ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 showed how equality law provides some protection against discrimination, but argued that legislation frequently proves to be a fairly weak instrument in terms of actually promoting equality and diversity at work. We will also see in Chapter 8 that voluntary action by employers is not as widespread as might be hoped, given that the business case for equality and diversity has been so heavily promoted. Unions have a long tradition of fighting for social justice and fair treatment for workers. Dickens et al. (1988: 65) highlighted the contribution of unions to the equality-seeking project more than two decades ago, arguing that in the UK context, employers are more likely to review discriminatory terms and practice when there is some form of joint regulation (trade union or employee involvement) than where policy issues are unilaterally determined by employers. Other fairly recent evidence has indicated that unionized workforces generally experience less pronounced inequalities than non-unionized ones (Colling and Dickens, 2001) and confirmed that union involvement often results in more progressive equality and diversity policies (Greene and Kirton, 2009; Kersley et al., 2006).
