East Midlands
Newsletter 3
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17
December 2002
East Midlands Proud Newsletter no.3 Dear Friends, This will be the last newsletter of 2002, and there is plenty to feed back to you! Annual Seminar The PCS Proud Annual Seminar was held between 15 – 17 November 2002 at Le Meridien Hotel, Heathrow. There were 75 delegates present from all over Britain, including 1 from Northern Ireland and 2 from Scotland. There was also a representation of Black, Asian and Disabled delegates amongst the numbers. The seminar kicked off at 3.00pm Friday with an introduction from PCS President Janice Godrich. She began by handing in her Proud Membership registration form and fee to Proud Chairperson Yvonne Washbourne (Wash). She then congratulated Proud on its’ organisational skills, and in particular its’ regional structure – something that the National Union would like to develop so that Agencies and Departments are talking to each other. She spoke about the importance of Union Democracy and of the fight against the attempted coup in maintaining this. Janice then took questions from the floor. Phillipa Barber, who is in charge of the Diversity Division of the Cabinet Office, followed Janice. Phillipa gave a short talk on the vision of, and the work being done by the Cabinet Office towards the breaking down of barriers and increasing inclusivity within the Civil Service. She stressed the importance of having links with and feedback from groups such as Proud, Stonewall and LAGER (Lesbian and Gay Employment Rights). The speeches were followed by workshops to identify ways of monitoring Sexual Orientation in the workplace, and the problems faced in producing evidence for this purpose. The workshop groups then came back together to give feedback, and wound up the first day. The ‘official’ part of the day concluded, delegates were then able to meet and talk over dinner and drinks, and a disco had been organised for the evening, which was a great success! Saturday morning began with Chair’s opening remarks at 9.30. We then had an introduction to the Equality and Diversity Employment Regulations to be introduced December 2003, given by Zita Holbourne from the Department of Trade and Industry. Zita ran through the main areas that the law will be looking at with regards to Sexual Orientation, and emphasised that she wanted feedback from us. She also asked for delegates to submit anecdotal evidence of experiences at work to inform the Departments’ work, since surveys rarely give a reliable picture as so many people are not ‘out’, or in many cases are reluctant to give honest answers to questions on this issue. We then broke up into groups to discuss the issues not covered by the incoming legislation, and how we could carry these issues forward. One of the main concerns is that while it will be illegal to discriminate against Lesbians and Gays at work, it will still be legal to discriminate outside of work in areas such as goods and services. It was also felt to be risible that on the one hand a law will be introduced ostensibly to protect Lesbians and Gays and encourage ‘Diversity’, and yet there is no mind to repeal Section 28, which prohibits discussion on ‘Diverse lifestyles’ in schools. This is clearly bad for young people growing up and discovering their sexuality is not ‘normal’, it is also bad because it does not allow a true picture of the world to be taught to youngsters, who then form fixed ideas on how they ‘should’ be. Needless to say, this was all fed back to Zita, who worked very hard and took copious notes. The next speaker was Charlie Cochrane the PCS pensions expert. He gave an absorbing talk (not easy) on the new Pension Scheme. He emphasised that it was not a perfect scheme, but that we had to move away from the earlier Civil Service Scheme, which had been put together in the 70’s when there was no such thing as same sex partners. He acknowledged that the new scheme was discriminatory in that if you wanted survivor benefits for your partner then you would have to pay the extra contribution, but that it was fundamentally a good scheme. The floor was then open for questions. Delegates felt that it was wrong that they had been paying into a scheme the same as everyone else, but would not be allowed the same benefits. There was some discussion, and then we broke for a brief lunch. The next speaker was Fire Brigades Union Representative Mike Nicholls. Mike had just come off of a night on the picket line to talk to us about the Fire Fighters’ struggle, explaining that the membership, which is largely made up of centre-right political views, was serious about this action. The outcome of this dispute will certainly have an impact on all Public Service workers. Mike voiced his support for our fight for equality, comparing it to the struggle of Black members