Proportionality Update and Priorities for Future Work
The purpose of this LTB is to provide CWU branches with a comprehensive report and update on proportionality and our priorities for the future.
It is now almost two years since we commenced our detailed discussions on proportionality in the CWU. It is therefore both timely and necessary to review the work that has taken place to date, to assess progress and to plan further priorities and interventions as required. Meetings have taken place between the General Secretary, The Equal Opportunities Officer and the Head of Education and Training to consider the next steps the CWU needs to take to move forward this area of work and the NEC have reviewed progress and agreed a new programme of work which is set out in this letter.
Progress
The document “Strength, Relevance and Equality through Proportionality” was published to Branches in January 2014 and was the subject of detailed debate at a well attended Branch Forum held at Congress House on 28 January 2014. Arising from this debate the NEC and General Conference agreed a number of key rule changes and policies that would support proportionality across our activist structures. These steps included creating stronger and more direct links between the NEC and the Advisory Committees through the abolition of the Equal Opportunities Committee, the right of the Chairs of the Advisories to attend NEC meetings ex officio, and the right of the Advisory Committees to submit documents to the NEC via the offices of the Equal Opportunities Officer.
We have seen the Advisory Committees begin to work much closer with their industrial colleagues on the PEC and T&FS. Engagement is key and the Advisory Committees remain committed to playing their role in supporting the Industrial Officers. We are beginning to see better use made of their expertise and experience in this respect. The aim is to ensure that the positive work undertaken by the advisory committees in conjunction with the Industrial Executives should become business as usual and not be confined to one off projects. Therefore, further discussions with the GS, the DGS (P), the DGS (TFS) and the respective Chairs of the Constituencies and the Advisory Committees will be convened to ensure a consistent and joined up approach can be adopted.
At Branch level, we also introduced a new role of BAME Officer and ensured that the Women’s Officer and the BAME Officer were named members of the Branch Committee under rule. New policy was introduced that ensured that Branches made available the necessary resources for equality activities and a new Branch Model Constitution adopted. Successful training seminars have been held for both Women’s Officers and the newly created position of BAME Officer. Over 70 people attended over the two training seminars.
We have delivered programmes of leadership training for women and BAME members to support and encourage them into activism and have recently supplemented this with training in mentoring. As part of our efforts to get the Mentoring Programme absolutely right, the Equality Officer has had meetings with Operation Black Vote, who are renowned in the mentoring area given their excellent previous experiences and projects. We have also established that CWU Ireland also have a mentoring programme and we are identifying best practice elements for our potential use.
Our collection of data has improved with the membership database now being used to store data on representatives. This is making it easier to measure participation by under-represented groups but we have a long way to go in terms of making sure that our data is complete. We still have significant under-reporting of BAME statistics and have no real reliable data on LGBT and Disability. Now that the CWU database is much more robust the CWU has an opportunity to develop relevant data more effectively. A branch census will be organised every 2 years, in line with Conference Policy and a further detailed policy document will be formulated by the NEC outlining precisely how this work will be carried out.
The data contained within this document is based on the data we currently have and in some cases this will be based on incomplete data due to non-reporting or non-collection of membership information.
Although we have seen some improvements in terms of participation at events and conferences, the delegation data from General Conference 2015 was disappointing in terms of both Women and Youth. BAME attendance was slightly better but this was down to the scheduling of CWU BAME day and may not be indicative of a trend. There have been some improvements in attendance at Equality Conferences, however, there are still too many Branches who do not send delegations.
Where we are now
In 2013/14 we published data on the make up of our membership, which helped us to see the extent of the problems in representation. This data is now updated to provide useful information on areas where progress has been made and where it has not.
• 91% of our total 195,439 members are not retired and are still deemed to be working in the industry.
• However 42% of our non-retired members are now over 50 years old.
• The total number of women members is 36,729 or 18.8%.
• 8.6% of the total CWU membership are under 30. If you exclude retired members from the total it is 9.4%.
• BAME members who have declared their ethnicity account for 7.2% of our total membership or 15.6% of those who provided us with this data . In terms of non-reporting104,285 or 53.3% of our members are not providing us with details of their ethnicity.
• We have a total of 13 Women Branch Secretaries and 9 BAME Branch Secretaries.
• BAME Branch Officers have increased since our last analysis from 33 to 38.
• The number of Branch Officers who are women has remained static at 112.
• 24.6% of our non-retired members are part-time workers.
We now have some data on Representatives as follows:
• Total number of reps entered onto the membership database is 3898*. Of those, 225 (5.7%) are BAME, 526 (13.5%) are women and 130 (3.3%) are under 30.
(All above data correct as of 14 September 2015. * Please note that this figure included reps with cross constituency roles.)
Appendix 1. (Membership Data as of September 2015; Constituency Breakdown)
*Some Reps have cross constituency positions and are not included in this total.
The National Executive has 19 members of whom, one is from a BAME background and 6 are women (an increase of 1). We now have one woman Regional Secretary out of 10 (also an increase of 1)
In terms of Branch attendance at the Equality Conferences the latest figures are as follows:
• Black Worker’s – 49
• Disability – 69
• LGBT – 53
• Women’s – 71
• Youth – 43
The number of BAME Officers – 38
The number of Women’s Officers – 112
The number of Youth Officers is 82 covering 69 Branches.
