- Conference
- 2022 Police & Justice Service Group Conference
- Date
- 6 June 2022
- Decision
- Carried
Conference, funding cuts and the government’s long-delayed plans to address social inequalities is one of the major causes of in-work poverty experienced by Black Workers and the cause of severe inter-generational inequality in Black communities.
Recent funding increases have not undone £15bn of cuts in central government grants to public services between 2010 and 2020, coupled with the disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Black community.
Conference also notes that the situation has been exacerbated by the impact of over a decade of austerity, resulting in cuts to equality departments and very low level of recruitment in police support sector.
In 2017, the Government committed in its manifesto to “ask” large employers to publish information on their ethnicity pay gaps. In 2020, only 11% of companies had published this information.
The National Black Members Committee believe the introduction of this important measure is needed to identify the disparities within the police, probation and CAFCASS (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) workforces and for employers to be accountable.
In February 2022, the Women and Equality Committee published a new report clearly stating that the EPG report should be mandatory. Gender pay gap reporting is growing in prominence, however the drive for ethnicity pay gap reporting has not progressed as far
UNISON Black workers are committed to addressing issues on racial equality and believe this campaign must be a priority for the police and justice service group.
This conference calls on the Police and Justice Service Group Executive to work with the National Black Members Committee to:
1)To develop an action plan for use in the workplace including a collective bargaining fact sheet for branches to use when tackling racial pay inequality in the workplace;
2)To encourage branches to make racial pay inequality part of their diversity strategy to engage with employers to publish the information on their ethnicity pay gap.