Direction Forward for proportionality in the CWU

Union Matters, Equalities August 6 2020

“Equality of opportunity is one of our key values as a trade union,” and “makes us all stronger,” explained our general secretary Dave Ward as he and equality, education & development national officer Kate Hudson launched a major initiative to drive forward the CWU’s commitment to full proportionality yesterday.

In an interactive broadcast to our branches in every part of the UK, Dave and Kate set out the union’s ‘New Direction’ strategy, its key aims and the crucial reasons for it.

The CWU, and trade unions generally, are the organisations within society which are best placed to lead on the fight against discrimination and the struggle for proportionality, our general secretary told the nationwide audience, because, due to their very nature, “trade unions bridge every divide in society.”

This is why the CWU, and he as its leader, place such a high priority on this aspiration – and this is why a detailed data study was commissioned across the union to determine exactly where we are on this, how far we have come and how far we still have to travel.

As a union, we first committed to proportionality – each recognised equality strand having representation at every level of the union at a similar proportion to its proportion among the membership as a whole – back in 2014, but both Dave and Kate told viewers – as the data contained within the report show – that progress has been disappointing.

Just over one-fifth (20.4 per cent overall: Postal 19.8%, T&FS 23.4%) of our members are female and, although women’s representation on our union’s key national bodies is at least or greater than proportional – eight women on our NEC, four on our postal executive and eight on our T&FS executive – the regional picture is different, with no female regional secretaries and only nine women currently serving as branch secretaries (four Postal and five T&FS). (Data report P12/13)

A little under one-tenth (8.6 per cent overall: Postal 9.7%, T&FS 8.1%) of CWU members are recorded as coming from black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, although this statistic in the report comes with the significant caveat that ‘currently, 82,574 members have not declared their ethnicity with the CWU’ and the suggestion that ‘more needs to be done to encourage members to declare their origin’. (Data report P14)

Of our leading national committees, only our NEC – with four BAME members – has representation at least equal in proportion to our recorded BAME membership, while there is one BAME member of the CWU’s Postal Executive and there are no BAME representatives currently serving on the T&FSE. (Data report P17)

There are no BAME regional secretaries, but at branch secretary level, overall representation is slightly above the recorded national membership proportion, with 14 BAME branch secretaries (10 Postal and four T&FS). (Data report P17)

Kate Hudson, who has only recently been appointed to the role of CWU head of equality, education & development, voiced her strong determination to improve on these figures, vowing to “drive forward proportionality and representation.”

Our union’s newly redesigned equality structures would be a major asset in this struggle, she said, citing in particular the leadership at national level that the recently elected national equality leads can provide and, crucially, the further strengthening of the CWU’s proportionality agenda by the establishment of regional equality leads, who can raise these issues all around the country and win the union’s wider support for this agenda.

“When all those leads go back to their regions, if you think about those 10 regions all driving that same campaign forward – it’s quite powerful,” Kate explained.

“And that’s what redesign all about – bringing this agenda into the mainstream of the CWU.”

Dave Ward compared the CWU’s previous structure of separate ‘advisory committees’ to the new redesigned set up and made that point that the old system inadvertently created a culture which saw ‘equality’ as, to a certain extent, an issue only for those groups.

But our new redesigned CWU puts equality front and centre of everything we do as a union – and, with Kate leading nationally and supported by the national and regional equality leads, our general secretary expressed confidence and determination that meaningful change is being and will be achieved.

As an example of what the CWU can do when the equality agenda is central and is fully mainstreamed within our union, Dave cited last year’s United Nations Anti-Racism Day demonstration in central London, where the largest single contingent of marchers were our very own massed ranks of pink.

Describing the CWU turnout as “one of the greatest moments” for us over the recent period, he explained how that success had been achieved – by going out to all our reps and branches and setting out the anti-racism agenda in terms of how it linked and connected to all of our other struggles.

It was an example of mainstreaming in action, which showed the trade union movement’s ability to lead and to inspire.

Developing this point further, Kate commented that it is this kind of public and high-profile campaigning work which is “massively important to how we move forward as a union.

“It shows our members what we are doing as a trade union movement – and we want them to be a part of that,” she said.

Our head of comms Chris Webb was hosting the broadcast and it was a busy afternoon for him, taking dozens of questions from the audience and putting them to Dave and Kate on their behalf.

Questions ranged from how we are dealing with these issues under current, Covid-19 conditions, to the terminology we use when discussing equality issues and also on what specific measures – whether at branch, regional or national levels – the union can take to ensure that proportionality is achieved.

Other subjects brought up included the different equality strands and the need to ensure better recording and representation, training and mentoring of new reps – and the need to make equality an intrinsic part of this. All of the questions and comments indicated a strong and growing feeling that the whole union needs to unite to drive this agenda forward.

Responding to some of these points, Dave told the watching branch representatives that he had previously disagreed with proposals such as reserved seats and quotas, but that perhaps it was now time to revisit that debate.

And Kate replied to several comments and queries by insisting that, while this ‘New Direction’ strategy launch has come from the union’s national leadership, it is also intended to spark debate and discussion and to encourage the flow of suggestions and proposals from around the country back up to the national union.

“It’s not just about my ideas and our general secretary’s ideas – we want ideas from regions & branches,” she insisted.

“Take this document to your branches and to your regional committees – open up the conversation about what proportionality means to you.”

In their closing comments, Dave and Kate thanked people for participating – and reminded them that updating of branch equality data is absolutely critical in order to continue to know where we are, how far we still have to travel and what steps we need to take.

And they both thanked Katie Dunning for her excellent work for the CWU in compiling and producing the data and the value of this information in enabling the union to push forward further on our equality agenda.

“This is a new direction and we all have to work together,” urged Kate, adding: It can only happen if we work together as one union on it.”

And Dave called for an “open and frank debate about what the solutions are,” insisting that the priority must be to “create solutions and get them into mainstream debates.

“The CWU is at its best when it has constructive discussions.”

Winding up the event, Chris Webb thanked Dave and Kate and the branches, explaining that this broadcast was being recorded and would be made available – and he also gave a special mention to the two BSL signers Rose and Adrian.