- Conference
- 2024 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 18 September 2023
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes the TUC Anti-Racism Taskforce’s 2022 report into racism at work, which found that 41% of all Black workers surveyed had experienced racist behaviour at work. Many Black workers had experienced bullying, harassment and worse – and concerningly, the vast majority did not report this to their employer.
In 2021, Business in the Community’s Race at work survey also found that almost a third of Black employees had witnessed or experienced bullying and harassment from their managers. Many more Black staff had witnessed or experienced bullying and harassment from customers, clients and service users.
A 2021 report by the Fawcett Society and the Runnymede Trust found that 75% of Black women had experienced racism in the workplace, with 27% having suffered racial slurs being used in front of or about them.
Conference also notes that these are intersectional issues, for example a 2021 report by global children’s charity Plan International UK found that young Black women and girls experienced explicitly racialised forms of public sexual harassment.
Conference believes that this intersection of sexism and racism is likely also to be prevalent within workplaces, and may well also apply to homophobia, transphobia and disability discrimination.
Conference welcomes the work already done by the National Black Members Committee on addressing racism and harassment in the workplace. Nonetheless, conference believes more must be done to highlight the issue of harassment in the workplace and the need for employers to ensure a robust, zero-tolerance response to all forms of harassment and abuse.
Conference asks the National Black Members Committee to:
1) Promote existing model policies and other relevant materials around harassment, abuse, violence and safeguarding at work;
2) Survey Black members on their experiences of harassment at work and about what UNISON should be doing to improve rates of reporting;
3) Review the existing bargaining and campaigning resources and consider developing further materials giving Black UNISON members the tools to assert their rights not to be harassed, and information about their legal rights around harassment at work;
4) Promote awareness and understanding across UNISON of issues around harassment, abuse and violence;
5) Work with the National Women’s Committee, National LGBT+ Committee and the National Disabled members committee to raise awareness of the intersectional nature of harassment and abuse;
6) Work with the National Young Members Forum to promote UNISON’s work tackling harassment and safety at work to young members in UNISON and young workers across public services.