Many years ago, our slogan in the trade union movement was "keep the law out of industrial relations" and "negotiate don't legislate". These slogans reflected our view, powerfully endorsed by the Donovan Commis-sion, that voluntary collective bargaining backed by a wide ranging immunity from the civil law were all that we needed for a powerful trade union movement which would protect workers from bad bosses. And indeed, this so-called golden formula, had been an effective base for trade union growth - both in terms of membership and influence - although in retrospect, it had not helped us in organising in sectors where the threat of industrial action was not potent - small firms outside print, most of the private services sector, part timers - in many cases areas where growing numbers of women were working.

Today those slogans have a quaint, historical feel. The recessions of the 1980s took their toll on manufacturing industry in the UK and unions lost thousands of members. The rise of individual litigation, much of it requested by the trade union movement either here or in Europe, coupled with a succession of acts of parliament designed to weaken trade union involvement in the workplace left us, by 1997, relying heavily on individual rights to achieve fairness at work. The employment laws of New Labour, especially on the minimum wage and those arising from joining the European Social Chapter, have perpetuated this. Legislation to restore the role of collective bargaining, such as statutory union recognition, have been very welcome, but limited in scope. Even the new legislation on information and consultation provides individual rights, though we regard it in practice as collective legislation, with its triggers and percen-tages and emphasis on processes. In addition, there has been a welcome growth of race and gender awareness in the movement and, more recently, awareness of other important issues such as sexuality and disability as workplace issues. Legislation on issues such as these is based largely on individual rights.

This new emphasis means that the law is as important a protector of workers, as collective bargaining, if looked at across the workforce as a whole. Some employers may be wondering whether the price they paid for a reduction of union power was too high, as they face soaring legal costs and regular outings to the employment tribunals. Readers of this journal will know what important issues these are. Work is where nearly all adults now spend most of their lives. Work now encompasses the majority of women as well as men, whether full time or part time. Work is essentially a highly ordered activity. The way in which work is organised largely determines how society is ordered. 
All these changes have produced a very different trade union movement with great challenges in terms of ensuring a significant extension of union membership. The TUC has to change to reflect what is happening in the world of work. It also has to reflect the aspirations of the trade union movement. In order to survive and flourish, we need to attract far greater numbers of young workers, women and black workers and we need to demonstrate our commitment to making both the workplace and the union an environment where workers are free to express their sexuality, are free from harassment and are not excluded by reason of disability.

One big change at the TUC has been the appointment of two women to senior posts, with Frances O'Grady as deputy general secretary and Kay Carberry as assistant general secretary joining Brendan Barber, the new general secretary. Another change was the merger of the employment rights section of the Organisation and Services Department with the former Equal Rights Department, to form the Equality and Employment Rights Department. I was given the great privilege of being appointed to head the new department last June, having formerly been the TUC's Senior Employment Rights Officer. The new department has key strategic objectives for the coming year, set out in resolutions carried at our Congress and also at our four equality conferences - Women, Black Workers, Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender, and Disability. The rest of this article highlights the priorities of the new department for 2003/4.

Equal pay is and will remain a key priority. Recent figures show that the gender pay gap has not narrowed significantly. Much of this is due to occupational segregation and there is still a long way to go to achieve equal pay for work of equal value. The TUC will continue to campaign for compulsory pay audits but will also be working to ensure that all unions make it a priority to put equal pay on the bargaining agenda. On the theme of women's income, the TUC will make women's access to decent occupational pensions another key priority this year; many women still lose out because of child rearing responsibilities, or because they earn too little to be able to benefit from company schemes.

The activities of the BNP in the community and within a growing number of unions is alarming and will be challenged forcefully. One matter which must be addressed by the government is the legal restrictions on unions who want to exclude these racists from their organisation. We welcome all the work which Thompsons are doing with us and affiliated unions on this issue. The TUC has also entered a new partnership arrangement with the CRE, which will greatly improve our work together in handling cases and developing a strategic approach to improving workplace diversity.

A great step forward was made by the government and the EU when they agreed to introduce legislation to protect workers who are discriminated against on grounds of their sexuality and we warmly welcome this and will work hard to promote it and make it work effectively. It should herald a culture change by employers. It was disappointing however that the government decided to weaken the legislation by allowing discrimination to be practised by religious organisations and by leaving pension schemes free to use marriage as a determinant of access to occupa-tional pension scheme benefits for partners. The TUC is currently backing a group of unions who are challenging the regulations in the courts on these two issues.

The TUC has been campaigning for a new Disability Bill to strengthen the current legislation and ensure that there is better protection for all disabled workers, including those who have conditions which have not yet manifested themselves. Access to employment is, we believe, a major factor in ensuring equality for disabled people. We have collected thousands of signatures on a petition for a Bill which we will be presenting to the government shortly.

The proposed legislation on age discrimination, though generally welcome, will be a great challenge to the union movement. We are particularly concerned about the proposed default retirement age and the proposed levelling down of statutory redundancy pay.

The employment law agenda is as full as ever. We are organising a series of briefings and education courses for union reps on the new rights to information and consultation. We regard these new rights as presenting great opportunities for extending our influence in workplaces where there is a union presence but no recognition, or where unions are recognised for some parts of the undertaking but not all. We will need to ensure though that existing union agreements are compliant with the new laws and strong enough not to be undermined by employers or challenged by disaffected groups of workers.

We hope that the review of the Employment Relations Act will produce helpful amendments to the current recognition laws, which certainly need an overhaul. We are optimistic that the government will act to protect workers against unfair labour practices during recognition campaigns and will also enforce the important decision taken by the European Court of Human Rights in the Wilson and Palmer case, so that union members can be fully and effectively represented by their union in the workplace. We remain disappointed though about the narrowness of the Government's proposals. The legislation will continue to exclude small firms from the recognition provisions and do little to extend protection for workers taking part in lawful industrial action. This is unacceptable to the TUC and we will continue to put pressure on the government to promote collective bargaining as an alternative to individual dispute resolution by amending existing legislation where necessary.

We have serious concerns about the draft dispute resolution regulations and about the proposed new employment tribunal procedures. In particular, we cannot support the exclusion of informal warnings from the statutory minimum procedures and we believe that section 30 of the Employment Act, which provides that the new procedures will be an implied term in employee's contracts, must be commenced with the rest of the legislation. There is a real danger that these regulations will actually produce more, not less litigation, as there will inevitably be disputes about whether and how the new procedures have been used.

Other big issues, such as reform of TUPE and the working time opt out are covered by another department in the TUC but we will all be working closely together in Congress House towards our goal of making fairness at work a reality.