‘A powerful counterbalance'

Welcome to Unite Live’s coverage of this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton, running from Sunday September 13 to Wednesday September 16. We’ll bring you all the highlights and as many of the contributions as we can, made by your Unite delegates to the conference.

Opening the conference, (after all the customary welcome speeches) was the first composite motion – which was a Unite motion on equality reps. The motion welcomed the introduction of statutory paid time off for equality reps and called for a raft of further action including further legislative reforms and making equality bargaining ‘a central pillar of the TUC’s industrial strategy,

Unite EC member and delegate, Susan Matthews, with a well-received speech, was pleased to announce that, “finally from next month we will have statutory paid time off for trade union equality representatives.”

That long, hard fought battle was, “just the end of the beginning. Now the really hard work starts.”

She continued, emphasising that, “We must, collectively as a movement, work to maximise the success of this legislation and keep pushing at the door for more to meet the challenges we face.

“For example, Unite has previously moved motions at Congress about the discrimination that is being in-built to AI and is already impacting on our workplaces.

“Equality reps make sure that equality is on the agenda, is never just an add-on and is a core industrial bargaining issue. And by equipping trade union equality reps to be organisers there is the potential to turn paper policy commitments on equality into an industrial power in the workplace.

“They can identify the patterns that lay behind the individual grievance; push for action to actually happen to close discriminatory pay gaps; stop sexual harassment; challenge racist and homophobic attitudes; address the barriers to disabled workers at work and seeking to create inclusive workplaces for all,” Susan explained.

“These are just some of the examples of campaigns, projects and achievements our Equality reps already cite as positive changes in their workplace.

“It is why the actions of this motion are concrete and set out the next steps, including having a national campaign, producing comprehensive bargaining guidance and model agreements and campaigning to make sure the new rights are enforced.”

She emphasised, “With more resources and statutory rights, equipped with the right tools and training, we can build a generation of stand-alone equality reps focused on their role that can grow our movement; organising and developing BAEM, disabled, LGBT+, migrant, young and women workers – collectively the significant majority of our society – on a scale we have not done before.”

The union movement could push forward, further afield. “Let’s not shy away from not just the industrial power that would be, but what it would represent and mean in our society and politically at this moment.

“As the far-right grow in influence and increasingly take to the streets then challenging attitudes and making positive change in every workplace that benefits everyone is a powerful counterbalance.

“This opportunity is ours – we must seize it,” she said.

But before her final words she added, “It would be remiss of me not to mention the loss of Jason Arday [the university lecturer]. He was a victim of systematic discrimination behaviour. And we have to utilise our equality reps to fight back against this. We have to push back against rogue employers.”

The motion was seconded by UCU. Their speaker thanked Unite for bringing the motion to the conference and for all the work Unite has done on this issue.

The motion was carried.

By Amanda Campbell

Photos by Mark Thomas