UCU Equality Conference - November 2017

This year (2017) the Conference took place at the Novotel Birmingham Centre from Thursday 23rd to Saturday 25th November 2017. The format of the conference, was the same as last year’s and sub-divided into four separate sub-conferences, one for each equality group:

• The Disabled Members' conference was held on Thursday 23rd November from 09:30 -13:00
• The Women Members' conference was held on Thursday 23rd November from 14:00 - 17:30
• The Black Members' Conference was held on Friday 24th November from 14:00 - 17:30.
• The LGBT Conference was held on Saturday 25th November from 09:30 - 13:00.

Per se, only members who specifically identified with characteristics pertaining to the above conferences were eligible to attend them. Consequently, I attended the Black Members conference. There was a delegate dinner for all members on Thursday 23rd and joint plenary session, again for all members on Friday 24th from 09:30-13:00, which I attended as well.

The Friday morning plenary session, for all equality groups, was opened by the newly-elected Chair of the Equality Committee, Pauline Collins whose main theme was to ask delegates to make a concerted effort to get all staff at their institutions to embed equality into their regular working activities, rather than adding it on as an after-thought.  She also introduced Vicky Knight, the President-elect of UCU, who explained the objectives of the session, which were to “…discuss how we address the issue of intersectionality in how we organise and campaign. It will also discuss class and the move by the Scottish Parliament to bring in the socio-economic duty which has not be enacted as part of the Equality Act”. (Plenary agenda).

“Intersectionality is a feminist sociological theory first highlighted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989). Intersectionality is a methodology of studying "the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relationships and subject formations" (McCall 2005 – The Complexity of Intersectionality). My understanding of the meaning of intersectionality, in the context of equality, refers to those individuals who display more than one minority characteristic simultaneously; e.g. a black woman or a disabled gay man, and who experience discrimination due to one or more of those characteristics. Other speakers included: Khalwant Bhopal, Professor of Education and Social Justice and Wanda Wyporska, Executive Director of the Equality Trust. The speakers again focussed their talks on intersectionality, which proved thought-provoking, and which were followed by Q&A sessions.

This was followed by an HE workshop led by Paul Bridge - Head of Higher Education, UCU. The theme of his presentation was to highlight equality issues across the HE Sector.

Friday afternoon was dedicated to the Black Members conference. The first half of the conference was dominated by conference business; Adoption of standing orders; Report of Black Members’ Annual Conference 2016; Motions to Black Members’ Conference; Elections to Black Members Standing Committee and Report of the Black Members’ Standing Committee. Each business item was followed by Q&A session.

The standing orders were adopted and the Report from 2016 presented to the meeting without variance.

Elections to the Black Members Standing Committee (BMSC) were held and its report presented. A list of all the BMSC members can be found here: www.ucu.org.uk/article/2971/Equality-standing-committees#bm

Between 15:00 and 16:00 three workshop sessions were held. They included: Networking, Anti-deportation and Surviving the workplace; protecting yourself against management. I attended the latter workshop which didn’t really apply to my role, as it focussed primarily on challenges facing tutors in an FE environment. Feedback from all the workshops followed at the plenary session.

The final session comprised a keynote address by Linda Bellos, OBE on intersectionality and a poem read by the author and contemporary freelance poet, Aliyah Hasinah. Further information on them can be found here:

• Linda Bellos’ website: https://www.lindabellos.co.uk 
• Aliyah Hasinah’s story page on the Hiive website: https://app.hiive.co.uk/profile/11f77ec3-7656-459c-99e9-f3280b1151e5/#/

Denzil DeSouza
Equality Officer, OU branch of the UCU
Further information: http://www.ucu.org.uk/equality
8 January 2018