WGGB delegates Bec Boey and Sian Robins-Grace were at TUC Black Workers’ Conference this year, which ran from 11-13 April 2025 at Congress House in London.
Bec Boey (pictured above) moved WGGB’s motion (21) Diversity Monitoring, which was carried unanimously. The WGGB motion was seconded by Equity, with speeches in support from Unison and NASUWT.
The motion was as follows:
“Conference notes a report published by Creative Diversity Network which looked at television monitoring data from 2016 to 2022. According to this report, the employment of writers from BAME backgrounds increased by 4.5% in that time, but the percentage of contributions (script credits) from those writers only increased by 2.6%. Conference believes that the disparity between the percentage of writers engaged and the percentage of writers whose work makes it to screen must be accounted for, and that the gap here is in part a result of writers of colour being hired as cultural consultants instead of episode writers with script commissions.
Conference calls on the TUC Race Relations Committee to:
i) Press for broadcasters, streamers and production companies to release transparent data on the numbers of writers of colour who are engaged and whose work is fully commissioned to screen.
ii) Campaign against the use of cultural consultants instead of properly paid and credited writers.
iii) Support the calls from arts unions for the need for more ethnic diversity in our sector.”
Bec Boey spoke in support of the NASUWT/Equity/Musicians’ Union composite motion ‘Anti-racism campaigning and resisting the rise of the far right’.
WGGB members also participated in a fringe event, hosted by Equity, ‘Censorship in the arts/censorship of Palestinian voices’.
If you would like to get more involved in our equality and diversity work, please contact john@writersguild.org.ukÂ