- Conference
- 2020 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 18 September 2019
- Decision
- Carried
In 2016 the then prime minister launched an audit to examine racial disparities in public services and across Government � with the intention of influencing policy to solve the problems found. The vast volume of work conducted by the race disparity unit, shone a light on the disparity of experiences between white Britons and those from ethnic minority background.
The audit consolidates data on education, employment, health and criminal justice outcomes for different ethnic groups.
According to the Equality and Human Right commission the statistics (updated 20/12/18) show the following:
1)Unemployment rates were significantly higher for ethnic minorities at 12.9 per cent compared with 6.3 per cent for White people
2)Black workers with degrees earn 23.1 per cent less on average than White workers
3)In Britain, significantly lower percentages of ethnic minorities (8.8 per cent) worked as managers, directors and senior officials, compared with White people (10.7 per cent) and this was particularly true for African or Caribbean or Black people (5.7 per cent) and those of mixed ethnicity (7.2 per cent)
4)Black people who leave school with A-levels typically get paid 14.3 per cent less than their White peers
The NHS recently has come under fire for the lack of progress in board and female representation. Almost half of the 240 NHS trusts do not have even a single BME board member, according to separate NHS data collected to monitor progress against the service�s workforce race equality standard. The data shows also that the NHS is failing to honour the laws designed to improve female and BME representation.
The information shown crushes the argument that racial equality in the workplace can be increased through social mobility interventions. Organisational prejudices are still stopping minority progression in organisations. It is almost impossible to deny that trust isn�t broken, and that institutional prejudice does exist in the Public Sector.
Conference instructs the National Black Members’ Committee to:
a)Ensure branches have clear bargaining guidance that enables their negotiations with employers to achieve measurable progress on race equality in workplace including increasing the number of Black worker being promoted to more senior positions.
b)Request the National Executive Committee establish improved mechanisms to record and share the outcomes of branch negotiations with employers that have resulted in measurable improvements in race equality in the workplace.
c)Seek to work with UNISON Labour Link to ensure that race equality is central to the agenda of the next Labour Government.