Sharon Edwards
Chair Women’s Committee, STUC
Role
Sharon is a Trade Union representative and has been for nearly 30 years. She is representing the Scottish TUC (STUC) and her own Trade Union is the Public & Commercial Services Union (PCS). Her current union roles include Chair of the STUC Women’s Committee (Oct 2017-Oct 2018), a Vice-chair of the PCS Scotland Committee, and Assistant Group Secretary of the PCS Home Office Group.
Sharon works in Her Majesty’s Passport Office in Glasgow and has done for the past 38 years. She is currently in the Change and Engagement Team, where her main focusses are raising awareness of mental health issues along with bullying, harassment and discrimination in the workplace. She is a former training officer and puts these skills to good use in the workplace and in her union work.
Sharon works hard to help eradicate unfairness in the workplace, highlighting bad management practices and pursuing all instances of bullying. She has been a leading equality rep for many years. She was previously recognised for her equality work by the STUC with the One Workplace Equality award in 2013.
Background
Sharon is partially retired, is married to Jim and has a grown-up daughter, Aimee. Her family life has been tinged with sadness however as she lost her son, John, in 2003 when his heart suddenly stopped, he was only 20 years old. Life generally gives us many challenges, some more difficult to deal with than others, but this particular challenge made Sharon stronger as an individual.