Public sector redundancy processes - role of unions in raising equality impact concerns. What's your experience?

[PublicSectorHag]

Hi all,

I have recently been through a redundancy process in public sector organisation. This process disproportionately impacted middle aged women (and left younger, male colleagues largely untouched), but in none of the meetings did either HR or the union mention an equality impact assessment and any actions that would be taken as a result of any findings.

Whilst I was actually relieved to take redundancy as I'd grown disillusioned with my organisation, I have since found myself reflecting on how disappointing the union's (Unison's) approach was. In a context where I think a lot of redundancies disproportionately affect middle aged women, often from global majority/black asian and ethnic minority communities, it's pretty shocking if unions are failing to play a role seeking to mitigate the impact.

Can I please ask others who have been through similar process what their experiences were? Was there an equality impact assessment and how was it used (if at all)? What role did unions play in flagging and challenging any equality impacts, if any?

Most unions despise middle aged women, so I wouldn’t expect any different.

At the risk of being flamed, is such a thing needed, isn't the point of redundancy to cut down on jobs that are not needed to save money. Don't you need to make sure the balance at the end is of the jobs required, so you have money well spent, not the people who are doing the jobs, especially in the public sector.

If only this was true, rather than the reality that seems to happen, and not just in the public sector, is that somehow whoever does the analysis somehow finds the majority of jobs that could be cut just happen to be the ones middle aged women are doing.

And of course implying that young men (with less experienced) are doing essential work!

Wouldn't it be great if unions were for instance collecting statistics on redundancies reflecting, sex, race and disability to show that employers are or aren't not being discriminatory.

I went through a equal pay process, in which the union were downright obstructive followed by redundancy due to reorganisation where they gave me zero support - I had been a member over 20 years. I have never and will never join a union again. They have proved that they don't give a shit about women.

Unison didn't even turn up to a pre-arranged redeployment meeting my DH asked them to attend with him. Shop Steward promised to come then went radio silent.

Only time he's ever asked them for help after paying subs for 25 years and they let him down.

UCU is pretty useless when it comes to supporting colleagues whom management are trying to make redundant. They're OK when it comes to political posturing over gender identity politics and Gaza etc. but anything that involves actual work is a bit more challenging for them. In fairness, I think my lot are equal opportunity useless. I'm not seeing them being more effective defending male colleagues' jobs either.

I think a lot depends on the people who become branch officials. The University of Nottingham's redundancy programme is getting some serious pushback from their UCU leaders, who got themselves on the BBC and other media pretty quickly when the redundancy programme was announced. I wish my lot were like that.

How were you selected for redundancy?

And of course implying that young men (with less experienced) are doing essential work!

What if they are, young or not, less experienced or not, if they're doing the essential work, you don't make them redundant.

If they're making middle aged women redundant and then moving young men with less experience into their jobs that would be discrimination, and illegal.

Sounds like OP scored low on the non discriminatory redundancy scoring matrix that's based on skill and ability and has sour grapes 🍇

Equality Impact assessments are important during the redundancy process to make sure the criteria for who to offer redundancies too does not discriminate against people with protected characteristics. Not which roles to make redundant, but which of the individuals in those roles should be made redundant and which should keep their jobs.

Where there are voluntary redundancies on offer, the people who tend to choose them are those disillusioned with their role, and especially those who don’t need to work financially, often this means the middle aged. I would happily take it myself as I plan to quit working anyway. Younger workers too may be doing different jobs

Thanks @AlexaAdventuress - that reflects my perception i.e. that the unions are very good at talking the talk when it comes to EDI (and are especially vocal on the most fashionable issues) but not helpful when it comes to actually holding organisations to account on fairness. Sounds like might be across the board though.

It was same where I worked but union (Unite) were all quite cosy with the employer so did bugger all. This is the downside of large employers and recognised TU.

My experience of Unions (PCS and FDA) are very similar to others on here.

Cosy with the HR department and only really interested in the 'sexy' side of workplace issues.

I have experience of an application of policy adversely impacting me but because it was indirect discrimination based on sex they were absolutely not interested.

In theory that’s the point of redundancy processes but in a lot of public sector organisations finances are such that roles with value are being cut. Your comment also assumes processes will be robust and fair. I don’t think that will always be the case.

In addition public sector organisations have obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty to monitor equality impacts and to seek to mitigate them. The unions should be holding organisations to account about whether they are doing this. It doesn’t sound like they’re doing this.

Changes like increases in the use of AI will disproportionately impact particular roles like admin for e.g., done by people who are much more likely to be women and often have other protected characteristics, many of whom may not have been invested in, supported, had chances to progress. Do we just write them off? Doesn’t seem helpful for the economy and certainly won’t help with inequality.

Ex PCS rep here. We, and FDA, absolutely used to raise the need for an equality impact assessment, particularly as early on in the process it was very clear that the only people deemed to be at risk were those with protected characteristics. Largely black and disabled staff but the over 50s were disproportionately affected as well. I left early on in the process, but we certainly delivered the message, not just to HR, but also in a letter to the Board. They didn’t listen and there are now a number of tribunals in the pipeline, which, if they don’t settle out of court, they will lose.

HR person here we don't have to do impact assessments as we are trained on discrimination legislation early in our careers and know that redundancy selection methods have to be free of discrimination, it's like HR 101.
For example you can't use pension related factors ( who would cost the least) as it's indirectly age discriminatory

I'm sure a large public sector organization is using trained and experienced HR personnel.

In my experience volunteering for redundancy in the public sector could only be turned down by HR on some very specific conditions, none of which equality assessments came into. Compulsory redundancy was different.

Correct you cam be turned down for VR due to cost.

Do you work in the public sector @IDontHateRainbows? If so, your organisation would be subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty and so you would need to be able to demonstrate that you’d assessed the cumulative impact of decisions as part of your duty to advance equality of opportunity. It’s not just about whether individual decisions are free of discrimination. It’s about identifying any patterns and responding to them.

I do... and as I said I'm well trained in the Equality Act so any redundancy selection would already be assessed for discrimination.

Never had a problem with that to date.

I don’t think you’ve understood @SarkyMummy‘s point @IDontHateRainbows. Equality impact assessments are not about picking up in individual cases of discrimination. They are about understanding the overall impact of a restructure (or indeed a set of restructures). If your organisation isn’t doing this then even if there isn’t any discriminatory practise, they are not discharging all of their duties as part of the PSED. You may wish to revisit your understanding of the Equality Act.

You really highlight why unions should be pushing for equality impact assessments. Companies thinking they are unbiased and know it all are at obvious risk of implementing discriminatory practices that they have become blind too.

Ah so you agree on the pension cost factor then?

I was put under a lot of pressure to use pension strain in selection and said no due to age discrimination risk. No unions needed.

You really highlight why unions are pointless, meddlesome and unnecessary.

Did you miss out some sentences?

Your assumption (that I agree pension strain could be discriminatory) is true but has no bearing on the point I made and does not provide an adequate path to your conclusion.