Successful NUJ motions at the Women’s TUC conference in Eastbourne called for more involvement by women in their trade unions and also urged more democracratic structures in TUC committees.
The delegation – Lena Calvert, Ann Coltart, Anita Halpin, Amy Hunt, Katy Ladbrooke, Cath Rasbash and Michelle Stanistreet – intervened in a number of debates.
NUJ deputy general secretary Michelle Stanistreet, who headed the poll in the conference vote for the new TUC women’s committee, condemned the growing disparity in pay between the public and private sector. She emphasised that the equal pay gap is worse in the private sector, and said it was extremely regrettable that the government had backed away from mandatory equal pay audits in its forthcoming Equality Bill.
NUJ equality officer Lena Calvert said that top-slicing the television licence fee so that profit-hungry commercial media companies bidding for the ITV news consortia could get a slice of public funds without public service obligations was a disgrace.