Equalities

Equalities in UNISON

Welcome to Southend UNISON’s Equality page.

UNISON is committed to equality in the workplace and society and therefore we try to get organised around equalities issues.

UNISON organises nationally around four main areas which are: Black members; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) members; Disabled members and Women members. These are known as self-organised groups (‘SOG’s) because at a national and local level they allow the members involved to organise around their own issues.

You might wonder why there are these dedicated groups. This is because UNISON recognises that workplaces can mirror the inequalities of wider society and has identified the need to support underrepresented groups who can suffer from bullying, harassment, inequality, abuse and discrimination in their working lives.

We run specific campaigns for instance on sexual harassment within the workplace. You will find posts about these campaigns and activities on our pages.

Please get in contact if you would like to get involved with the branch on these issues. There are many things you can do from writing articles to helping out with a survey or help UNISON members affected by these issues getting together.

Anything you can do in the branch will all help to further our aims of making the workplace a fairer place.

Our current officers elected at our last Annual General Meeting are:

  • June Dillow: Equalities Officer
  • Vacant: Black Members’ Officer
  • Jill Henson: Disabled Members’ Officer
  • Louise McDermott & June Dillow: Women’s Officers

All these officers will be working with the branch and members to help continue to develop our work on equalities.