Royal Mail CEO declares support for women quotas

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Chief executive of Royal Mail Moya Greene has suggested that the imposition of quotas to ensure proportionate representation of women may be necessary across businesses in the UK.

Addressing the CWU Women's conference in Peterborough, Moya said: "I am not personally against quotas at all. Unless you have quotas and live by them you won't see change in this company or the country." She suggested quotas could apply for a fixed period, not indefinitely: "If you want quotas I am open to leading that discussion."

Moya conceded that it would be a difficult discussion in Royal Mail with some resistance likely to be encountered. She recalled when starting out on her own career in the Federal Civil Service of Canada no woman taking a senior role could be married. "We made progress in the civil service when we had quotas," said Moya.

Among the CEO's suggestions were a mentoring scheme so women could support each other and a push for proportionality reflecting the 52% of women that make up the UK population.

Moya was critical of the UK culture generally toward women in the workplace. She has been struck during her two years in the UK at the lack of women in Royal Mail and particularly in leadership positions. She has also been surprised at the lack of women in other companies when she goes for management meetings. "At Canada Post there were 43% women with 50% at the CEO management table," she said.

"There is something about the UK, for all its egalitarianism, women are not represented as they should be in society or companies," said Moya, who wants to see more women joining Royal Mail and taking up management positions.

She sees things changing in the UK for women at work but at a "glacial pace." She told of the women's network set up, which she meets with every couple of months.

Moya told how despite the recruitment industry being overwhelmingly female, the lists they send for jobs are predominantly male. "I've sent back the lists and have told others to do the same. It's almost a campaign. At Canada Post I had to say we wouldn't accept male white lists," she said.

Moya paid tribute to the relationship that had been established between the management and CWU since she took over as CEO. She said the two had worked effectively together to change the regulatory framework, getting rid of Postcomm. "Only by working with the CWU could the relaxation of regulation and change in pricing be achieved," said Moya.

During questions Moya was challenged on part time and temporary working. She conceded that more part time work was needed "for the flexibility that this company needs." But she did not agree with the view that all women with children could do was part time work. Recalling her own experience as a single parent bringing up a daughter, she said:"We need to find ways to get women to work full time with children."

On temporary workers, she said that the company "needed to have temporary and contract workers to flex up and down the traffic" but if there is so much work consistently there then the jobs should be regularised with substantive contracts.

CWU leaders back equality


Responding, Dave Ward, deputy general secretary (postal), described Moya's contribution as "very challenging for management and the union."

Acknowledging that the company and the union had worked well together on some issues, such as competition, Dave said: "A trade union whose representative structures reflect gender and ethnic diversity is not just a modern trade union but a stronger trade union better able to deal with individual and collective representation," said Dave, who called for equality and women's issues to be taken into the workplace. "It needs to get onto negotiating agendas," said Dave, who also called for stronger links between industrial executives and the equality conferences. "We have got to find a way of women getting a bigger role in the workplace," said Dave.


General secretary Billy Hayes outlined the moves by the NEC over the past 18 months to ensure proportionality at every level of the union in line with its own rules. Among recent initiatives has been the requirement that any delegation representing the CWU must be 20% female, representing the proportionate overall membership. There is also an exercise being undertaken to determine what is blocking women from taking a more active role in the union. This will include a series of branch visits being made by Billy, Linda Roy, national equalities officer and Trish Lavelle, head of education.

Billy described proportionality as not simply the right thing to do but also something that is required in order to survive and flourish. "It is not just a moral issue but a matter of survival," said Billy. "Women are systematically under represented at every level of the union movement."

Billy recalled the recent comments of the first female TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady to Congress: "Brothers, after 144 years are you really really sure?"

He recalled how the burden of £14 billion of cuts being made to fund the banking crisis fell disproportionately hard on women. Billy called on women to come out for the TUC march and rally on 20 October.


Linda Roy, national equalities officer, told of the construction of "the roadmap to inclusiveness," preparation for which so far has included monitoring of delegates attending conferences, asking questions about why so few women attend education courses and the branch visits involving Billy, Linda and Trish. "Over the next 12 months we will see significant progress towards achieving proportionality," said Linda.

Linda warned of how the Equality Act is being eroded bit by bit, with the onslaught on worker's rights set to intensify. "I'd like to remind employers that many women rely on flexible and family friendly working practices that this union fought for and the Labour government introduced. Their work life balance... and in many cases their ability to work is built around these practices. They should be maintained not withdrawn," said Linda, who paid tribute to those who fought successfully to save the Mount Pleasant crèche.

She told of the attacks on women, with Amnesty International reporting that around the world at least one woman in three has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. "Every year, gender based violence kills and disables as many women between the ages of 15 and 44 as cancer, and its toll on women's health surpasses that of traffic accidents and malaria combined," said Linda.

Support for women from Labour


Labour MP Stella Creasy warned how implementation of the cuts agenda was leading to an increase in domestic violence when support services for victims are being cut.

