BAEM

Equality must be part of our industrial agenda

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Ian Allinson, the grassroots socialist candidate for Unite General Secretary, has Ian talking with membersmade equality issues central to his campaign. Ian expands on some of his ideas for improving Unite’s work in this area.

I’ve previously posted about the need to tackle sexism within Unite and the need to integrate our equalities and young members work better with our industrial agenda. Most of Unite’s activity takes place within the workplace and equality issues run through almost every issue we tackle, yet we are nowhere near good enough at either addressing discrimination or taking advantage of equality legislation to help our wider industrial agenda. All members lose out when we fail to tackle equality effectively, because discrimination runs through almost every employer practice that we spend our time challenging.

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March against racism on Saturday, vote ian4unite from 27th March

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Ian Allinson, the only candidate for Unite General Secretary arguing for workers’ rights to move freely and be treated equally, urges members to join Saturday’s march against racism.Leaflet "March against racism"

Today we saw Theresa May’s government defeat Lords amendments intended to protect the rights of EU migrants living in the UK. The Tories are treating migrant workers like hostages, held to ransom for its trade negotiations.

Every trade unionist should be joining Saturday’s March Against Racism in London, Glasgow and Cardiff, which is supported by the TUC.

The impromptu protests around Trump’s inauguration were inspiring. They showed the potential for a powerful movement against racism, sexism and bigotry – and blew out of the water the idea that young people are apathetic. We need to ensure that energy is sustained and organised. Saturday’s demonstration can contribute to that process – as long as it is a springboard to further action rather than a letting-off of steam.

The question of workers’ rights to move freely and be treated equally is not going away. While the two establishment candidates in the Unite General Secretary election fudge and backslide on it, I have made it an important theme of my campaign.

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