As the 2016 National Organ Donation Week has now ended, this Letter to Branches is to confirm the actions taken during the campaign week nationally and to remind all CWU Reps to ‘sign-up’ now to the Organ Donor Register and get every other CWU Rep in your Branch signed up as well as getting as many members to do likewise – Thanks.
Motion 85 was carried at CWU Conference in 2011 and the CWU has been supporting Organ Donation Week ever since.
On Monday of the campaign week an Article launching Organ Donation Week appeared on the front page of the CWU Website.
Two Letters to CWU Branches and Regions were issued, one in the run up to the week and one during the week, distributing materials and resources to our Branches, Regions, Officers and Reps across the UK.
All CWU Reps have been challenged to sign up to be an organ donor/blood donor and then get other Reps and members to sign up.
The CWU Equal Opportunities Department supported the campaign and work on increasing awareness of organ donation amongst our Black and Asian members.
At the 2016 TUC Congress the CWU delegation supported Motion 47 on the subject of Organ Donation which calls for the TUC and Trade Unions to Campaign to increase the number of organ donors. The CWU Health, Safety & Environment Department briefed our Delegation and provided information.
After speaking to both main employers, both Royal Mail and British Telecom issued communications supporting Organ Donation Week and Royal Mail arranged for a special postmark to be used on all letters during the campaign week, highlighting the campaign and directing people to the NHSBT Website.
CWU and NHSBT signed a formal ‘partnership’ campaign pledge.
The CWU annually campaigns to raise awareness and has promoted organ and blood donation to the members since a decision at CWU annual conference in 2011. This is done via Letters to Branches, the CWU ‘Voice’ magazine and via the CWU Website.
The CWU also works jointly with employers to run joint health awareness campaigns, one of which is organ and blood donation.
The CWU’s Health and Safety Department working with the Equal Opportunities Department has spread the message of donation across the Union, seeking to promote blood and organ donation amongst its Black and Asian members where only 1.4% of those on the Organ Donation Register are from these communities.
This CWU/NHSBT partnership is about raising awareness of the importance of blood and organ donation amongst our Branches and membership and we will continue to campaign alongside NHSBT and other organisations to achieve this. We have a diverse membership and we want our members to step forward and help save the lives of others by becoming blood and organ donors.
I hope all CWU Branches and CWU Reps have taken this campaign seriously and ‘signed-up’ as an Organ Donor. We are relying on your support in this.
Claire Dolling Senior Partnership Development Officer of the NHS Blood and Transplant organisation has congratulated the CWU on the Union’s support for the 2016 Campaign and welcomed the Union as a formal Campaign supporter and ‘Partner’. She said that the NHS Blood and Transplant organisation is pleased to be working with the Communications Workers Union, one of the UK’s major Trade Unions that takes the Health, Safety and Wellbeing of its large membership and families very seriously and places such matters high on the agenda. NHSBT is therefore launching this new formal partnership this year (2016), making the CWU the first Trade Union to agree such an initiative with NHSBT.
Yours sincerely
Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer
Email Attachments – Click to download
Attachment 1 – LTB544/16 CWU – National Organ Donation Week 2016 Conclusion:
CWU Eastern No5 Branch 
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