"At a time when women want to leave abusive relationships, the services to support them are not there," said Stella, who reported 230 women a day now being turned away from refuges.

The shadow minister for crime prevention exposed how the decision to pay the new universal credit to the main earner in a household would turn the situation back 20 years. "Getting access to support services is dependent on being able to leave an abusive relationship," said Stella, who confirmed that the Labour Party is arguing the universal benefit should go to the main carer.

The cap on universal benefit also threatens to restrict a woman's ability to leave an abusive relationship. Among the cuts making things more difficult for those being abused are those reducing the availability of specialist courts; reduction in domestic violence advisors and refuges.

Stella called on members to join the "1 billion rising" campaign which seeks to get women across the world to sign up to a proclamation that says violence against women is not permissible.


Lisa Forbes, a Peterborough City Councillor and Labour Party Parliamentary candidate, told how she only joined the Labour Party after the last election.

Lisa's story was one of how the travails of Tory rule drove her to become actively involved in local politics. She grew up in Lincoln but moved to Peterborough in the 1980s, due to the shortage of work. Her jobs were varied, from digging up potatoes to working for Thomas Cook.

She recalled crying at the result of the last election. Lisa believes her misgivings have been proved right with the destruction of health and education services as well as the failing austerity programme. "Food prices have gone up, incomes have gone down. It is heartbreaking in a country as rich as ours to see a charity like Save the Children Fund having to raise money to feed the poor," said Lisa, who is keen that Labour articulate not just what they are against but also what they are for.

"Just over two years ago I was not even a party member, now I'm a councillor and Parliamentary candidate," said Lisa who called on delegates to "go for it and get involved."

Motions

In debate on motions, there was strong support for action to be taken in cases where performance management has been used against women over 40 and those with disabilities to manage them out of the business.

"We have seen an increase within the BT Retail call centre environment and believe there is an unofficial remit to target a certain demographic," read the motion. The motion called on the Women's Advisory Committee (WAC) to work with the NEC to indentify the exact number of women being treated in this way.

Anne Nicholson of Meridian branch recalled how many functions had been changed from what were originally customer service roles to include elements of sales. Then as a result the performance issues have arisen. "As a branch we are seeing unofficial targeting of this group (women with disabilities and an age of 40 plus) using performance criteria to exit people out of the company," said Anne. "In some cases we've seen women handing in their notice because they don't have the stamina to confront managers over how they are being treated."

Julia Upton for the WAC, seconded the motion but called for the remit for doing the study to be extended to include the industrial executives.

Amanda Collick of South West and Thames Valley recalled seeing the practice at work in BT Business Sales. "There were a high number of performance plans for women with disabilities and from the higher age bracket," said Amanda, who told of a case being won at tribunal.


There was a vibrant debate on the issue of increasing third party sexual harassment of members in call centres.

Sadie Fulton of Northern Ireland Telecoms branch told of one case where a customer asked what underwear the staff member was wearing and her favourite sex positions. This individual repeatedly rang in over a week. The management were not concerned as he was helping to keep up call volumes.

The problems are often compounded for members, who may recognise a pest caller but then have to sit through the whole call because the person monitoring them won't have the background knowledge.

"We need to work out how much of this is going on and what members rights are," said Sadie.

Linda Woodings of East Midlands branch, pointed out that under the Equalities Act, employers have a responsibility to protect workers after the third incident, if the caller can be identified. There is apparently case law going through to ascertain whether it applies to three incidents from one customer or three incidents to the same assistant.

Linda also told how some years ago where she worked it was agreed that only first names would be given out, after an incident where a customer googled the staff member and said they would be outside their house with a baseball bat.

A motion was passed calling for pressure to be put on the Turkish government to ensure that banning or making abortion more difficult in that country does not materialise.

Vicky Turner for the WAC told how the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had proposed banning abortion. He had aligned abortion with murder, likening it to the launch of air strikes on civilians. A proposal to reduce the present limit when it is possible to have an abortion from 10 to six weeks would in effect outlaw abortion as many women don't know they are pregnant until that time.

The proposal is now on hold after thousands of women took to the streets in protest at the move.

Kath Kelly for the WAC pointed out that the Turkish Prime Minister had omitted to mention that the number of abortions has been steadily falling over recent years.

Over 150 people attended the day-long Women's Conference in Peterborough, and considered 25 motions which will now help to shape the policy and campaign work of CWU. If you are interested in getting more involved with CWU or want to find out more about equality work please contact your branch or the equality department.

[fishtank]

Among the CEO's suggestions were a mentoring scheme so women could support each other and a push for proportionality reflecting the 52% of women that make up the UK population.

I always feel a bit uneasy when quotas and positive discrimination are wheeled out.
To me,in my simplistic mind you should always choose the best candidate for any job regardless of race,gender or any other factor,anything else is discrimination.
If i remember correctly the percentages in Royal Mail as a whole are 82% male 18% female,the reasons for that are far to complex to be engineered out by a clumsy quota system.