The Equality Conferences under the remit of the Equality Department are having a slight change to when the conferences take place. Previously these have always been on a Saturday but this year the Women’s and the Disability Conferences are being held during midweek, purely to see if this impacts positively in terms of attendance.
In terms of training of activists the outcomes for the first six months of 2015 are as follows:
Of a total of 982 reps trained in the period:
• 18.5% were women
• 13.1% were BAME
• 8% were under 30 years old
We can also report that 13.4% considered that they had a disability of some kind and that 35.2% were over 50 years of age.
These statistics are a bit of a mixed bag. They are showing some areas of good progress and some areas where we seem to be going backwards or making no progress at all. Anecdotally, there is also a mixture of reported outcomes with evidence that many Branches are working extremely hard to improve their proportionality through investing in events, workplace committees and improving the representation of minority groups on delegations but there is also some evidence that several Branches are still struggling to improve proportionality.
Priorities for future work
The NEC always recognised that this would not be a quick fix and that long term sustainable activity would be required to develop this area of work according to policy and rule. However, it is also necessary to assess what is working and to consider new approaches where necessary. Therefore the following priorities have been identified and it is proposed that they form the basis for the next 12 – 18 months activity.
• Mentoring
There is a need to develop our capacity for mentoring new and existing activists across the whole union to provide vital development opportunities for those who can contribute more to the union now and in the future. This is not only good for proportionality but is essential if we are to effectively and systematically succession plan. We intend to develop mentoring skills in three ways:
Firstly, through setting up and piloting a formal mentoring scheme specifically targeted at Women, BAME and young representatives with the aim of broadening this to all activists following the initial pilot. This will involve training groups of mentors and matching them with potential mentees and piloting this in either one or two regions. This will be overseen by the Education and Training Department in conjunction with the Equality Department. This will be a 12 month project which will be evaluated by participants and by the NEC via the Education and Training Department and the Equality Department.
Secondly, we will include basic training and resources for mentoring on existing representatives’ courses and on CWU Left Click, so that the concept of mentoring or being mentored becomes business as usual for all activists.
Lastly we aim to develop mentoring skills in all CWU Officers and NEC, TFSE and PEC members so that they can take a lead in encouraging others to take on the role of mentor. It is also envisaged that a formal mentoring for leadership scheme can be set up further down the line to tap into the experience, skills and knowledge of those in leadership roles in the CWU.
Careful consideration will now be given to ensuring that the scheme has input from the industrial constituencies with regard to both the operation of the scheme and gaining the support of employers for mentors. Further detailed information on the programme will be issued to Branches in due course.
* Branch Visits
Visits to Branches were a key part of the proportionality programme and helped to inform our views and strategies. Over 30 Branches participated in these visits and the information and evidence they provided fed directly into the last report and recommendations on proportionality. However, it is now necessary to consider whether continuing with these visits is still as useful to the programme in terms of best use of resources. We also need to continue to give a chance for Branches to contribute as things move forward.
Therefore, the team will continue to visit CWU Branches to assess how they are developing proportionality and what the challenges are to this work. The next round of Proportionality visits have been tentatively diarised.
* Challenges to Succession Planning
We will be investigating the barriers and opportunities for newer activists to take on Branch roles and examining how we can provide better succession planning, whilst enabling a smooth and planned handover of duties when senior Branch activists leave employment in the industry. This work may well be influenced by the review of the status of Portability members agreed by conference.
* Data Collection and Reporting
Through the new Branch Secretaries Essentials course we are supporting Branch Secretaries with developing their skills in managing and using data more effectively. Part of this is also aimed at improving the quality and accuracy of the data we hold. We have agreed conference policy to improve the collection of data for LGBT members and members with disabilities and we will set up a small working group comprising the Chairs of the DAC and the LGBTAC, the Equal Opportunities Officer and two members of the NEC to produce a strategy for improving data collection generally and for these two groups of members.
* Training
We will continue to provide Women’s’ and BAME Leadership courses, as the feedback and evidence is that these are encouraging activists to get and stay more involved in union activity. We will provide mentoring training as described above. The Equal Opportunities Department has also delivered two training days for BAME and Women’s Officers in September 2015.
* Proportionality Branch Forum 2016
It is proposed that we hold a Proportionality Branch Forum in early 2016 to further consult with Branches on these new areas of work and to report on progress. At this forum, we will ask the Advisory Committees to each contribute a short presentation outlining their three priorities for improving proportionality.
Further updates on our work around proportionality will be issued to Branches as the various priority areas of work are developed. In the meantime we are asking all CWU branches to fully consider the terms of this LTB at your next branch committee meetings and to continue to work in line with CWU policy to improve proportionality across the union. Any enquiries relating to this LTB should be directed to the General Secretary’s Office in the first instance.
Yours sincerely
Dave Ward
General Secretary
Linda Roy Trish Lavelle
Equal Opportunities Officer Head of Education and Training
CWU Eastern No5 Branch 
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