Rita Donaghy, Baroness Donaghy

Who is Rita Donaghy, Baroness Donaghy?

Rita Margaret Donaghy, Baroness Donaghy CBE, FRSA is a British university administrator, trade unionist and Labour life peer in the House of Lords.

A graduate of the University of Durham, Donaghy worked at the Institute of Education, University of London, as an Assistant Registrar and later as Permanent Secretary to the Students' Union. She became active in the trade union NALGO, becoming a member of its National Executive by 1973 and serving as President for 1989/90. She was a member of the TUC general council from 1989—representing NALGO which merged to become UNISON in 1993—and was TUC President in 2000.

In October 2000 she left her trade union positions on being appointed as Chair of the industrial conciliation service ACAS, a post she held until 2007. She served on the Committee on Standards in Public Life from 2001 until 2007, briefly as Chair after Sir Alistair Graham's three-year term ended.

She was a member of the Low Pay Commission and the Employment Tribunal Taskforce and chaired the TUC Disabilities Forum. In 2009 Donaghy was invited to chair an enquiry into work-related deaths in the construction industry, whose report published in 2010 contained many recommendations for improving safety in the industry.