Building an Inclusive Workplace
We’re at a point in history where our society is grappling with the legacies of inequality in our country and considering how people of color, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities are impacted by centuries of discrimination and exclusion. Duke University, like many other institutions, has taken an important step to study and measure inequities and to host trainings and discussions about how to rectify them.
The training, studying, and discussions are wonderful and should continue because the expansion of our own hearts and minds makes a difference in this world. DUP authors and the scholars at Duke have shared and taught theories and case studies about equity and inclusion, but how can those ideas leave the pages of a book or go beyond a class lecture to affect our lives? Unions are making a difference in this regard. Consider this study, published in 2020, which shows how unions have the potential to close wage gaps through targeted catch-up raises and by implementing measures to promote pay transparency. “Between 2010 and 2016, the median wealth of nonwhite union members was nearly five times greater than that of their nonunion counterparts, while the median wealth of white union members was only 39 percent greater than that of white nonunion workers.”
Have any of us ever been part of a truly inclusive society or workplace? So often in a hierarchical workplace, the talents of individuals are overlooked, wasted, and misdirected when they could inform our institution to become even more agile and dynamic than it already is.
Forming a union will not provide all of the solutions to disparities or magically change how Duke administration handles things for the better. The best way to work towards forming an inclusive workplace is to alter the distribution of power and the ways that power is structured within our own corner of Duke University. A union can alter the institution-to-employee relationship and allow us to move beyond merely discussing the problems. We want your voice to contribute to decision-making about contract terms.
Attorney Trisha Pande spoke to us during a DUPWU-sponsored event about anti-discriminatory contract terms. She suggested that unions have negotiated to change the culture and atmosphere of a workplace: including pay equity reviews, clear pay scales, pay transparency, requiring a certain number of applicants from particular backgrounds be interviewed for a job, a budget for an equity and inclusion committee, enforceable antidiscrimination and anti-harassment policies, and more. She told us, “When employees don’t fear retaliation because of clearly enforceable rights, they are more free to speak up when something is wrong.”
Unions are at the forefront of building an inclusive workplace and now is the time for us, as publishing workers, to be a part of that effort! This week, on our Twitter feed, we’ll share some of the ways that unions are making moves toward equitable change as well as voices from our own community of supporters.