The full text of our contribution to the Working Futures report is below, and you can read the full report here: https://policyatmanchester.shorthandstories.com/working-futures/index.html

In recent years social movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter have shifted the narrative on equality, and reshaped expectations about treatment in the social sphere and the workplace. Many large corporations, multinational companies, public sector employers and small businesses in the United Kingdom have issued statements pledging their commitments to the broad aims of these movements. In this article, Dr Holly Smith, Professor Miguel Martinez Lucio, Dr Stefania Marino and Professor Heather Connolly evaluate how this opening up of the debate presents an opportunity to formulate genuinely inclusive working practices and policy.

• Workers and their representatives should be included and engaged in the processes and dialogue for change.
• The Equalities Act should be extended to include provisions for negotiation and collective bargaining.
• A public policy strategy of support – similar to the now abolished Union Learning Fund – should be established to fund and support trade union equalities representatives and structures more generally in workplaces to lead on this work on equality.

What shapes workplace equality strategies?

For most of the 20th century, equality legislation in the UK was a complex patchwork of numerous pieces of anti-discrimination law, with landmark pieces of legislation such as the Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Race Relations Act 1976 amended and extended.

In 2010, the Equalities Act combined over 116 separate pieces of legislation into one single Act. It provides a comprehensive legal framework of protection against direct or indirect discrimination - identifying ‘protected characteristics’: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Since its introduction, workplace policies relating to equality - often called equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) or ‘equal opportunities’ policies - have been heavily influenced and shaped by its provisions.

While it could be argued that the Equalities Act simplifies legislation for policymakers, employers, and workers alike, it gives greater importance to individual rather than collective employment rights. This is important within a context of both declining trade union membership and collective bargaining coverage (the proportion of workers whose employment contracts and working conditions were jointly negotiated between employers and trade unions.)

Filling this representation gap is a wide set of actors such as EDI consultants and advisors, NGOs, and civil society organisations, who attempt to influence organisations from outside the workplace rather than within it. The effectiveness of employers’ efforts can be questioned in this regard – and implications that for workplace actors (such as Equalities leads within HR departments, Diversity Managers, and EDI or ‘inclusion’ teams) legal compliance and the ‘business case’ for equality takes precedence over genuine commitment to progressive aims and practices.

The Equalities Act legislation should therefore be expanded to include provisions for negotiation and collective bargaining.

The role of workplace civil governance

Also within the workplace, staff networks – both formal and informal - organised along the lines of protected characteristics such as Black workers, disabled, or LGBT networks can provide an opportunity for worker visibility, voice, and engagement on these issues. In our research so far, we have found that these groups are often used as consultative bodies by employers during times of organisational change, and can offer feedback on and call for more inclusive workplace policies. A lot of their work encourages employer affiliation to or close working relationships with organisations offering reward or accreditation schemes, such as the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index. Civil governance has an increasing role in work and employment relations. There are now approximately 400 such organisations attempting to influence and shape employment in the UK. These types of schemes, however, can be subject to reputational and institutional pressures, and can be reluctant to challenge employers robustly on organisational change.

The missing link

Trade unions are generally more both willing and able to contest and challenge employers’ practices, and can be a more effective mediating agent than other civil society organisations. Where collective bargaining provisions are in place, this can have a positive impact on workplace equality, including narrowing the gender pay gap.

Though there are some progressive initiatives on bargaining for equality, these efforts remain piecemeal. While progressive employers – often in the public sector – already consult and work with trade unions on these issues, the voluntarist approach to bargaining in the UK results in the neglect of large swathes of the private sector, leading to an uneven adoption of good practice.

This complex hybrid of state, civil, and private regulation lacks both coherence and enforcement, and given the prevalence of the gender and ethnicity pay gaps, and the intersectional effects of the predominance of Black, Asian and ethnic minority women in precarious work, these measures are clearly not sufficient to address systemic inequalities.

Moving forward – policy and the equalities agenda

A more systematic review of trade union recognition that enhances the role of organised labour (as representatives of the workers these policies affect) is needed.

We suggest a national scheme which provides for statutory recognition for trade union equality representatives to be embedded within collective bargaining frameworks. This could ensure that workers' representatives are involved in the development of meaningful workplace equality policies and ensure their enforcement.

They could undertake training equivalent to managers or employer equality leads on aspects of equalities-related employment legislation, monitor adherence, and challenge employers if adherence is found to be lacking. These representatives would be well placed to be informed of and investigate any complaints or concerns about discrimination in the workplace, and challenge these in an institutionalised and collective manner not isolating the affected individuals. These initiatives in the UK would need a framework of support regarding training, auditing, and research, which the state previously developed – albeit in a limited manner – with the Union Modernisation Fund and Union Learning Fund during the last Labour government.

The OECD recognises the important role that workers’ representatives and collective bargaining processes play in designing and implementing equal pay structures, yet only a limited number of countries promote this. Strategies such as the equality plans in Spain can demonstrate the importance of formally bringing in trade unions as an essential part of the negotiation process. Spain is an emerging case study in the way a range of contemporary legislation and judicial decisions have placed trade unions in an important role in an employer’s development of equality strategies. There are some drawbacks related to coordination and timeframes, but it means that equality agreements and plans cannot be signed off by management unilaterally.

The adoption of these or similar strategies in the UK would ensure that equality can be embedded into many aspects of the employment relationship, resulting in workplaces which are more inclusive and less discriminatory, with people helping shape the decisions and policies that affect their working lives.