The Equalities Deficit

Recently, in my role of Equalities Officer I attended a conference entitled 'The Equalities Deficit: Defending opportunity and fairness against the cuts'. Organised by the TUC, the one day conference was aimed at everybody 'who cares about the future of equality'. It was opened by Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, who spoke of the 'cultural, aspirational and social deficits' being left by the cuts. He spoke of the threats to quality of life now facing many groups at a disproportionate level to others and the widening gaps that were opening up between different sectors of society. What was clear was that nobody would be unaffected by the scale of the actions being taken by the government but that some would be more heavily affected than others and that these people were largely those who were already the most vulnerable in our society.

On the day of the conference new figures had just been released showing that unemployment had risen to 2.28 million and that women’s unemployment levels were at a twenty three year high. It seemed timely then that the TUC used the day to launch a new publication entitled the 'TUC Women and the Cuts Toolkit: How to carry out a human rights assessment of the spending cuts on women'. Women will be one of the groups most heavily hit by the consequences of both past and future cuts as the majority of public sector workers are women, women will lose more in cuts to benefits and are the majority of those providing unpaid care so are likely to be the ones having to shoulder the consequences of cuts to social care provision.

Mary Bousted, General Secretary of the education Union ATL, spoke of the impact of the cuts on children and families, teachers and plummeting levels of optimism within the education sector at a time when youth unemployment was reaching unprecedented levels. She spoke of the 'loss of hope' and the 'dignity of good work' being denied to the young along with the loss of financial support in education caused by the removal of the Education Maintenance Allowance. All this would lead to a generation of young people who feel that they hold no input into society and if you were unlucky enough to fall into more than one of the categories in which people are being disproportionately affected you could watch your chances be even further reduced. Young and Black? Young and a Woman? A woman from an ethnic minority group? Heaven forbid that you should then express a different sexual orientation or religious view. The picture painted was exceptionally bleak.

Rob Berkeley, Director of the Runnymede Trust, an independent policy-research organisation focusing on race and social policy then took up the platform to talk about the impact of the cuts on those from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups. His message was one of the impacts of cuts to legal aid with minority groups being the first to experience the impact of the cuts. People from these groups were three times as likely to be unemployed and there already exists a 16% employment gap between black/Caribbean men and white men. Again the picture was one of growing inequality between different sectors of society.

The last speaker of the morning’s plenary session was Maria Exall, chair of the TUC LGBT committee and a member of the Communication Workers Union. She spoke of the shrinking of the state that was happening under the present government and the way the government are using the media to demonise those they are attacking to justify their programme of cuts. Budget cuts to youth support services and support for homeless people has led to young people facing an even tougher situation than previously. All this at a time when they may be coming to terms with a different sexual orientation and the consequences thereof. There have been cuts to services which offer advice and support and who promote education around issues such as sexuality. A lot of these support services available to young people have been taken over by faith-based groups from whom young people find that they can face even further discrimination around certain issues.

Following the bleak messages of the mornings speakers the question on conference attendees' minds was, 'how do we challenge the cuts from the position we now find ourselves in?' The morning workshop I attended was on Organising and Campaigning for Equality. Again the message from speakers was that things would not be easy to challenge and that a lot of campaigns had already been lost. However, there were also messages of hope and inspiration, positive campaigns which had been won and the repetition of the message that we need to stand together in challenging the future cuts that are being proposed.

Jane Holgate, senior lecturer and worker in work and employment relations at the University of Leeds, spoke about the idea of ‘community unionism’, where community-based organising and trade union organising worked more closely together to support each other's campaigns. She put it that if trade unions are to remain relevant in coming years they need to move from a more adversarial form of organising which leads to power issues, groups becoming divisory and self-interested, to a more cohesive stance, supporting solidarity not just across a trade-focused group but organising across workplace issues which affect the whole community. Unions will need to be more inclusive and work alongside organisations such as the Occupy movement, UK Uncut, BARAC and local groups such as Norfolk Coalition against the Cuts to achieve the best outcomes for their members. The future will be about building relationships and alliances, fostering non-conflictive ways of working and making democracy within the unions more inclusive to attract the widest possible member base and build the strength of union organisation.

The afternoon workshop I attended was titled 'Using the Public Sector Equality Duty' and covered issues around using the 2010 legislation as a campaign tool. Questions arose about how we could challenge the impact of the cuts on issues of equality within the framework of the 2010 Equalities Act, an act which many feel has reduced the power of equalities legislation by employers only having to show 'due regard' to equalities issues. Various views were held on this point but there was also mention of a few cases where the new legislation has been used effectively to challenge proposed cuts. When trying to look for the best way to challenge a series of cuts, the Equalities angle is still one which can be successfully used if a proposed measure is likely to disproportionately affect a particular group in society. Equality Impact Assessments will still remain a key part of an employer showing they have shown 'due regard' to equalities issues.

The afternoon workshops were followed by speeches and a question and answer session on areas that had been covered by the conference. There were some powerful speakers including Diana Holland, Assistant General Secretary for Equalities and an elected member of the TUC Women’s committee, Kate Pickett, co-author of ‘The spirit level: Why equality is better for everyone’ and Michael Rubenstein, writer and commentator on discrimination and employment law and General Editor of Equality Law Reports. Again there were a host of different issues raised which were all adding to the overall growing equalities deficit.

The conclusions I reached after listening to the various speakers at the conference were that the cuts are already affecting the most vulnerable in society disproportionately. I think there is little room to argue that they are not. They will continue to divide sectors of society further from each other, worsening equality amongst the population rather than improving it. This will lead to even greater social problems and a far less cohesive society. The thing that really struck me, however, was that at this time groups cannot afford to focus solely on the area that will be affecting them the most. We cannot fight back coherently if everyone is trying to shout the loudest to champion their own views to the detriment of other groups. What we need now is to be united and support each other’s struggles; to stand up and work together in solidarity.

If you find yourself thinking 'Why should I support that, it doesn’t affect me,' then don’t. The cuts are affecting and will continue to affect us all, anyone who works in public services, uses public services, the private sector, those from ethnically diverse groups and from a plethora of different backgrounds. If a cut is affecting women it is also affecting men in that they will see their wives, mothers and families being hit by the impact and they in turn will struggle more. The cuts are affecting young people and older people, those who are working and those who are not. The government and media would like us to believe that we are all separate groups and not interdependent. It makes it easier to break down support for campaigns which are challenging the nature of the way in which the cuts are being imposed. We must challenge these ideas and stand up for each other and the trade union movement has a continued role to play in this.

Following N30 I feel even more strongly that now is the time to stand together in challenging the pain the government's cuts are inflicting on our society. As we have recently seen in the media with the build-up to the strike, the media likes conflict. It makes for a better story and grips people more than hearing that largely there was a lot of support for something. The Equalities Deficit Conference and N30 have shown me one thing; that if we say ‘that’s their problem’ and ignore how cuts will affect a particular group, we can only lose those battles and also our own as others will not support us when we ourselves may need it most. On N30 people from all different backgrounds stood together to challenge the government; trade unions, students, the Occupy movement, workers from across the public and private sectors, pensioners and those unable to work all expressed support for dignity in retirement and challenged the government on proposed cuts to public sector pension schemes. Equality will only stand a chance if we now support each other in working for a fairer society and fighting back together against the deeper inequalities these cuts are causing.

Katherine Osborne is an Equalities Officer in the Norfolk County Branch of UNISON.