Why challenge discrimination

Young members group. The skills and experience of retired members are vital at UNISON, which is why we have a retired members section that has its own annual conference and local and regional groups. Each UNISON branch has a retired members officer, and we are always looking for retired members who can offer their time and experience to help our branches and members.

Retired members groups. Every UNISON branch elects delegates to attend and vote on behalf of their local branch members — and we want to make sure women, Black, LGBT, disabled, retired and young members are represented fairly.

Self-organised groups. We know our reps and activists need support and information, help and advice - even more so if you're new to the role. Find out where to get support as a new rep. We use cookies on our website to ensure you find the information you need in the simplest way. By continuing to use our website you are consenting to their use. Find out more about cookies and how we use them. Coronavirus: what you need to know. Discrimination affects the rights of children around the world and is therefore a legal issue.

Creating social policies and ensuring they are compliant with children's right to non-discrimination. Media portrayal of children can exacerbate discrimination, profoundly impacting on attitudes towards them. Children learn prejudice and stereotypes from the beliefs and behaviour of adults who surround them.

This is often know as unconscious bias and is simply about us all having the innate ability to view people and situations through the lens of our own experience. This could be as simple as having completed a degree, therefore unconsciously being biased towards others who have the same educational background, however it can run much deeper than that and stem into racial or political beliefs stemming from our upbringing and never challenged at a conscious level, therefore continuing in our own interactions.

Pay particular attention to bias relating to the 9 protected characteristics e. Before you can truly challenge either your own thinking, or the thinking of your team or culture, you need to understand unconscious bias on a deep level — we have share some interesting resources below:.

You only need to look at the alllivesmatter or notallmen responses to illustrate this point. Responses like this showcase the lack of pain that certain groups feel in diversity or discriminatory issues. We have seen been shown similar challenges in our Women In Leadership Programmes where every female leaders brings a different viewpoint influenced by their own experience and things they have seen first hand.

Unfortunately, silence is often the exact problem.