why this happens and it’s about time the labour movement gave some consideration to dealing with this problem. If they don’t and do not come up with any solutions to resolve this problem then even given the unpopularity of the government at the moment in two years time the situation may be very different.

 

On behalf of the Retired Members National Committee we look forward to seeing all our delegates at this year’s conference and wish you all a successful and safe couple of days.