It is important that unions ensure that union membership is widened to include more membership from diverse members, including black members. This will result in more accessible services for members and widen membership. To achieve this, it is important that more black members, for example, become involved in the formal structures of the union, including as black workplace representatives. If unions cannot encourage diverse members to become reps, it becomes much more difficult to attract new members and to offer accessible and relevant services in today’s workplace.
As an employer, unions should implement Equal opportunity/Non discrimination policies and ensure that all employees are made aware of this policy through equality and diversity training, induction, employee handbook, circulating copies and putting it on their websites.
Positive action in recruitment procedures should also be used to recruit from minority ethnic, women, disabled, and lgbt members. This can take the form of job advertisements through placement in specialty press with an equal opportunities statement. It also involves monitoring employees including women, minority ethnic and disabled employees as well as monitoring for age and sexual orientation.
It is also good practice to employ or elect equality officers with specific responsibility for women, black members, disabled members, lgbt members and young members. Equality Officers can be based at National, Regional or Branch level.
Producing leaflets and putting out other targeted recruitment material on their websites. For example Amicus-MSF will be running a recruitment drive linked to combating xenophobia and race hatred. The T&G is producing a recruitment video in different languages and developing a database of activists with different language skills to act as interpreters. USDAW will be using its "racism hurts" campaign as a recruitment tool and are exploring having recruitment literature translated.
The T&G will establish a stronger identity for disabled members to support organisation and recruitment, e.g. posters and recruitment material, identify best practice for the retention of disabled workers, work to develop organising and supported employment and promote the T&G Care Xpress help line to disabled members. T&G also plans to produce posters and leaflets to actively recruit lgbt members and ensure that the lgbt agenda is mainstreamed throughout the union and develop monitoring of lgbt membership.