UNITY IN DIVERSITY

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: march 2018 :: RMTnews 22 A celebration of black and ethnic minority union members A celebration of black and ethnic minority union members Unity in Diversity is a celebration of the founding of the Black and Ethnic Minority Members Advisory Committee and Conference and a recognition of the struggles of black pioneers of trade unionism within the transport industry. It also identifies the superb work of past and current generations of activists in promoting equality within the union and the wider community. A 2017 TUC report conducted with a panel of 1,003 black and minority ethnic workers revealed that over a third of them had experienced racial discrimination, abuse or bullying by their employer. 37 per cent of BAME women workers had suffered verbal abuse due to both their race and gender. 4 per cent of all respondents reported having experienced physical violence on account of their race in the workplace. As organisations established to represent the collective interests of workers in the workplace, trade unions main aim is to defend and improve the terms and conditions under which their members sell their labour. Contractual terms and working conditions have traditionally taken priority over wider social justice issues including anti-discrimination on grounds of race, religion, gender or sexuality. In practice, trade unions have had a broader social agenda and have, at times, also played significant roles in social justice issues. Occasionally, they have led political movements, for example, in South Africa over apartheid, but generally, issues of equality, cultural recognition and wider social issues have been secondary to the main focus, which is on pay and working conditions. Historically, British trade unions have often denied, ignored or blurred the distinctions and contradictions between race and class. Whether conscious or unconscious, such oversights can leave class unity compromised and the working classes divided by racism. This publication offers a brief overview of the role played by race in unionised labour in Great Britain with a particular focus on the part played by rail, maritime and transport unions in that story. It will also celebrate the work of the RMT's Black and Ethnic Minority Members Advisory Committee and Conference since its establishment 25 year ago in supporting black and ethnic minority workers within the transport industry and with wider social issues. Written by one of the leading experts of black history in this country SI Martin, it deals with the earliest connections between British organised labour and workers of colour were forged in the 18th century during the movement for the abolition of the slave trade. Black writers and organisers resident in Britain were among the first to link the struggles between white waged and enslaved black labour. In the 1840s, the working- class sections of the Chartist movement were maligned by the government and the press which focussed on the involvement of African and Irish people in its ranks and leadership as proof that it could never represent the aspirations of British workers. Black seamen’s labour was central to the balance of maritime trade and power in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries black seamen and their families settled in Britain’s port cities. Many of them would have been among the first significant body of non-white unionised labour. Occasionally, as in the case of the 1911 Seamen's Strike, black and white workers in Cardiff took joint industrial action to seek better pay and conditions. More often though, the presence of minority workers would be a source of friction made worse by the National Union of Seamen's determination to keep black seamen off British ships after World War I. In 1919 large scale racial violence against black sailors and their families erupted in Glasgow, Hull, Cardiff, Newport Liverpool, Salford, London and South Shields. White crewmen, regardless of their nationality, were often employed in preference to black men who were British citizens. Unsupported by the unions, black workers formed their own organisations. The Indian Seamen’s Union was formed in response to the Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order of 1925, under which ‘coloured’ seamen were obliged to carry proof of British citizenship or face deportation. Headed by NUS Union produces new pamphlet to mark 25 years of the Black and Ethnic Minority Members Advisory Committee