[Lounge Lizard]

Among the CEO's suggestions were a mentoring scheme so women could support each other and a push for proportionality reflecting the 52% of women that make up the UK population.

I always feel a bit uneasy when quotas and positive discrimination are wheeled out.
To me,in my simplistic mind you should always choose the best candidate for any job regardless of race,gender or any other factor,anything else is discrimination.
If i remember correctly the percentages in Royal Mail as a whole are 82% male 18% female,the reasons for that are far to complex to be engineered out by a clumsy quota system.

So ideally just over 40% of Royal Mail's male employees should give up their jobs with only females applying for the resulting vacancies.

[hans solo]

WTF IS CEO of royal mail doing addressing a cwu conference our union cant run itself it would seem

[Stormproof]

WTF IS CEO of royal mail doing addressing a cwu conference our union cant run itself it would seem

she seems to have her feet under the table now, she was at the CWU annual conference in Bournemouth aswell

[DirtyHarry]

Not a very healthy thing, this Moya putting in an appearance at every CWU conference.
She is a big part of the problem union members face on a daily basis, until she puts right, what is most definitely wrong, she shouldn't be anywhere near a union meeting.

[andy2007]

It doesn't surprise me that she's in favour of sexual discrimination. It's all very well claiming that it's "positive discrimination". But any system which favours someone because of their race, colour, sex, etc, etc, is wrong.

[Lounge Lizard]

It doesn't surprise me that she's in favour of sexual discrimination. It's all very well claiming that it's "positive discrimination". But any system which favours someone because of their race, colour, sex, etc, etc, is wrong.

Indeed, and males are currently under represented in Royal Mail at Chief Executive level.
Does she propose to do anything about that ?

[andy2007]

She's right. Women ARE under represented in RM, just as they are in many other companies. But a system which gives an unfair advantage to ANY group, regardless of the reasons, is wrong. EVERYONE should have an equal chance, regardles of what "group" they're from. The only fair way to redress the balance, is to wait for the balance to sort itself out over time. If an applicant's sex, race, etc, is ignored during selection. Then the proportion of people belonging to each "group" will eventually reflect the number of suitable applicants who're applying.

Now, if we were to go down the route of actively advertising for people who are under represented. That would be a FAIR and hopefully effective way of helping things along. But to have a quota to fill, promotes discrimination. Isn't that the whole POINT of having a quota system?

[TeeferTiger]

The Equality Act 2010 is suppposed to allow people to be employed etc according to their ability and nothing else. Unfortunately, it's hard to regulate unless someone makes a mistake and admits that someone wasn't employed because of something they're not meant to discriminate against.

Some companies still don't really like employing women my age (even without the disabilities I have) because we're likely to be off having kids and it costs them money. Now, I can sort of see it from both sides- they want someone who is there to work and isn't going to be off for up to a year being paid for the privelege. However, if women don't go off and have babies, there won't be a future workforce lol

In short, the Equality Act 2010 isn't worth the paper it's written on at the moment when there's so many people looking for work. And any discrimination is bad discrimination IMO.

[fishtank]

I think in order to understand why women were under represented you would need the data from all applicants for all positions with the company.
If it turned out that only 18% of the applicants were female and 18% of the workforce are female then you need to look at why the job doesn't appeal to women and that's going to be a long,difficult and probably fruitless conversation about whether the hours and job content put women off.
Obviously if 50% of applicants are female and only 18% are successful you have a more serious problem because there is no logical reason why you would favour male applicants over female which only really leaves discrimination.

[clashcityrocker]

At some point you have to try and break the cycle.
Positive discrimination gives opportunities to people who for whatever reason might not otherwise have those opportunities.
They then become role models for other people and the whole under representation of minorities hopefully ends.

The sector of society that least favours positive discrimination is white men and they are probably over represented on this forum.

[fishtank]

Positive discrimination gives opportunities to people who for whatever reason might not otherwise have those opportunities.

If we stick to gender which is what the thread is about and hopefully that way avoid having the thread hijacked by others could you define "whatever reason"?

[clashcityrocker]

.........could you define "whatever reason"?

Lack of confidence.
Lack of support.
Lack of an effective role model.
The sexual objectification of women as epitomised by page 3.

[Lounge Lizard]

I think in order to understand why women were under represented you would need the data from all applicants for all positions with the company.
If it turned out that only 18% of the applicants were female and 18% of the workforce are female then you need to look at why the job doesn't appeal to women and that's going to be a long,difficult and probably fruitless conversation about whether the hours and job content put women off.
Obviously if 50% of applicants are female and only 18% are successful you have a more serious problem because there is no logical reason why you would favour male applicants over female which only really leaves discrimination.

If Royal Mail employees as a whole are 82% male and 18% female might that be because applications for RM vacancies are about 82% male and 18% female ? And if that is the case might that largely be because it's a more strenuous and physically demanding job than most other employment ?