STUC Congress – Monday 20 – Wednesday 22 April 2026, Caird Hall, Dundee
Report to the Scottish LGBT+ Committee
UNISON Scottish LGBT+ Committee were well represented at the 129th STUC Congress with two delegates. Miche
al Craig, UNISON Scottish Healthcare and Ian Ludlam, UNISON City of Edinburgh. Michael attended in his role as one of two delegates from the STUC LGBT+ Workers Committee, whereas Ian attended as the Scottish LGBT+ Committee representative to the UNISON Scotland delegation. Additionally, Josephine Wilson former UNISON City of Glasgow LGBT+ Officer was in the UNISON Scotland delegation and former UNISON Scottish LGBT+ Committee Co-Convenor, Willie Docherty was at Congress as Chair of the STUC Standing Orders Committee. Tributes were made to Willie after standing down as SOC Chair after 11 years.
Congress was opened on Monday with a warm Civic Welcome from Councillor Bill Campell, Lord Provost, Dundee.
Equality and Social Justice motions were not scheduled until Wednesday morning’s session, but LGBT+ issues and concerns were raised by delegates and speakers throughout the Monday and Tuesday sessions.
Of note:
In a pre-Congress meeting, UNISON delegates agreed, but not all remembered, to use pronouns when addressing congress and wear UNISON Transequality lanyards
DAY 1
Motion 30 – Maritime training and education
Motion 30”.s proposed by Nautilus International (NI) and seconded by the RMT and called upon the Congress and the Scottish Government to ” embed equality, diversity and inclusion across all training routes, ensuring the needs of women, young workers, Black workers, LGBT+ workers and disabled workers are fully addressed” . The concerns in particular to young LGBT+ seafarers were raised in the NI speech.
Motion 8 – Addressing rising violence in schools
Motion 8 was proposed by Community and seconded by the NASUWT and amongst other things asked Congress to “urge local authorities and schools to encourage the recruitment of more Union Health and Safety reps and to work with them to have robust risk assessments to manage violent incidents and ensure that staff and pupils are kept safe” Josephine Wilson, UNISON City of Glasgow Equality Officer, using her pronouns addressed Congress regarding the prevalence and rise of misogyny, homophobia and toxic attitudes in schools.
On Monday afternoon two guest speakers had been invited to address the hall.
Anas Sawar, Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland.
The STUC LGBT+ Worker’s delegation staged a walk out regarding Sawar and Scottish Labour’s significant U-turn on gender rights prior to the May 7 Scottish Parliamentary election.
Delegations were given three questions to put to him after the speech (this was not a hustings, to avoid the need to invite Reform UK). UNISON Scotland asked about properly taxing the wealthy, while the response received a round of applause, the general feeling in the UNISON Scotland delegation was that he did not address the concerns raised to any question. The video of the full speech is available in the link above.
Tara Lillis, Vice Chair of the STUC Women’s Committee
Tara Lillis stressed the incumbency of the Women’s Committee to listen to the STUC Black, Disabled, LGBT+, and Young Workers and about the importance of intersectionality. I could not find a video of Tara’s speech but her statement from Congress is available on the STUC Instagram page.
DAY 2
Congress was addressed in the morning by Owen Reidy, General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).
While the ICTU is an all-Ireland organisation. Owen sadly, did not mention either the of this year’s ILGA Europe Dublin or the UNISON LGBT+ Belfast Conferences.
Address to Congress: Roz Foyer, STUC General Secretary
For those of who have attended STUC LGBT+ Worker’s conferences will know, Roz is a fierce defender of LGBT+ rights and did not fail to give prominence to the LGBT+ Trade Union (TU) community in her address mentioning that the TU movement needs to ensure “trans people are seen and heard in our spaces”, called out those who call the TU movement “woke because we care” and Reform UK for “peddling false promises”. Roz’s full speech is available on the STUC YouTube page.
STUC Equality Award 2026
UNISON Scotland Black Member’s Committee Chair, Raza Sadiq, received the STUC Equality Award 2026 for his dedication to empowering under-represented groups. UNISON Scotland member, Vincent Ogwu-Richard was noted as another outstanding nominee for the same award.
DAY 3
Motion 99 – Conversion Therapy
Motion 99 was proposed by the STUC LGBT+ Committee. Sarah Krasewitz, STUC LGBT+ Committee Chair and Transpride Scotland Co-Convenor moved the motion with a passionate speech quoting the account of a friend’s firsthand experience of being subjected to the barbaric practice of conversion therapy. Attendees of last year’s STUC LGBT+ Workers Conference will be familiar with Sarah’s friend and her heartbreaking experiences as a young man.
Motion 99 called on the STUC General Council to demand that the Scottish Government:
- introduce a bill to make this practice illegal in Scotland and that this be passed within the first year of the new Parliament; and
- makes conversion therapy illegal and acts to protect vulnerable people through:
- a full and complete ban on conversion therapy.
- the removal of loopholes and exclusions for religious groups; and
- that trans people are included in the ban
Ian spoke in support of the motion, mentioning the bravery of Sarah’s friend and recounting the broken promises by Scottish Minister for Equalities, Kaukab Stewart made at UNISON Scottish LGBT+ Committee Policy and Seminar weekend 2025.
There were no speakers against Motion 99 which was carried unanimously. You can view Ian’s speech below.
Motion 100 Media Reporting and fair coverage of LGBT+ issues with a focus on trans inclusion
Motion 100 was also proposed by the STUC LGBT+ Workers Committee. Michael gave a powerful and emotive speech in moving the motion. The motion was seconded by the NUJ.
At the time of writing the speech was not published online; however, Michael will enquire with the STUC and if possible, it will be made available for the next UNISON Scottish LGBT+ Committee meeting on Saturday 9 May.
Motion 100 was the last called before lunch and unfortunately debate had to be cut short. Ian, because he had already had the opportunity to speak on the previous LGBT+ motion gave way to a colleague to be the last speaker.
There were no speakers against Motion 100 which was also carried unanimously.
Off Congress, Transpride Scotland had their first ever stall; UNISON Scotland had a successful fringe event, A Year of Green Activity; and UNISON Scotland had probably the best social event in conjunction with UNITE.
Our joint social was well attended by TU colleagues from throughout the movement enjoying a formidable buffet and generous bar tab.
Best Dancers of the week
Ian and Josephine, of course!
Quote of the Congress 2026
Of Donald J Trump, “…just shows a ‘turd on a stick’ can be elected in the US…”
First-time speaker of Congress
Josephine upon being advised by STUC President, Richard Hardy, that she had overrun the three-minute rule, said she would wrap up and then carried on regardless until she had got her full points across and finished her speech. Good on you Josephine, UNISON star!
If you would like to see the many other motions and the results of the debates, you can access the full list of decisions from the STUC website.
Ian Ludlam (he/him)
Scottish LGBT+ Committee, Co-Convenor