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SAFE TO BE WHO YOU ARE


Unite Dave Imre’s latest extravaganza? The first Unite 2Sisters Pride


There’s a definite buzz about the place – not something you’d expect at a poultry processing factory in Deeside, north Wales.


But it’s Pride season, and thanks to Unite 2Sisters site convenor Dave Imre, the company has for the first year ever embraced a special Unite event to celebrate LGBT+ workers.


Look down at your feet and you see flagstones specially painted in rainbow colours; look up in the sky and you see a Pride flag superimposed on a Welsh one. 2Sisters workers excitedly file into a meeting room for multicoloured cakes and pastries.


Dave ushers them in, beaming with, well, pride. And Dave has much to be proud of – the organising work he, his cousin, Unite deputy convenor Istvan and other reps have done over the years has totally transformed industrial relations at the site.


There are now more than 1,000 Unite members on-site – before there were only a handful. And with their industrial strength, they’ve won several pay and conditions improvements over the years. 2Sisters Sandycroft management now welcomes whatever union initiative Dave has thrown their way, including this month’s Pride event.


Dave told Landworker why he thought an on-site event was so important. “Everyone should feel safe and valued


in their workplace,” he said. “I want people to understand that you can live freely, and you can love whoever you want to love. I want to create a working environment where every single person is seen as an equal human being without any labels just because they love the same sex or both sexes.”


For Dave, this strength of feeling is deeply personal. “In my home country in Romania, homophobia is widespread. In every single workplace when I lived there, I had to hide who I was. I don’t want anyone to ever go through that.”


It wasn’t until he was 26 and first moved to the UK eight years ago that Dave came out about being gay. Asked if he could ever have imagined himself a few years ago now leading a Pride initiative at work, festooned in LGBT+ colours, his answer was emphatic.


“No, never – not in a million years,” he said. “Before I came out, I told my cousin Istvan I’d rather be dead than be openly gay.”


Dave said it was particularly difficult coming out to his family. “Istvan had already come out to the family many years ago when he was 17, and they constantly trashed him. I had to listen and swallow everything; I couldn’t defend him. Because I thought if I tried, they would suspect that I’m gay, too. And then you think to yourself, if they’re capable of talking like that


16 uniteLANDWORKER Summer 2024


about Istvan, what would they say about me? It was very hard.”


But a mere six months after moving to the UK, he came out “loud and proud” – and he hasn’t looked back. “I realised, this is it – this is where I choose to live because I can be free here. I can be whoever I want to be; I don’t need to fear.”


Because of his personal story, Dave is especially eager to celebrate Pride at 2Sisters, where there are many migrant workers with similar backgrounds to his.


He’s inspired the confidence of several factory workers on-site who are still in the closet about their sexuality.


“They may have family or relatives who live here and they’re afraid. They come from countries where people think you will literally rot in hell if you’re gay. This is so embedded in their thinking that they themselves start to believe it.”


Dave reports that sadly, he’s known of many LGBT+ workers who’ve forced themselves into heterosexual marriages and had children, only to separate later when they couldn’t take it anymore.


“I speak with people every day; I encourage them and remind them that they are loved and accepted,” Dave reports. “I’ve also referred many people to LGBT+ charities for further


n By Hajera Blagg


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