Thursday 6 October 2016

National Work Life Week Scotland Conference 2016



The STUC Women’s Committee has campaigned for years for family friendly workplaces. We all know the crucial role carers in Scotland play in the labour force. The majority of these carers are women so it’s a subject that is very dear to the hearts of the women we represent.

Despite the legislation there are still very few employers embracing the principle of family friendly working. Too many simply pay lip service to it whilst actively discouraging flexible working requests and providing a variety of spurious reasons to decline them.

This affects our performance in the workplace, the opportunities available to us for promotion, our health and wellbeing and most of all our family life. That’s why it’s one of the many topics we’ll be debating at the STUC Women’s Conference in Perth at the end of October.

We are therefore delighted to be working with Family Friendly Working Scotland (FFWS) on tackling the many barriers women in particular face in the pursuit of a work-life balance.

Family Friendly Working Scotland was set up in 2014 with funding and support from the Scottish Government. As part of National Work Life Week, FFWS are holding a conference in Glasgow on Thursday 6 October which the STUC Women’s Committee fully supports. I will be attending with a colleague from the Women’s Committee, Joyce Stephenson from CWU.

The event is an opportunity to discuss the many different aspects of family friendly working and the benefits they bring. It also covers practical ideas for employers to take this forward in their organisations, how the different policies work in practice and how FFWS can help support employers to make Scotland a family friendly place to work.

The STUC Women’s Committee and FFWS aim to follow this up with a joint event which looks at flexible working approaches for non-standard working patterns. We will keep you updated on how this is progressing and hope that as many trade union women as possible can attend this event.  



Fiona Steele
Deputy General Secretary
Aegis the Union