Members urged to join campaign

Members of the UNISON public services union are being urged to “join the fight to hold business and the public sector to account for human rights and environmental damage in their supply chains”.

UNISON works at a national level with the Friends of the Earth (FoE) environmental campaign as part of the Corporate Justice Coalition (CJC), which is calling on the government to introduce a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act.

It now hopes that union members and green campaigners can also start to work together at a local level on the campaign.

FoE is asking local organisations, including UNISON branches, to write an “open community letter” demanding local MPs support a new such law.

Its model letter says the new law would “enable workers, local communities and Indigenous Peoples in the UK and around the world, who are harmed by UK companies or public sector supply chains, to seek justice in a UK court”.

UNISON says that branches and FoE local groups “may also decide to develop additional local campaign actions to promote the need for the new law”.

UNISON international officer Gemma Freedman said: “By working together at the local level, UNISON regions and branches and Friends of the Earth local groups — alongside other local community groups, small businesses and other unions — can put pressure on their local MPs to support the new law.”