Building preventative cultures - trade union training
We have been working with experts to develop a training course aimed at how to build preventative cultures within the trade union movement.
Our intention is to work with our affiliates to develop and deliver best practice on tackling and preventing sexual harassment within our own organisations, ensuring every trade union has a workplace culture, led and modelled by all those in leadership positions, where a preventative approach to sexual harassment is mainstreamed, supported by strong procedures and a shared understanding across the TUC and our affiliates and the role we all must play in putting policies into practice.
This training must be part of a broader programme of work to tackle and prevent sexual harassment and is aimed at building the knowledge and understanding of participants in what sexual harassment is, how it manifests, what the barriers are in tackling and preventing sexual harassment and how they can be overcome through commitment and action towards culture change.
By developing this training for the trade union movement, our objective is to lay the foundations for:
- Embedding cultural change in the trade union movement to build preventative cultures in relation to sexual harassment for trade union staff, officials, and lay members.
- Building the capacity of the trade union movement to effectively challenge and respond to reports of sexual harassment from within the trade union movement.
- Embedding the processes and actions that need to be taken to build preventative cultures into the movement.
The style of training is values-led, positive, inclusive and aims to empower leaders. It will take a forward-looking approach. The training will focus on:
- Why leadership is important for addressing cultures supportive of sexual harassment.
- Knowledge base: legal and theoretical definitions of sexual harassment in the workplace - how sexual harassment is related to power and to violence against women; intersectionality.
- Understanding: thinking about barriers to reporting; looking at the psychology of perpetrators and those subjected to sexual harassment; concepts of ‘justice’; the collegiate workplace and victim-blaming; how do we change workplace cultures.
- Practical leadership skills, actions and practices: thinking about handling disclosures, climate surveys, data, policy and procedures.
The training was developed and piloted with leadership in mind, emphasising that leadership buy-in is essential for culture change. In line with that, this training is aimed in the first instance at leadership structures within our movement and those that have decision making power and responsibility for process and practice – Senior leaders and officials, SMTs, line managers, senior lay activists, Executives and personnel functions for example.
However, we recognise that reps and activists are also leaders in our movement and can help to drive change from the grassroots of our movement as well as driving change within their own branches, local structures and workplaces. By having a conversation with the trainer beforehand about who you are running the session for, the trainer can think about the best way to adapt the activities and facilitate the discussion for that audience.
For further information please see this affiliate briefing.
