In the latest Unions21 podcast, Becky and I spend some time with Jess Phillips MP, co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Women and Work. You’ve almost surely heard of Jess. You may have an opinion about her – many people have. And there is no denying her force-of-nature status as she took us on an impassioned journey from the “abomination” of an Industrial Strategy document that didn’t even acknowledge “that people like me exist”, to the creation of the APPG as a response, and the ongoing campaign to dismantle the “barriers to industrial prosperity” that are characterised by sexism so deeply institutionalised that women edit themselves out of many working environments.
Along the way, we talk childcare (why describing it as low-skill is so wide of the mark) why it’s good to laugh (“gags are supposed to be funny, that’s the point”), and why we shouldn’t be grateful when we win. If we categorise people as either “radiators” or “drains”, there’s no doubt Jess is in the former camp.
We’ll pick up the Industrial Strategy question in our next podcast when our guest will be Andy Haldane, chair of the Industrial Strategy Council charged with holding the government to account on delivery of the strategy.
But also, in this week’s episode, we give a shout-out to a great work by NAPO in exposing, challenging and eventually overturning the government’s deeply flawed part-privatisation of the probation service. Or 5 expensively wasted years, you could say. It will be good to have their AGS Dean Rogers at our conference on Tuesday (21 May). A few last minute tickets are still available.
You can access the latest and previous podcasts here. Please download, stream, share, rate, review but above all, enjoy.
Makes You Think 