UWE awards honorary degree to Prospect equality campaigner
Retired Prospect member Jackie Longworth has been awarded an honorary degree in recognition of her contribution to gender equality, both in the Bristol area and nationally. The degree was awarded by University of the West of England at a ceremony at Bristol Cathedral.
Jackie played a leading role in Prospect’s predecessor union the Engineers and Managers Association, becoming its president in 1994.
She was the first woman delegate to the union’s annual conference, the first woman on its national executive and its first woman president. She was active in negotiations as the electricity industry was privatised, with massive redundancy programmes, and was awarded an MBE for services to engineering management in 1996.
Since retiring from the electricity industry in 2001, Jackie has remained just as active, chairing the regional women’s equality network, Fair Play South West, which identifies the issues, policies and practices needed to improve women’s equality and campaigns for their adoption.
She is also a member of the South West TUC women’s committee, which she has chaired in the past, and a vice-president of the Women’s Engineering Society, having served as its president in the past.
Jackie joined the then Central Electricity Generating Board in 1967 and worked for 34 years in nuclear plant safety.