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During the UNI Apro Commerce panel discussions, Therese Bryant, Vice President UNI World Women Committee shared with the delegates the following 19 step Action Plan (in no particular order) for unions on achieving equality.



The first action for the success of increasing women’s active participation in unions is the leadership of the union has to decide that this is a priority. Research of successful change management initiatives in organisations, shows that Chief Executive leadership and commitment, is critical to achieving Equal Employment Opportunity outcomes. If the union’s leadership wants it to happen, it will still involve a lot of work, and may take some time, but it will happen.



Action 2: Ask women members what they want and act to try to achieve it. It is important to conducted surveys of women members about issues of importance to them. The union should collate the information and then acted on the findings. To engage any union members, the union’s activities have to be relevant to them. It also helps if the members can identify with the officials. Women members felt good about being in a union which gave women opportunities, and successfully took up the issues which improved their daily working lives.



Action 3: Appoint women shop stewards or delegates Workplace delegates are an essential cohesive element in unions and a conduit between members and officials, therefore the appointment of female union representatives at workplaces must be a priority. If we start, in a very short time there were very many female shop stewards and the momentum continued as members became accustomed to having a female delegate, and seeing that they were just as competent, if not better than their male counterparts. Organisers need to genuinely look for the best person for the role of delegate, and be just as open to women as to men, providing encouragement when it is needed.



Action 4: Train delegates When a delegate is appointed, they are should be provided training conducted by the union. All delegates, whether they are male or female, should receive the same training, which covers their role and responsibilities, and should be designed to give delegates information and increase their skills and confidence in dealing with issues in their workplaces. They also have the backup of their organiser whenever they need them. After a period of time, delegates should attend a follow up training which is of a more advanced nature.



Action 5: Encourage women to attend union meetings Try to address barriers to women attending, such as providing transport at night, and having a social element, such as eating together with other women, before the meeting.



Action 6: Have an identifiable focus for women in the organisation, such as: a woman or women who members can contact perhaps a women’s bureau or unit, where this is practicable expertise amongst the officials on “women’s issues”, such as the impact on women of industrial relations legislation, anti-discrimination legislation, and knowledge of precedent cases. A women’s committee which makes recommendations to the executive



Action 7: Develop Union Equal Employment Opportunity, Harassment, Sexual Harassment, Bullying and Violence policies The union should develope these policies in consultation with the Women’s Committee and Occupational Health and Safety Committee and be endorsed by the National Executive. From time to time they should be reviewed and updated.



Action 8: Train all officials in gender equality issues and union policies. Officials need a more detailed understanding of the issues, and need to know how to respond to complaints by members in a professional way, on issues such as maternity leave, sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, rosters not considering family responsibilities, gender discrimination regarding promotion, and manual handling issues. Women will leave the union or will not join if they see the union not taking up these types of issues effectively.



Action 9: If possible, have leaflets and induction packs which include information regarding what the union is doing for women and the union policies of interest to women. In Australia, the SDA has these and they are distributed by male and female organisers, who speak to members about their contents.



Action 10: Consult with women as part of the collective bargaining processes and give priority to issues of importance to them. The union should do this in meetings or through surveys before negotiations begin. The composition of the bargaining teams should include women. But, even if they didn’t, the men present are bargaining in the best interests of their members who are usually mostly women, and so there is no dispute as to whether the issues of concern to women remain a priority or not.



Action 11: Promote women officials and active members in union publications and include articles on issues of interest to women.



Action 12: Publicise and promote everything that you do related to women so that women can see that the union is aware of them and their issues and trying to resolve them.



Action 13: Encourage active and committed female delegates to take on a role on the union’s Committee of Management The union leadership should be conscious of informally doing this, and be just as open to women as to men. By actively encouraging women to participate actively, the result is that the numbers of women on Branch and National Councils will closely reflects the proportion of female membership.



Action 14: In unions where there are paid employees, recruit women paid employees in significant numbers This will be necessary to achieve diversity in the union’s workforce but will also be essential to successfully achieve some of the previous actions, and to best serve the interests of women members. This then raises issues of attraction and retention of employees. It goes without saying that we should provide the same ability for male and female union employees to balance their work and family responsibilities as we seek for our members. There should not be any direct or indirect penalties for utilising these measures. Again if the leadership of the union leads by example this sets the tone for the organisation.



Action 15: Groom, mentor, and encourage women to take on more senior roles including elected positions within the union The selection of people for more senior roles often involves subjective decision making, which can be influenced by the relationships of the parties and the informal networking which can develop. This action requires deliberate leadership focus to examine how mentoring and selection for senior roles happens in their organisation and to ensure that all employees have equal access to development opportunities.



Action 16: Ask everyone in the union to become an advocate to provide women with the opportunities to increase their participation and to empower them to take on more senior positions and responsibilities.



Action17: Monitor numbers of women as members, on governing bodies, as officials, and delegates to create awareness of the need to aim for significant female representation and have comparable statistics to measure success.



Action 18: Include “Women’s Issues” on the Agenda of officials meetings and not just at the end of the meeting when everyone is getting tired and anxious to finish, so that they are given proper consideration.



Action 19: Include a report on “Women” in all Executive meetings and Committee of Management meetings so that the governing bodies of the union are kept up to date, and retain a focus on the participation of women in the organisation.



Therese mentioned that this list is not necessarily comprehensive but she hope may provide something of a check list, and may be the basis of a gender audit in the trade union organisation.



She further highlighted that it is very important for the strength of the union movement to recruit women as members, especially in the Commerce sector because of the large numbers of women who work in this sector, and to make the efforts to build their participation from the ground up, to develop them as delegates and union officials. If unions do this, they will be well rewarded.





The summarised content of this article is from Therese Bryant speech as a panellist during the UNI Apro Commerce Conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 5-6 December 2009.