- Conference
- 2016 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 12 August 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Conference, Challenging Racism in the Workplace is at the heart of UNISON’s Race Discrimination work and at the forefront of what we do as trade union activist.
The elimination of discrimination with respect of employment and equal pay for work of equal value are basic workers’ rights and are therefore trade union issues.
The colour of a person’s skin still plays a major part in promotion, terms and conditions of employment and safe and healthy work environments for Black workers, these have been neglected in collective bargaining for many years.
Promoting race equality and discrimination through collective bargaining would show the unions are keeping up with the times and adapting and adjusting goals and strategies to social concerns and the changing needs of workers in the workplace.
Organising and having bargaining equality measures in the workplace could mean that resolutions for complaints could be dealt with much quicker on behalf of workers and demonstrate the commitment of unions to ensure that it is effectively tackling race discrimination.
With the watered down legislation of the Equality Impact Assessment and potential attack’s on the Human Rights Act, never has it been more important to ensure race equality is at the heart of Black action in UNISON.
This is the challenge ahead of us, despite the many years of work UNISON and other organisations have done to set the record straight about the impact of race discrimination on Black people and communities, as it is so easy to make this a political issue, but really it’s about human beings, human kindness and that beneath the hate filled newspapers headlines are real people.
Organising and recruitment in the workplace and negotiating for better treatment, respect and equality to Black worker and all workers across our nation is what Black self-organised trade unions have always put at the heart of challenging discrimination.
We therefore call on the National Black Members Committee to:
1)Ensure the National Executive Council (NEC) Black Members Representative raise the issue with the NEC of how we reignite and raise the profile of race discrimination in the workplace through the Challenging Racism in the Workplace initiative.
2)Seek that the NEC Black Members Representative discuss with the NEC support for the campaign to put race back on the agenda by requesting to hold a fringe meeting at the National Delegates Conference in 2016 titled ‘Challenging Racism in the Workplace a Trade Union issue’.
3)Make a request to the NEC to have a Black members stall and promotional material at the 2016 NDC
4)Seek to hold a networking social at the National Delegates Conference to promote a campaign called ‘Organising around Race Equality’ and promote this through UNISON media leading up to the National Delegates Conference in 2016
5)Seek to gather information and data from regions on campaigns to improve patterns of inequality and joint training initiatives in branches with employers and trade unions who have set up joint equality objectives and applying best practice.