Equality

Equality
More barriers to justice for those fighting for equality

18th January 2012 — Filed under: Equality

Sally Brett

Tomorrow the TUC will be hosting our annual discrimination law conference with Equal Opportunities Review. Since 1995 the conference has provided a valuable opportunity for trade unionists, advice workers and NGOs who assist victims of discrimination to share strategies and to hear from leading barristers and experts in field.

When we first ran the conference 18 years ago, we had no idea how discrimination law was going to expand. At that time all we had in place were sex and race discrimination laws dating back to the 1970s, with legislation to protect disabled people from discrimination in the workplace due to take effect later that year. Since then, we’ve seen discrimination based on a wider range of protected characteristics become unlawful (gender reassignment, sexual orientation, religion or belief and age) and the new bans on discrimination extend from just covering employment to apply to a much wider range of activities (though we still await the extension for age).

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Equality
World AIDS Day: Working with HIV

1st December 2011 — Filed under: Equality

Eleanor Briggs

30 years on from the first officially reported cases, HIV remains a serious concern in the UK. Next year we expect the numbers of people living with HIV in the UK to reach 100,000.

Health Protection Agency UK statistics show that 1 in 20 gay and bisexual men and approaching 1 in 20 black Africans are living with HIV. These are communities that already face discrimination and barriers to accessing services, but will also feel the impact of the current economic and political climate.

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Equality
CAHVIO: UK shouldn’t be missing from key convention on violence against women

25th November 2011 — Filed under: Equality

Scarlet Harris

25 Nov: UN Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

Today, 25th November, is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and it seems a fitting moment to ask the government to reaffirm its commitment to eradicating violence against women with a very tangible, and rather overdue, step. We’ve chosen today to start a petition urging the government to sign up to the Council of Europe convention on combating and preventing violence against women and domestic violence (the convention is known as CAHVIO).

Now, the UK has a comparatively good track record on initiatives to end violence against women and girls (VAWG) – leaving aside recent retrograde steps such as cuts to local authority funding of refuges and other VAWG services and the disastrous Legal Aid reforms which will leave women fleeing domestic violence with no access to justice unless they can afford to pay. Compared to many parts of the world where violence against women is tolerated or even sanctioned by the state, the UK has taken many steps over the years to attempt to eradicate violence against women and girls.

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Equality
The Equality Deficit

15th November 2011 — Filed under: Equality

Scarlet Harris

Tomorrow (Wednesday 16th November) the TUC will be holding a one day conference called The Equality Deficit. The conference, which is free and open to all, provides an opportunity for trade unionists, voluntary sector workers, campaigners and community organisers to explore the equality impact of the cuts.

Importantly, the conference aims to build alliances between the voluntary sector and trade unions. This isn’t about listing the many (and they really are many) ways in which the government’s swingeing cuts programme has disproportionately affected different equality groups. It’s about sharing knowledge, expertise, and experience and identifying campaigning and organising strategies.

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Equality
Struggling to hear women’s voices

4th November 2011 — Filed under: Equality

Sally Brett

Conservatives are reported to be alarmed at their growing unpopularity among women voters. It’s not difficult to imagine why women might be increasingly critical of this Government’s record: spending cuts that disproportionately impact on women; record high levels of unemployment and economic inactivity among women; and policy advisers suggesting maternity rights could be scrapped or that plans to improve family-friendly rights be abandoned.

Today, the Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equality, Theresa May, in a speech on ‘Women and the Economy’ launched two new initiatives to boost women’s role in the economy: the creation of 5,000 volunteer mentors to help budding women entrepreneurs and the establishment of a Women’s Business Council.

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Equality
Beecroft’s ‘scrap unfair dismissal’ proposals: A Licence for ageist employers?

26th October 2011 — Filed under: Equality

Chris Ball

How odd that the Government should ask a venture capitalist to advise on employment law and how intemperate and ill advised a response Adrian Beecroft appears to have offered in his report, a draft of which is leaked in the Daily Telegraph today.

I know nothing of Mr Beecroft’s background but I wonder how much he really understands the daily practices of people managers. It seems he wants to get rid of the right to bring a claim for unfair dismissal, introducing instead a basic no fault dismissal law in which individuals dismissed through lack of performance would receive the equivalent of a redundancy payment.

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Equality
What women want

14th September 2011 — Filed under: Equality

Scarlet Harris

Leaked government documents this week exposed the coalition’s fear that they are losing the support of women voters. They’re right to be concerned. Gavin Kelly’s excellent analysis in the New Statesman shows that government policy is indeed alienating women voters, particularly working class women.

So far, so good. Acknowledging that government policies may not be going down well with women is a good starting point. Where the author of the leaked memo starts to go wrong though is when possible remedies are suggested.

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Equality
Violence Against Women services are “not a luxury”

2nd August 2011 — Filed under: Equality, Society & Welfare

Scarlet Harris

Trawling through the 2,200 charities and voluntary organisations facing Local Authority funding cuts listed on the False Economy website and widely reported in the press today, makes for extremely bleak reading.

After school clubs for kids, Christmas lunches for old people, wheelchair loan services, sexual health advisory services, meals on wheels, support services for disabled children, all axed. Welcome to the Big Society.

I was particularly taken aback by the number of women’s sector organisations and violence against women and girls (VAWG) services that have faced cuts.

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Equality
How to reduce inequality

19th May 2011 — Filed under: Equality, Politics, Society & Welfare

Richard Exell

What works at cutting inequality? New figures show that we already do a great deal – and suggest how we could do even more.

There’s sometimes a terrible fatalism about inequality – most people agree that Britain is unequal and that this is a problem, but many believe that this is inevitable. This sense that nothing can be done about inequality is encouraged by Ministers who like to emphasise the large sums spent by the last government, and then add “but it didn’t do any good.”

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Equality
The Justice Secretary’s views on “serious rape”

18th May 2011 — Filed under: Equality

Scarlet Harris

I want to say a few words about Ken Clarke’s views on rape and rape law but I’m struggling to know where to begin.

So what did he say that was wrong? In case you missed the furore today, I’ll briefly recap. Kenneth Clarke was asked about plea bargaining plans on Radio 5 Live this morning. In the course of the interview, in a discussion about sentencing and tariffs, the Justice Secretary shared his rather troubling views on rape. He said:

“[Rape] includes date rape and 17 year-olds having intercourse. Serious rape, I don’t think many judges give five years for a forcible rape, frankly, the tariff is longer for that and a serious rape where there’s violence and an unwilling woman, the tariff’s much longer than that.”

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