Measuring up to equality - the TUC equality audit 2005

In September 2005, the UK's Trades Union Congress published the results of its second biennial equality audit. This feature reviews the background to the exercise and reports on its main findings.

On 6 September 2005, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) published the results of its second biennial equality audit, carried out in 2005. This feature reviews the background to the exercise and reports on its main findings. The audit reveals how unions are measuring up to equality.

Background

At its 2001 annual conference, the TUC agreed a rule change that involved a commitment to undertaking biennial equality audits of affiliated trade unions and their activities. The move followed a recommendation from the TUC’s Stephen Lawrence Task Group.

The first TUC equality audit was carried out in 2003 and involved 33 unions representing 92.1% of TUC-affiliated membership. The audit asked unions to complete a detailed questionnaire containing questions about the union’s rules, structures, membership composition, collective bargaining priorities and activities, services and education and its role as an employer. Many unions were positive about their experience of participating in the audit, saying that it had helped to integrate the union’s equality and negotiating agendas and to highlight gaps in union policy and action on equality which they planned to rectify. However, a significant number of smaller unions did not participate, having found, according to an evaluation of the process, the 46-page questionnaire with more than 100 questions too onerous.

This prompted a decision to have a narrower focus for the second audit in 2005, which focused on collective bargaining, involving a nine-page questionnaire with around 40 questions covering information on the union’s bargaining and equality structures, the process of introducing an equality dimension into collective bargaining and the results of collective bargaining in terms of their equality impact. The more focused approach achieved an improved level of participation of 47 unions, representing 98.2% of the membership. Again, the unions who did not participate were generally the smaller ones, with the largest being the professional entertainment union Equity (36,000 members).

2005 equality audit findings

The framework for equalities bargaining

The audit respondents confirm that bargaining in the UK is now highly decentralised - the majority of unions deal with anything from 200 bargaining units to more than 1,000 - and negotiations are often conducted by local or regional officials or local lay representatives. Most unions could not answer questions about the make-up of these negotiators in terms of gender, ethnicity and disability. A minority provided details on the gender breakdown. The most detailed figures are from the 2003 audit where only eight unions, among them large and smaller, gave a figure for women as a proportion of branch officials and only seven for women as a proportion of workplace representatives. This revealed a picture of varying degrees of women’s under-representation.

The main way that unions identify priorities for equalities bargaining is through conference or executive committee decisions - 91% of unions operate in this way. But recommendations from equality bodies in the union are also important for about two-thirds of unions, as are discussions between officials for nearly half.

The top equality bargaining goals identified by the unions were:

• measures to achieve equal pay, particularly for women;

• work-life balance and flexible working;

• parental rights, including maternity and paternity leave and pay; and

• race discrimination and equality issues.

Other equality bargaining goals high in the list of priorities include lesbian and gay and disability issues.

Policies, guidelines and briefing materials

The audit report finds that the abovementioned areas generally reflect the unions’ bargaining priorities and therefore they are more likely to have produced guidelines or other materials on the top four priorities listed above. Accordingly, 36 unions have policies and/or materials on women’s pay. The higher education unions are particularly active in this area. The report notes that how part-timers are paid is also crucial for overall pay equality and 20 unions have material/policies on this. Forty-two respondents have policies and material on work-life balance, especially job-sharing, the 'long hours culture' and flexi-time. A smaller number of unions have also extended the agenda by including compressed hours and term-time working. In the context of decentralised bargaining, there is also some evidence from the audit that some unions are moving away from rigid national policies on work-life balance and flexible working issues towards localised ones, sensitive to the particular environment.

Forty unions have policies and/or materials on parents and carers, although most of these are in the traditional areas of maternity and paternity pay. Fewer include maternity and paternity leave and fewer still adoption or dependency leave or childcare support. Thirty-nine unions report that they have produced policies/materials on race discrimination and equality issues, with the most frequently cited issue being dealing with racism and the far right in the workplace. Issues that would require rethinking terms and conditions (eg reorganising leave for religious observance or for extended holidays) or involving recruitment, training and development (eg language and other training and foreign qualifications) have been taken up by far fewer unions.

From guidelines to negotiation

Significantly, the audit reveals that communicating policies/guidelines is a potential barrier to translating policy into practice. In particular, direct communication (eg by circulars or email) with local officials occurs less frequently than with national officials. Websites are a major policy communication tool for most unions. Almost half of unions provide some form of equalities training for local negotiators and national officials. Only a minority of unions have equality reps.

Negotiating successes

The audit report acknowledges that it is no surprise to find that there is a gap between what unions are asking for and what they have achieved. It is difficult to assess though, because the audit finds that most unions do not monitor the results of equality bargaining at local level, although at national level there is closer monitoring. It appears that it is easier to negotiate on some issues than others; for example there is a greater degree of success on flexible working and work-life balance and childcare than on issues related to black and minority ethnic workers and women’s pay. For example, 32 unions reported that they had achieved some success in negotiating on work-life balance/flexible working and on the issue of parents and carers. Smaller groups of 26 unions reported that they had negotiated improvements in women’s pay and 24 in the position of black and minority ethnic workers.

Commentary

It seems difficult to dispute that the unions have made enormous efforts to improve their record on equality action and this is certainly encouraging if we take unions to be one of the key actors in industrial relations. However, there is still scope for unions to think beyond the traditional equalities agenda and to broaden the scope. One significant example is that while the majority of unions claim to have women’s pay as a top priority, fewer have made the connection with part-time work. Another example is the rather narrow nature of policies/materials on race and ethnicity issues. The top bargaining goals mirror developments in legislation and government policy, perhaps because this is where unions judge they will have the greatest success. It also reflects the traditional union approach to building on the 'floor of rights' established by legislation. However, the audit report highlights some examples of good practice where unions have extended their policies/materials beyond traditional goals.

The fact that unions use multiple channels for identifying priorities is important, particularly in view of women’s relative absence from the ranks of negotiators. A large amount of research over the last 20 years or so has argued that this is a major reason for the slow progress on equality bargaining and a major issue for unions to tackle. Related to this, within a context of decentralised bargaining it is important that local officials and workplace representatives have easy access to the union’s policies and guidelines. With most unions using their web sites as a major communication tool, this is achievable, but local officials and representatives are likely to have to seek out the information, which means that they need to be interested in the first place. This makes it particularly important to increase the numbers of women and other under-represented groups involved in negotiations, because they are the ones who will directly benefit from equality bargaining. (Gill Kirton, Queen Mary, University of London)