TUC Equality Audit 2024

Overview

The TUC and our affiliates are committed to promoting equality in all aspects of our work. In 2003, we changed our rules to reflect this goal and the biennial TUC Equality Audit is a key part of delivering on that commitment and tracking our progress. The audits alternate between looking at collective bargaining for equality, and union efforts to improve representation and participation. The 2024 audit focuses on collective bargaining and was conducted for the TUC by the Labour Research Department (LRD).

This audit considers the huge range of issues unions address in their search for improved equality for all workers. It also examines the processes by which unions work to achieve it. As in the earlier audits, this one was carried out through a survey of national TUC affiliates. 43 of the TUC’s 48 affiliates replied. This response rate of 90 per cent is an improvement on 75 per cent in 2020 and represents 99.7 per cent of the TUC’s membership. The survey was completed by unions at the end of 2023.

The national union survey was supplemented by two other pieces of research:

1.   A survey of workplace reps to find out what equality issues they have been facing in their workplace and the training, information and support they use to help them deal with those issues.

2.   Analysis of parental leave and pay agreements on LRD’s Payline database of collective agreements. This is aimed at obtaining local information not always held nationally.

Reports of these are included as annexes.

Bargaining climate

The improved climate for equality bargaining reported in the 2020 audit does not appear to have continued. The 2020 survey was done just before the Covid-19 pandemic, suggesting that events in the intervening years have made bargaining for equality more challenging.

Unions presented a mixed picture, but slightly skewed towards a negative view. Nine unions (21 per cent) felt it had got easier to get employers to address equality issues, 11 (26 per cent) said it had become more difficult, and 21 (49 per cent) thought it had stayed about the same. The slightly negative feeling among national unions is amplified by the survey of union reps. 42 per cent of reps responding said it had got more difficult to get employers to address equality issues in the last couple of years.

Those unions who said it had got easier cited greater awareness of equality by employers, but other responses showed this did not always lead to tangible outcomes. Unions who said it had become more difficult said equality was often used as a box ticking exercise or for winning contracts, but that greater awareness had not led to changes on the ground.

Other unions said the hostile political narrative on equality, the cost-of-living crisis and staffing shortages in the public sector had made it harder to bargain on equality.

In this environment, one in four unions felt that either employers’ equality policies, or their implementation, had been diluted in the last two years. The removal of flexible working arrangements agreed as part of employer responses to Covid-19 was mentioned by unions from a range of sectors.

At the same time, more union reps are dealing with equality issues in the workplace. Three quarters (76 per cent) of them had dealt with one or more equality issues in the workplace from 2022-24 compared to two-thirds (65 per cent) in 2018-2020. There has been a significant jump in the percentage of union reps dealing with issues related to disability (42 per cent to 56 per cent) and sex (9 per cent to 31 per cent).

The bargaining process

The audit looked at ways unions set their equality agendas and what they focus on. The survey found:

• national policy making conferences are the most common way to set priorities.

• 58 per cent said there had been changes to the union’s bargaining priorities in the last four years. The most common areas for new or renewed emphasis are menopause, sexual harassment, domestic abuse, support for disabled workers, equal pay and pay audits to identify ethnicity and disability pay gaps.

• 44 per cent of unions monitor their collective agreements to gain a picture of equality impact up from 36 per cent in 2020.

Support for negotiators

Unions provide guidance, briefing materials and training to negotiators on a huge range of equality topics. Unions were more likely to have training for lay reps compared to national and regional officials. General equalities and pay and employment are among the most common training topics provided for officials and lay negotiators, with training on issues for Black and disabled workers and LGBT+ workers also widespread for all.

Several unions had either newly introduced training in sexual harassment or substantially upgraded their previous content. For small unions, sexual harassment is now the

most common topic for lay reps training. Training on AI/digitalisation had been newly introduced by a number of unions in the last two years and 19 per cent now provide equality guidance in relation to this topic.

In terms of policies or guidance on equality topics, the most common area for such materials is bargaining for women, flexible working/work-life balance and pay. The proportion of unions with guidance on Black workers, disabled workers, women, working parents, parents-to-be and carers and general equalities have all increased. There has been significant growth in unions with guidance on disabled workers (from 44 per cent to 56 per cent) and Black workers (from 39 per cent to 51 per cent).

Negotiating success

Despite a challenging bargaining climate, unions have had success in negotiating improvements on a variety of equality related topics in the last four years.

The most successful areas have been pay (51 per cent) and flexible working (47 per cent of unions achieved wins). Looking at wins by equality groups, there has been a significant increase in the percentage of unions with wins related to women, increasing from 11 unions (31 per cent) in 2020 to 22 unions (51 per cent) in 2024. Gains for women came top of the list for large, medium and small unions. This is reflected in the examples given.

Unions reported wins on the menopause, pregnancy loss, domestic abuse and the Payline analysis showed improvements in maternity pay and leave. Unions were also likely to report wins for working parents, parents-to-be and carers (44 per cent of unions).

For the first time, we asked reps about equality practices in their workplace. The majority of reps said they had clear reporting routes for bullying and harassment (67 per cent), had local or national agreements on flexible working (60 per cent) and had equality reps in their workplace (52 per cent). Payline analysis also showed improvements in offers on maternity leave, paternity leave and parental leave compared to 2016 and an increasing number of policies including provision for ante-natal appointments, miscarriage, fertility treatment and premature births and neonatal care.

TUC Anti-Racism Task Force

The TUC Anti-Racism Task Force is now in its implementation and oversight phase. As part of the monitoring of this work, specific questions were included in the Audit on unions collective bargaining on race.

30 per cent of unions said they had wins in relation to Black workers and 30 per cent of reps said they had dealt with issues connect to the protected characteristic of race in their workplace. The most common collective bargaining priority for Black members was pay, including career progression, monitoring and closing pay gaps, and fighting low pay.

Examples of wins from unions included insourcing of low-paid outsourced workers, saving training and language support for migrant workers and scrapping discriminatory pay structures.

Areas of action

We have seen an increase in percentage of unions providing training and guidance on issues affecting Black workers. However, only three in ten unions are achieving equality wins in this area and the percentage of reps dealing with issues connected to race has fallen. Less than a third of reps told us their employers had employment requirements for outsourced workers, for example to not use zero-hours contracts or pay a living wage,

a key ask in tackling race discrimination at work. Anti-racism and bargaining for race equality will be central to union work in the coming period. This work has already started with the TUC Anti-Racism Task Force from 2020 to 2022 and now the implementation and oversight phase. Through this work the movement is determined to organise, bargain and campaign for racial equality.

There have been positive improvements in areas of training and guidance but materials and support on religion and belief, on younger and older workers and migrant workers were identified as areas with the least training and guidance. Flexible working/work-life balance, disabled workers, and reasonable adjustments were the topics that reps were most likely to say there was a shortage of guidance on. They were also the areas that reps had come across the most in the workplace. We also expect to see the use of technology and AI in workplaces grow so this may also be an area where reps and members seek further support from their union.

A minority of union reps told us that their employer collects equality monitoring data in relation to workplace practices and a large proportion of reps did not know if their employer does this. Equality monitoring data can be an important tool in exposing institutional discrimination. Looking at whether reps are equipped to use data in collective bargaining is an important area of focus.

Finally, in this survey we break down the differences between large, medium-sized and small unions. We recognise the difference in resources that unions face and therefore commit to working with smaller unions to support their development of equality materials.