of the FBU. The FBU has a very good equality section – including a Lesbian and Gay group, which has its’ own space on the FBU website. We had a collection for the Fire Fighters, and raised £70.00. Mathew Weit who is the Parliamentary Advisor to Lord Lester then spoke. Mathew apologised that ‘Anthony’ couldn’t come, but that he doesn’t ‘do Saturdays’. He then gave an excellent speech on the Civil Partnerships Bill and Human Rights Law. Britain lags behind much of the rest of Europe in not recognising same sex partnerships, but hopefully the Civil Partnerships Bill will go some way to putting the issue on the agenda. To find out more about the Civil Partnerships Bill visit www.odysseustrust.org There then followed more workshops and feedback, and the day concluded. The seminar started at 10.00am Sunday morning with a talk from Lorna Campbell who is Prouds’ liaison officer with the PCS Equality Department. Lorna gave a powerful speech on how to take a Campaign forward, giving as an example her own experience at taking on her sons’ school in a fight to have proper reading classes for pupils. She was treated with barely disguised contempt to begin with, but she got other parents on board – and won. She then took questions from the floor, and a delegate from the East Midlands, Jay, who is Black, delicately asked Lorna, who is also Black and a member of the PCS Black Members Forum, about educating and winning over members of the Black Community within PCS to Lesbian and Gay issues, as the Black Community is historically and culturally not very sympathetic towards Lesbians and Gays. Lorna replied, “You’ve got me now!” Proud are very pleased to have Lorna on our side fighting for us. The final workshops were organised into the Proud Regional Groups to discuss how to campaign and decide what issues to take forward regionally. It was felt to be essential to build strong Trade Union links with all of the PCS Branches in our respective areas, and to increase our visibility. It was also felt that the Gay Press should be approached to advertise the work of Proud. Throughout the seminar, I had been taking hundreds of photographs, some of which will hopefully appear in PCS View, and also in the Proud Magazine. For those with access to the Internet, if you would like to see some of those pictures and loads more Proud information, then I urge you to visit our London Rep. Min Rodriguez’s website which is packed with useful articles. The address is www.proudlondon.co.uk There will, of course, be a much fuller report from the seminar in a future issue of Proud Magazine. East Midlands Meeting We had a very successful meeting of East Midlands members at the Coco Lounge in Nottingham on 23 November. Very pleasant surroundings, and a good turnout! So good, that we decided to repeat the exercise, but at a more ‘traditional’ venue around the corner. So for the Christmas get-together, the Lord Roberts has been nominated (it has open fires!), which is situated on the corner of Broad Street and High Cross Street, Nottingham, at 2.00pm Saturday 21 December. Regrettably, I shall be unable to attend, but can count on the capable hands of David Shaw to see that all goes smoothly! David will be there with his PCS bag for recognition, for those that do not yet know him! Communication As it is actually quite expensive to produce a newsletter on a regular basis, and Proud has a limited budget, I would like to produce future issues electronically as far as I am able. To do this, I will need those of you with email addresses to contact me with those addresses at eastmidlands_proud@yahoo.co.uk, please remember to give me your name as well. If you only have a workplace email address, and would rather not be issued with Proud material at your workplace, then that’s fine, I will carry on using Royal Mail. I would also ask members to contact me with details of their PCS Branches – name of Branch Secretary, and Branch address and Government Department, as I am building up a list of (hopefully) all of the PCS Branches in the area with a view to writing to Branch Committees and telling them about Proud, asking them to put up posters so that non-Proud members know about us and can join, and also to get invited to speak at Branch meetings. I also want to encourage Branches to take the Proud ‘Tackling Homophobia in the Workplace’ course, as the Employment Directive (2000) will be coming into force in December 2003, and staff should be clear that it will be illegal to discriminate against lesbians and gays, and also that employers will be liable for their staffs’ behaviour. Finally, please note that I will be on leave between 4 - 17 January, so if you need assistance, please contact another Steering Committee member for those dates. Well, that just leaves me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Kind
Regards Jude Jackson |