Published: 07/09/2021

The ILO predicts that the gender pay gap, already 20% globally, will increase at a significant rate due to the COVID-19 crisis. Other inequalities (e.g. race, disability, sexual orientation, etc.), present before the pandemic, are also only becoming worse. Given that the labour movement’s responsibility to ensure equality and prevent all forms of discrimination at work is more important than ever, unions can also fight against gender and other inequalities in the workplace as a way to organize and build collective power; equality mapping is an important tool in doing this.

  • An Introduction to equality mapping – a tool to strengthen your union, published by IUF’s Food Processing Division in September 2021, describes the basic steps that a union representative and/or worker/member committee should take to develop an equality mapping
  • Equality mapping can be used in both organizing and collective bargaining to establish baseline information and help unions formulate solutions for addressing and eliminating workplace disparities; developed in collaboration with the IUF’s affiliates and its Food Processing Steering Group, the guide includes recommendations for collective bargaining with examples of affiliates’ CBA language
Fighting for equality at the workplace means fighting for a workplace where all workers access the same rights, jobs and opportunities. Workers fight for equality through their unions.
Introduction to equality mapping: a tool to strengthen your union