NATFHE has a long-standing commitment to working towards improving equality in employment, and fighting against discrimination directed at any of its members.
Equality Discussion Group Women members (now more than 50 percent of our working members) suffer from a very marked gender pay gap in both further and higher education sectors, and bear the brunt of the unequal treatment of part-timers. Black members face subtle forms of discrimination in colleges and universities, where they are often face institutional discrimination. At the time of writing, for example, there are only nine black women Professors in the whole of Britain. Disabled members are often unwilling to declare their disability at work for fear of discriminatory attitudes, and often have to put pressure on to get reasonable adjustments made. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered members have some protection in the workplace under the terms of the employment directive on sexual orientation, religion or belief, but despite that progress, homophobia remains rife throughout the education system. There are other grounds of discrimination which NATFHE is also concerned to combat - for example, religion or belief, age or appearance. A major form of discrimination in both colleges and universities is the unequal treatment meted out to hourly paid part-timers, agency staff, and those on fixed term contracts. As this is an industrial relations issue, it is primarily dealt with by the Colleges Department for further and adult education and the Universities Department for higher education, but the Equality Unit supports those departments in their campaigns against this unequal treatment. You can find information about part-time issues on the HE: Pay and Conditions page and the FE: Pay And Conditions: Part-Time Employees page. NATFHE aims to combat all forms of discrimination by campaigns, producing publications for branches, training branch officers, lobbying government etc. Our equality work is coordinated nationally by the Equality Unit . The importance NATFHE places on its equality work is reflected in the structures set up to deal with it. For details of new initiatives in this area, look for Equality News and see Equality Extra for the latest additional information not in the newsletter.
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