ABSTRACT
The case for Equality Representatives (ERs) was made in the Trade Union Congress (TUC) submission to the Women and Work Commission in 2005. The TUC believes that trade union Equality Reps are uniquely placed to promote fairness in the workplace, first by raising the equality agenda among fellow workers and their own unions, second by encouraging employers to make equality and diversity part of mainstream collective bargaining and third by working with vulnerable workers and trying to ensure that every worker receives fair treatment irrespective of gender, race, disability, religion, age, gender reassignment or sexuality (TUC 2009). The argument that they should have statutory rights to paid time off, facilities and training was not accepted by the Commission, but it did recommend that the Union Modernisation Fund (UMF) make available £5 million to train and develop networks of Equality Reps and that unions and employers re-negotiate recognition agreements on a voluntary basis in order to provide time off and facilities for them (TUC 2009). The Labour Government made £1.5 million of UMF money available for pilot projects ‘to help develop a union infrastructure to support the workplace activities of equality representatives – for example through training and development’ (Equality Bill White Paper ‘Framework for a Fairer Future’). The TUC (2010) reported that in addition to their own project for the training and development of ERs, there were seven Equality Rep projects running in UNISON, Unite, the National Union of Teachers (NUT), Prospect, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), Connect and the Transport Salaried Staff’s Association (TSSA). It expected that by the end of March 2010, there would be around 1,400 Equality Reps active in organisations in both the private and public sectors (TUC, 2010), Although ERs emerged before the introduction of the Equality Bill and the establishment of the single Equality and Human Rights Commission to replace the previous equality bodies, the prospect of a new legal context and particularly the recognition of seven equality strands appears to have shaped the ER role.
