The development of equality and human rights is vital for the way work and employment are structured and organised. Despite the development of the Employment Rights Bill, the UK has not seen a systematic development of equality strategies, with workers’ experiences differing between private and public sectors and a lack of clear and formal legal expectations for how equality is discussed and developed by workers and managers. In this article, Miguel Martínez Lucio, Holly Smith,  Stefania Marino and Heather Connolly explore how the UK can learn from other countries and contexts to drive equality at work.

• Although many companies HR departments have engaged with equality strategies, this varies greatly across the UK, with differences between unionised and non-unionised workplaces.
• Research from The University of Manchester examines equality initiatives in France, Spain and the Netherlands.
• Equalities Outcome Frameworks and formal recognition of trade unions and social bodies roles in the workplace are actions that can further the equality agenda.

Politics of equality at work

Politics of Equality at Work is an ESRC project led by The University of Manchester (with Grenoble Ecole de Management) exploring how equality at work has developed across different national and institutional contexts.

The research team compared policy and regulation on workplace equality within the UK to other European countries – namely France, the Netherlands, and Spain.

The role of trade unions in the UK

Research has found that equal opportunities practices are more likely to have been adopted in unionised than non-unionised workplaces. In the public sector, trade union representatives can ensure employers comply with the law and fulfil the Public Sector Equality Duty. They can also act in a reactive role to disclosures of harassment or discrimination, or proactively by negotiating policies that further equality diversity in the workplace.

Trade union representatives have a wide range of knowledge on issues such as working parents, reasonable adjustments, pay reporting and workforce monitoring, equal pay, trans rights, and harassment, and this knowledge should be harnessed by employers to develop informed model agreements and policies for a safe, fair, and dignified working environment for all employees. Trade unions must be deemed as central to the drive for equality at work.

The UK government are progressing the Employment Rights Bill. They also consulted on introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers, with a view to shaping proposals which will be included in the upcoming Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, which was announced in the King’s Speech in July 2024.

European comparisons

Research shows that trade unions play different roles in a range of national contexts where equality initiatives have been systematically developed.

In France, labour laws require companies to negotiate regularly with trade unions on issues of equality, particularly in relation to gender. Every year companies must calculate a gender equality index, which requires them to develop improvements plans in consultation with workplace representative institutions.

In Spain, Equality Plans are reshaping the way equality is being dealt with in workplaces. They operate alongside the collective bargaining processes, involving trade unions, that cover broader issues and provide a focus for shaping company policy in relation to the legislation.

In the Netherlands, trade unions sit within tripartite and bipartite bodies at national level which regularly engage in discussions related to equality in the labour market. These discussions can lead to policy advice to the government and/or inform sectoral collective bargaining.

The UK however has not seen a systematic development of equality initiatives within many workplaces and employers in terms of trade union representation (much varies by workplace). With a wide range of experiences and internal structures regarding the role of equalities and human rights more generally, it varies tremendously in terms of company size and industrial sector.

Part of the problem is that there are no clear and formal legal expectations as to how equality is to be discussed and developed by workers and managers at work – even in the public sector let alone the private sector – partly due to the uneven nature and presence of collective bargaining and industrial relations-based forms of representation regarding such factors.

The experiences of workers depend on whether there is a consistent dialogue and set of expectations and structures within a workplace and company.

It is therefore fundamental that any strategy or legislation on enhancing equality and human rights supports the engagement from different stakeholders within the workplace and beyond on such issues.

Policy actions to prioritise equality

At the heart of any move towards prioritising equality in the workplace, there must be a commitment from government to allocate resources in terms of training, research, and sustainable organisational structures and processes.

• There should be increased reporting requirements which form part of an Equalities Outcome Framework to ensure accountability and transparency as well as ensuring oversight of progress. As the Employment Rights Bill progresses, this should be included within this and future legislation and could be implemented by the Government Equalities Office.
• Funding should be allocated to trade union and worker representatives to act as reference points for the development of equality programmes and campaigns. Trade unions and social bodies must have their roles in the workplace extended formally.
• Government should also encourage organisations to use qualitative approaches and not just standard surveys and large datasets to draw from the lived experiences and views of employees.