We all know that racism can be used to divide working people, undermine trade union organisation and lay the basis for advances by right wing parties. It can also have a terrible and undermining impact on individuals, whether through structural discrimination or being subject to open hostility.
TUC research published in December 2020 found that BME workers are more likely to report being verbally and even physically abused at work.
They are more likely to have been unfairly overlooked for a pay rise or promotion, or unfairly turned down for a job, and more likely to be kept on insecure contracts.
If the experience of BME people at work is bad, consider the barriers to getting a job in the first place. Black young men are twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts.
Blackburn and District Trades Union Council has a record of strongly opposing racism. It has been a point of contact around which a variety of community organisations have come together, in campaigns like Blackburn and Darwen United Against Racism, whenever there has been a particular local threat, it has supported campaigns like Stand up to Racism, and it has called out aspects of legislation, like Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act where the burden of inconvenience appeared to fall upon Muslim travellers and the demeanour of enforcement has been suggestive of a view that there is a link between devout Muslims and terrorism.
We are committed to campaigning against racism within all our workplaces and in the wider community