Equalities and Employment in 2020

Join the UK Women’s Budget Group (WBG) and Trades Union Congress (TUC) for this special event to discuss the launch of WBG’s Commission on a Gender-Equal Economy and ask, how can we stop 2020 turning back the clock on women’s rights, workers’ rights and inequalities across the board?

This event will be on Zoom and Chaired by Sian Elliott, Women’s Equality Policy Officer, TUC. Speakers include:

• Sarah Veale, Commissioner and Vice Chair of Equally Ours
• Gloria Mills, National Secretary Equalities at Unison
• Faiza Shaheen, Commissioner and Director of CLASS
• Ruth Cross, National Equalities Officer, Usdaw

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the world of work beyond compare. The good news for gender equality is that millions are now working flexibly and remotely. The bad news? That many parents, especially mothers, are doing so without adequate childcare whilst hundreds of sectors including manufacturing and hospitality face the double threat of lockdown and a no deal Brexit. Ten years on from the Equality Act 2010, many women are facing new waves of discrimination and exclusion. We’re facing the biggest employment crisis of our times.

Work is a huge part of all our lives and has a defining role in creating a genuinely gender equal economy for women, in all their diversity. On this panel we’ll ask:

• What needs to change at work to encourage equal pay, equal sharing of unpaid caring responsibilities and non-discrimination?
• How are trade unions challenging increasing casualisation in the workplace, promoting equality and organising women workers?
• What do we need to see from the Government to not only protect jobs but create them in a way that means women and men equally benefit and, we respond to the climate emergency?

Come along to consider the recommendations of the Commission’s final report ‘Creating a Caring Economy Now: a Call to Action’ and discuss how trade unions and others can turn these recommendations into action.

This event is free and open to all, but registration is required. Joining instructions will be sent nearer to the time of the event.