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Should a civil-service union promote harassment and discrimination?

Bring your whole self to wok?

At its annual conference starting on Tuesday 23rd May, PCS – Public and Commercial Services Union, the largest civil-service union – is planning to debate motions that denigrate gender-critical civil servants and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The motions seek to commit the union to a political stance about legalising gender self-ID, and to slip gender identities into government policy via a data system for civil-service HR data. Meanwhile, as the media have already reported, there is a motion calling for BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism) training for civil servants.

After the Forstater judgment that gender-critical beliefs are worthy of respect in a democratic society, a group of gender-critical civil servants set up the Sex Equality and Equity staff network (SEEN). The network is concerned with sex discrimination and committed to the belief that biological sex is binary and immutable, but has stated that it “wishes to encourage a diversity of voices and open and respectful dialogue and tolerance between those with differing beliefs and experiences”.

The PCS’s motions smear the gender-critical civil servants in what is already a hostile environment for them. But unions are bound by the Equality Act 2010 and must not discriminate against their members based on protected characteristics, including belief. Civil servants are meant to abide by the Civil Service Code which includes complying with the law, not frustrating government decisions and not favouring or discriminating against particular individual or interests – certainly not lobbying against the independent statutory regulator on the Equality Act.

If these motions are passed there will be real questions about whether the union can defend its gender-critical members.

PCS members should attend conference and express views, and can complain to the union about deciding to accept the motions. We call on the PCS national executive to ask members to vote against the motions to show that it does not support bullying, harassment and discrimination against gender-critical staff.

Attacking the gender-critical civil servants’ group

Motion A43, proposed by union delegates from DWP Bradford and HMRC Glasgow, calls on the conference to agree that “sex is not binary” and that the SEEN gender-critical staff network “promotes a regressive ideology which seeks to be exclusionary and is detrimental to the rights of all women”. It says that “the stated aims of SEEN will promote division and exclusion in the workplace, and could create an unfounded atmosphere of fear towards people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment”.

The motion seeks to instruct the National Executive Committee to express concern to the Cabinet Office that the network was allowed to be set up, and for it to produce and circulate a branch bulletin “confirming the legal position that the protected characteristic of sex includes legal sex” and the “understanding that Trans rights and women’s rights are not in opposition” and that “opposition to exclusionary ideologies that reduce the complexities and reality of our identity and lived experiences to the biological characteristics of sex”.

A43 Covers E176, E177, E178 DWP Bradford (047002) HMRC Glasgow (200119) This Conference notes: - • The Civil Service has cross government women’s, men’s and religion and Belief networks that address issues relating to those protected characteristics in an inclusive and intersectional way. • Many Government Departments also have inclusive women’s, men’s and faith and belief networks. • The Court of Sessions ruling by Lady Haldane handed down in December 2022 that clearly and unambiguously states that the protected characteristic of “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 includes both biological and legal sex. • The Judicial review ruling of May 2021 by Mr Justice Henshaw similarly ruled that to argue that single sex spaces which included a Trans person became a mixed sex space was “an obvious absurdity” and that it is, “clear beyond argument that parliament has chosen to place transsexuals in a different position to persons of their birth sex” • The Civil service is bound by the public sector duty which calls on departments to promote good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not Conference Further notes: • UK Law does not contain the concept of “Sex based Rights” but operates from a standpoint of equal rights. The Equality Act 2010 lays out very clear rights to exclude people with the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment where it is a proportional means to achieving a legitimate aim, and that these provisions are an exception, not the rule, to be applied on a case-by-case basis. This conference believes: • Biological reductionism is harmful to all women and forms the basis of many patriarchal notions of biology as destiny. • The suffragettes fought for equal rights, and against the sex-based rights of men, and this is the basis of modern progressive feminism. • Sex is not binary and to say so excludes people with differences of sexual development amongst others. This conference further believes: • The SEEN promotes a regressive ideology which seeks to be exclusionary and is detrimental to the rights of all women. • The stated aims of SEEN will promote division and exclusion in the workplace, and could create an unfounded atmosphere of fear towards people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment This conference calls on the NEC: • To express our concerns to the Cabinet Office regarding its support for the establishment of the SEEN • To produce and circulate a branch bulletin confirming the legal position that the protected characteristic of sex includes legal sex, and the proper application of the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 regarding the exclusion of people with the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment according to the EHRC statutory guidance • To produce and circulate a members’ bulletin reaffirming PCS support for Trans inclusion in the workplace, the understanding that Trans rights and women’s rights are not in opposition, our commitment to the Public Sector Duty, and opposition to exclusionary ideologies that reduce the complexities and reality of our identity and lived experiences to the biological characteristics of sex alone.

Stepping into constitutional debates

Motion A44, proposed by delegates from DWP Edinburgh, Lothian & Borders and DWP Birmingham South, wades into the political debate about the Scottish GRR Bill and calls on the civil-service union to condemn the UK government’s use of Section 35 of the Scotland Act as “an attack on the democratic rights of the people of Scotland”.

