Current Position
The BDA Trade Union has made significant progress in recent years and our Trade Union National Executive Committee (TUNEC) has become embedded in our structure and culture providing robust and accountable leadership.
The creation of seats on TUNEC representing specific protected characteristics has given us the ability to improve and promote our equity and diversity work with more authority.
The BDA is a leading voice in the equalities work of the TUC, participating in the various conferences and chairing the Women’s Committee and leading work on sexual harassment and intersectional issues that affect our members at work and in society. We are also represented on the NHS Staff Council Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Group.
A core purpose of a trade union is to protect and improve the interests of members by collective bargaining and agreement, and to provide active support and representation to members in relation to employment matters. We achieve this by working in partnership with members, employers, legislators and other policy makers to negotiate and campaign for excellent terms and conditions of employment, fair and equitable treatment and safe working environments.
We are focused on: good employment relations locally and nationally, collective bargaining to achieve improvements for our members, and providing expert representation to our members via our local representatives (reps) network or the staff team.
Equality and diversity are high priority areas for the BDA Trade Union and the wider movement running through all of the work that we do. We will continue to learn and improve in this area and take a leading role both within the BDA, workplaces and in our collaborative work with employers and other unions.
We will continue to provide bespoke legal and professional support for every dietitian who is subject to Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) Fitness to Practice concerns.
Our areas of focus include taking a leading position across health trade union structures in the UK. We will be fully engaged in all of the relevant collective bargaining structures along with regional and national social partnership forums.
By increasing our network of trained trade union (TU) representatives, we will have all workplaces covered to provide local expert support, advice and representation. Our TU reps will represent the profession and will comprise of equality, health and safety, and learning reps.
We will put in place structures and processes to enable full member engagement and participation in the BDA Trade Union. TUNEC, along with regional networks will provide democratic accountability with critical decision making coming from the members at a local, regional and country level.
We will have regular conferences for all TU representatives supporting policy decision making, ensuring a high level of trained representation for members.
Over the next ten years, changes to the political landscape will bring challenges, for which we will be ready to both shape and respond to, requiring us to be organised and agile with an educated and well-trained network of leaders, activists and officials.
By 2034
Achieving our goal of ‘20,000 satisfied members by 2034’ will provide us with opportunities to grow our representation, the influence of our trade union and ultimately a better and sustainable future for the profession. An expanded dietetic workforce will give members the opportunity to achieve safe staffing levels, which in turn will allow protected time for CPD including non-clinical learning and development.
By 2034 BDA members will have:
- A network of trained and competent trade union, health and safety, union learning and equality representatives across all relevant employers.
- Clearly communicated opportunities to participate in trade union organising and campaigns.
- Non-clinical learning and development time protected in NHS contracts.
- Recognition agreements with employers outside of the NHS.
- Full engagement with collective bargaining structures in all four nations of the UK.
- Meaningful participation in national and regional social partnership forums.
By 2027 we will deliver:
- A trade union representative in at least 80% of relevant workplaces across the UK with a clear process for ensuring vacancies are subject to speedy elections.
- A network of equality representatives in place to cover each of the four nations of the UK.
- Communication systems operating at UK, national and local level to ensure wide member engagement in BDA and wider union movement campaigns with effective calls to action.
- Progress on engagement with the NHS Social Partnership Forum and Staff Council participation in the implementation of the NHS England Long-Term Workforce Strategy and inclusion in annual pay submissions in each of the nations.
- Identification of the most significant and influential employers in industry, and the not-for-profit sector will have recognition agreement applications in progress.
- Improved engagement in Northern Ireland and stronger influence in each of the nations of the UK.
- A clear, comparable picture of the pay and conditions in each of the four nations of the UK.
- A secured seat on the NHS Social Partnership Forum (SPF) national executive and workforce issues group. Regional SPFs will be prioritised according to capacity and influence.