This month The Equality Trust Founders, Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, and Executive Director, Wanda Wyporska, had a letter published in The Guardian highlighting the social divisiveness of inequality, including the status anxiety, felt at all economic levels of society.
On the move this month Wanda spoke at the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants centenary event Change is not an option – it is imperative! Wanda spoke to a packed room about creating a fairer future and dismantled the comfortable narratives of social mobility, arguing that we should fight for a better future for all our children. Wanda also attended a Free Churches roundtable event to contribute to their commission on social cohesion and made a strong case for a focus on inequality.
Equality: the biggest silver bullet to Climate Change
Inspired by our recent event with Dario Kenner on his new book and database on ‘The Polluter Elite’, The Equality Trust supported the student-led #GlobalClimateStrike on 20th September at Lambeth, Brighton and Westminster. We will also be attending in Croydon on Friday 27th September (contact us if you would like to join in).
There is a plethora of information about the links between Climate Change and Inequality: from Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s publication ‘A Convenient Truth’ (2014), The Global Commission on Adaptation report on climate resilience (2019), as well as more recently the Bill backing a Green New Deal.
What’s clear is that while the climate crisis will affect those with the least power and economic resource, the status anxiety caused by inequality drives the vapid consumerism that is destroying our planet. To find out more about how you can get involved in climate and inequality campaigning, get in contact.
Equal Pay Campaign
Despite the wet weather, 20 activists joined My Fair London and The Equality Trust to examine unequal pay in some of London’s biggest businesses, and to explore the different campaigning tactics we can use to call on businesses, regulators and the Government to take action against pay inequality. We were joined by allies at ShareAction, who explained how to use the tactic of “AGM activism” and how they have used this to win a pay rise for over 15,000 workers.
We are organising with activists in London and beyond to take action against gender pay inequality for Equal Pay Month this November. To find out how you can get involved, email us at info@equalitytrust.org.uk
GET INVOLVED IN EQUAL PAY MONTH
Is Equality a Myth?
Not according to GCSE students, Ted, Luke and Connor. These three students are raising money for The Equality Trust as part of their active citizenship project for their GCSEs.
All donations will go to The Equality Trust as well as helping these students on their project. Dig deep to help inspire the next generation of equality campaigners!
ACT NOW: Fight inequality alongside thousands of activists around the world
Each year in January, to coincide with the gathering of the world’s political and business elite in Davos, mobilise across the globe to demand an end to the “age of greed”. Next year will be the Alliance’s biggest mobilisation yet, with plans for the UK and Europe already coming together. We will mobilise bigger numbers of people to take to the streets, make the voices of ordinary people heard and call on our governments to listen to their citizens – not billionaires – for solutions to end inequality.
Email info@equalitytrust.org.uk if you want to find out how to get involved as part of a campaigning group, grassroots movement, civil society organisation, or simply as an individual.
Local Groups Activist Day!
Do you want to campaign against inequality? There are still places at this year’s Local Groups Activist Day. You will learn about movement building, community organising and online tools for success. We will also look at The Equality Trust’s major campaigns, including the campaign to close the gender pay gap. Register today.
Oswestry
Following their successful tea party for Syrian Refugees, Equality Oswestry is working with Shropshire Council’s Syrian Refugee Coordinator to organise regular conversations with Syrian refugees in a local book shop. These meetups are helping refugees develop their English skills, make friends and feel more at ease in their local community. If you would like to find out more, contact Maureen.
Next month, Equality Oswestry will host a talk with the Salvation Army and Os Nosh – a new vibrant, local social action organisation cooking free and pay as you feed meals in Oswestry. The talk will focus on ‘Providing Food & Friendship’. You can see their colourful posters which have have been pinned around town, distributed to the local newspapers and other Equality Oswestry supporters, and of course, posted on the group’s Facebook page.
Sheffield
Sheffield Equality Group has teamed up with local arts initiatives The Art House and Flourish to reflect on “The Inner Level” by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson. An exhibition of artwork by those involved with the organisations, asking the question “What would Equality Feel Like?” is planned for May 2020.
Would you like to get involved in inequality campaigning in Sheffield? Get in contact with Jason to find out more!
Cambridge
Lead researcher for The Cambridge Commons, Dr Claire Preston, will talk through the key findings from a research collaboration with UNISON at their meetup on Wednesday 2 October. The findings, which will be published later in the month, includes:
- over 8 out of 10 surveyed UNISON healthcare workers faced financial difficulties
- respondents spent 43% of their income on housing and over a third could not save
- two-thirds of low and mid-pay respondents regularly borrowed from family and friends
The Cambridge Commons are also looking forward to their AGM which will take place before Claire’s talk on 2 October. The group is actively looking for interested people to join our steering group, including a new chair, treasurer and secretary, and take forward their strategy to tackle inequality – and welcome people from all backgrounds and life experiences.
London
My Fair London launched its Equality Manifesto: 5 steps to a #FairerLondon this month, alongside a petition calling on the four mayoral candidates to adopt the five steps and commit to action to reduce inequality in the capital.
London also held an interactive seminar exploring the role London’s businesses play in deepening inequality across London, featuring a guest speaker from responsible investment charity, ShareAction.
Do you want to make a difference in your community?
Find your local Equality Trust group or contact Emma, our Senior Local Groups Organiser, to find out how you can start an Equality Trust group in your area.
LATEST BLOGS / COMMENT / RESOURCES
- 70% of CEOs at the largest charities are men.
- Which UK city has the largest gender pay gap (it won’t shock you)?
- Does inequality even matter?
- TUC reports on graduate class discrimination via Personnel Today
- Cancer Research UK: ‘19,000 cancer deaths a year linked to inequality’
KEY DEVELOPMENTS AND REPORTS
- The cost of a child report
- High Pay Centre report: Housing crisis seems to work for CEO wages in the home building industry
- TUC report ‘Building working class power: How to address class inequality today’
- Global Center on Adaptation report on Climate Change
INEQUALITY IN THE NEWS
- How to stem rising inequality?
- Taxing income from wealth may level the playing field?
- Highest homeless figures for 10 years
- Every four minutes one UK household becomes homeless
- Scotland: Poorest communities three times more likely to die young
BEST INEQUALITY READS AND LISTENS
- The power of narrative economics
- Jim Pugh on Universal Basic Income from The Disruptors podcast
- Melissa Benn on the private school problem
- Kate Pickett, Richard Wilkinson and Wanda Wyporska co-sign letter (alongside 86 others) in response to the Financial Times’s series which reproduces a number of misconceptions about the UK’s economic position.
Thanks for all your continued support. To find out more about any of our projects, please get in contact.