A44 Covers E179, E180 DWP Edinburgh, Lothian & Borders (047063) DWP Birmingham South (047053) Conference notes: • The blocking of the proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Reform Bill from the Scottish Parliament by the Conversative Westminster government under the use of Section 35. • That these reforms are intended to make life easier for trans people, one of the most oppressed and victimised sections of society. For example, in a recent survey for Stonewall, 41% of trans men and trans women said they had experienced a hate crime or incident in the last 12 months due to their gender identity and 25% had said they had experienced homelessness. The UK government’s own Equalities Survey found 67% of trans people had avoided being open about their gender identity for fear of a negative reaction. • Furthermore according to Trans Murder Monitoring, between October 2021 and September 2022 there were 327 reported murders of trans or gender nonconforming people around the world. • Conference believes that: • This move by Sunak’s government is an attack on the democratic rights of the people of Scotland and a further attempt to whip up ‘culture wars’ against an already demonised group, at a time when workers are increasingly fighting back against the cost of living crisis. • The rights of trans people do not conflict with the rights of other oppressed groups • The trade union movement should defend the right to self determination and the democratic rights of the people of Scotland, against an increasingly antidemocratic Westminster Tory government. • We need a united working class movement that fights against all forms of oppression and for fullyfunded public services. • Ultimately our rights and liberation will not be won through the courts, but through collective action and the fight for a different form of society. • We should stand in solidarity with our trans comrades and fight for a full ban on trans ‘conversion therapy’, to immediately scrap all barriers to legal self-identification of gender, for fully funded trans healthcare and our NHS and to stop the attacks on provision of puberty blockers. Conference instructs the National Executive Committee to: • Send solidarity to all PCS trans members. • Support protests and struggles to defend and extend the GRA reform. • Issue a statement supporting the Scottish Government’s planned reforms of Gender Recognition laws and condemning the blocking of this by the Tory government.

Self-ID by the back door

Motion A45 from DEFRA Northern and Government Legal sounds less political but notes that the “Single Operating Platform” (the internal government information system) has fewer options for “gender” than previous systems and ask to for the PCS to collate “a more inclusive list”. This suggests they are seeking to reintroduce options beyond male and female to the sex field (which is often labelled “gender”).

A45 Covers E181 DEFRA Northern (001052) PSg - Government Legal (140115) Conference notes that the Single Operating Platform (SOP) in use by many government departments has fewer options for Gender and Sexual Orientation than previous systems that a number of Civil Service bodies used previously. Conference asks that the NEC working with the PCS Proud collate a more inclusive list and to raise relevant service providers across the civil service to have systems updated to reflect a wider range of option. That this be started immediately after conference with feedback provided by conference 24

Attacking the EHRC

Motion A46 from DWP Sheffield and Bradford criticises Baroness Kishwer Falkner, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, saying that she “has expressed views that support attacks on the rights of trans people to be recognised in their acquired gender”. It calls on conference to instruct the NEC to lobby the government towards their view of “trans rights” and to support the TUC alliance for trans and non-binary rights, which seeks to “unequivocally commit the UK trade union movement to the cause of trans liberation”. It also seeks for conference to instruct it to produce a branch bulletin on the “misuse of concepts such as ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘academic freedom’ examined through a LGBT+ liberation lens”.

What the Equality Act says

Trades unions are covered by the Equality Act and must not discriminate against, harass or victimise members based on their protected characteristics. This includes the protected characteristic of belief; it does not include BDSM.

57Trade organisations (1)A trade organisation (A) must not discriminate against a person (B)— (a)in the arrangements A makes for deciding to whom to offer membership of the organisation; (b)as to the terms on which it is prepared to admit B as a member; (c)by not accepting B's application for membership. (2)A trade organisation (A) must not discriminate against a member (B)— (a)in the way it affords B access, or by not affording B access, to opportunities for receiving a benefit, facility or service; (b)by depriving B of membership; (c)by varying the terms on which B is a member; (d)by subjecting B to any other detriment. (3)A trade organisation must not, in relation to membership of it, harass— (a)a member, or (b)an applicant for membership. (4)A trade organisation (A) must not victimise a person (B)— (a)in the arrangements A makes for deciding to whom to offer membership of the organisation; (b)as to the terms on which it is prepared to admit B as a member; (c)by not accepting B's application for membership. (5)A trade organisation (A) must not victimise a member (B)— (a)in the way it affords B access, or by not affording B access, to opportunities for receiving a benefit, facility or service; (b)by depriving B of membership; (c)by varying the terms on which B is a member; (d)by subjecting B to any other detriment. (6)A duty to make reasonable adjustments applies to a trade organisation. (7)A trade organisation is— (a)an organisation of workers, (b)an organisation of employers, or (c)any other organisation whose members carry on a particular trade or profession for the purposes of which the organisation exists.

Filed under Freedom of speech   Updates   Workplaces