'Racializing’ the union agenda in female dominated professional unions: challenges in the nursing and midwifery context

Presenter: Dr Cécile Guillaume (Business School, Roehampton University, UK)

Abstract
The idea that unions need to ‘feminize’ the union agenda in order to tackle the specific concerns of women workers has long been the subject of debate and unions have made huge progress even if they are still open to criticism on this front. This paper extends the debate by exploring how far unions have come in ‘racializing’ the union agenda in order to tackle workplace racism and represent black and minority ethnic (BME) workers’ specific concerns. We will present findings from a case study of two professional unions, the RCN and RCM (the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives), the main unions (which double as professional organisations) representing nursing and midwifery. The focus is on local workplace implementation of the unions’ national commitment to tackling racism.

Biography
Dr Cécile Guillaume is Reader in HRM and Employment Relations at the Business School, Roehampton University. Her research interests lie in the area of discrimination and gender equality in employment relations, trade unions and the workplace.She mobilizes gender as a key concept to reflect on union participation, to discuss the under-representation of women within the trade union movement and to question policies and legal mobilizations led by unions to fight gender discrimination.

Light lunch will be served so please advise of any dietary requirements.