- Conference
- 2024 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 1 January 2024
- Decision
- Carried
Conference following the success of UNISON’s Year of Black Workers 2023 (YOBW23), the National Black Members Committee (NBMC) wish to place on record our thanks to all of our activists made this campaign such a success across our union. Throughout the year we saw a renewed and focussed approach to challenging racism and the experiences of Black workers in the workplace and wider society.
The Year of the Black Worker was an opportunity to both celebrate the contribution and achievements of Black Workers across the public sector as well as to also highlight and campaign on the continued deplorable racism and discrimination faced by Black Workers every day. The theme also challenged us to take this beyond 2023 and to establish legacy to generate change.
Conference notes a survey by UNISON in London of 1,000 Black workers in 2023. This revealed that only 30 percent felt their employer took race equality seriously. Additionally, half of those surveyed (51 percent) also said they had witnessed or been a victim of racial discrimination at work, and 53 percent said they believed race had prevented them from progressing in their career. Yet with the Year of the Black Worker now over, Conference recognises that there is still work that must be done, and we must build on the success and the momentum of the Year of the Black Worker in order to not lose focus on tackling these core issues.
UNISON’s long history to create and ensure the structures of representation in UNISON, was recognised, and reinforced as we highlighted the important contribution our Black members make in the union, to improve pay and conditions through our ethnicity pay gap campaign and our anti-racism charter which continue to call for improved equality rights for Black workers.
Black Workers continue to face discrimination and racism in the workplace across the public sector, there is still no mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting and many employers continue to refuse to engage on this important issue. A recent TUC report on Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed that Black employees earn £13.53 median gross hourly pay, significantly less than White employees who earn £14.35.
Conference acknowledges that tackling systemic and institutional discrimination against Black workers cannot halt after 2023 and we need to use the building blocks that we have put in place in 2023 to tackle these core issues and must ensure that the issues that Black Workers face form the heart of our bargaining agenda and pay campaigning, only through decent pay awards, local and national, and continuing our fight for insourcing and against outsourcing can we continue to make a real difference.
Conference welcomes the UNISON Anti Racism Charter as a way of embedding the legacy of the Year of the Black Worker, the charter sets out clear and tangible policy changes and equality auditing measures that will make an immediate impact for Black workers whilst also making a clear statement that it is not good enough for employers to only be ‘not racist’, they must be actively anti-racist. It commits organisations and their leaders to having a clear and visible race equality policy, as well as a programme of anti-racism initiatives such as training for all staff.
It has become apparent that on the run up to a general election, the Tories will escalate their attempts to divide us so that they can cling on to office. They continue to use racism and the scapegoating of refugees to do this, particularly with the racist Rwanda deportation scheme. Part of our legacy is to increase our campaigning against this, and to build unity amongst our members against such racist policies.
As 2023 ended, Black members recognised that it was vital that the level of activity from 2023 and renewed energy to address racism is not diluted as we move into the next phase of initiatives and campaigns in UNISON in 2024.
Conference also recognises that we must continue the legacy of the Year of the Black Worker by seeking to strengthen fair representation within the union as well, with more Black Members officers in branches and thriving Black Members Regional Self Organised Groups, as well as more Black activists at every level in the union as we grow the next generation of leaders.
Conference therefore calls on the National Executive Council to:
1) Support national and regional Black members self organised groups to fully evaluate the success of the 2023 Year of Black Workers with an indicator of where activity has taken place and the range of stakeholders involved;
2) Continue to work with national and regional Black members groups to establish a programme of continued activity to build on the achievement of the YOBW23;
3) Follow up on motions passed at previous national, service group and self organised groups conferences to deliver the bargaining agendas for Black workers. This includes work with service groups to continue to ensure tackling the Ethnicity Pay Gap is at the heart of their bargaining, organising and campaigning agendas to deliver for Black members;
4) Publicise ongoing work, campaigns, and achievements of National, Regional Black Members groups via UNISON social media forums and UNISON website, which will be disseminated across all regions and as many branches as possible in the union. And publicise UNISON’s equalities training to all branches and provide monitoring information of attendees based on regions and service groups;
5) Report back to the National Delegates Conference in 2025 through the annual report on the continue activities, initiatives, and bargaining campaigns.