4 – 6 July 2025
Nottingham Crowne Plaza Hotel
UNISON Equalities Seminar 2025 – Open to all WET and Energy Members
This year’s WET and Energy Equalities Seminar will take place on 4-6 July 2025, at the Nottingham Crowne Plaza Hotel.
About the seminar
This seminar is open to all members in UNISON branches across the water industry, environment agencies, the transport sector and the energy sector, which includes all members in the WET or Energy Service Groups, who are interested in learning more and sharing ideas on promoting equality and diversity in their workplaces and in wider society as part of their trade union work.
The seminar programme will include informative presentations, guest speakers, member-led workshops, group activities and network opportunities centred around a variety of areas of equalities work.
Key information
Dates: Friday 4th July (from 5pm) to Sunday 6th July (closing at lunchtime)
Location: Nottingham
Venue: Nottingham Crowne Plaza Hotel
Accommodation: Nottingham Crowne Plaza Hotel
Registering seminar delegates
Branches are invited to seek expressions of interest from their members around attending this seminar, and are free to use the information on this page to assist with this.
Members in WET and Energy branches interested in attending this seminar should contact their Branch Secretaries.
All registrations of members to attend this seminar must be made via the OCS system, and be approved by branches.
How to register
Delegate registration is handled via the UNISON OCS system. Branch Secretaries, Branch Chairs or Branch Administrators should register all attendees via the ‘2025 WET & Energy Equalities Seminar’ event in the ‘Conferences’ section of their OCS site.
Registration fees
Registration costs to branches are as follows. These rates cover two nights’ accommodation, breakfasts, lunches and refreshments across the weekend, evening meals on the Friday and Saturday evenings, and all seminar materials.
- Standard rate: £410 – applies to registrations made by 26 June.
- Young Member rate: £375 – applies to all Young Member registrations.
Further details on registrations, including OCS instructions, can be found here:
Registrations deadline: Thursday 26 June, 5pm.
Seminar programme
Work on a provisional programme for this year’s seminar is underway, however the topics that are looking to be covered include:
- Changes in the law: the Employment Rights Bill, the draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill (and others) – and what this means for trade union equalities work and other activity.
- The Disability Employment Charter: exploring the Disability Employment Charter, it’s history, and why work to get employers to sign up to it, and for governments to acknowledge the actions it calls for, are so important to improving the working lives of disabled people.
- Anti-racism, discrimination awareness and allyship: exploring anti-discrimination activity and allyship in the context of workplace trade union anti-racism work.
- Organising for equality: establishing and maintaining self-organising groups (SOGs), building networks, and how branches can and should interact with employer equality staff networks.
- Equality work in practice: exploring and sharing practical ways in which leaning on trade union equality work can be taken back into branches and workplaces, and sharing best practice.
A full provisional seminar programme, with anticipated timings, can be download here:
If there are any queries or questions on any aspect of this event that are not addressed elsewhere on this page, please click here to email the organisers directly.
