NATIONAL BLACK AND ETHNIC MINORITY MEMBERS’ CONFERENCE

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2023 :: RMTnews 18 T his year’s RMT national black and ethnic minority members’ conference took place in Bristol recently with delegates passing resolutions addressing racial injustice. Committee chair Glenroy Watson opened the gathering by telling delegates that he would be stepping down from his position this year and that it was up to attendees to keep campaigning to defend the gains that had been made with regard to representation and to carry the work forward. Delegates were welcomed to the city by Bristol branch chair Amanda Testa, a city that appropriately has a rich and radical history of campaigning against racism and colonialism. RMT regional organiser Brendan Kelly recounted how black and Irish immigrants in the 1950s faced discrimination in housing with landlords notoriously placing signs in windows proclaiming: “No blacks, No Irish, No dogs”. He reminded delegates of the Bristol bus boycott of 1963 which received national attention and was carried out in response to the Bristol Omnibus Company’s refusal to employ black or Asian bus crews. After four months of campaigning the company backed down and the colour bar was overturned. Guest speaker Rhian Graham – one of the Colston Four – gave a personal account of a much more recent campaign, of how the statue of slaver Edward Colston was pulled down in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, and how she and her co- defendants ended up on trial in Crown Court in a much- publicised case and were acquitted. Mel Mullings, Bakerloo called on the union to step up its activities in support of migrant workers. “Electronic checks on status, workplace raids, pricing out migrant workers for primary care, etc, are not only racist but also excessive and wrong by disproportionality discriminating against black workers. “The union must organise to empower our migrant worker members and treat issues of exploitation and discrimination based on immigration status as class issues for our workplace organising,” she said. Conference unanimously agreed that the union should take the following steps in the campaign: • Establish a dedicated training course for reps on supporting members with issues around immigration status, to be run regionally and nationally. • The NEC to support Regional Councils in establishing databases of NATIONAL BLACK AND ETHNIC MINORITY MEMBERS’ CONFERENCE TOPPLED: Protesters throw statue of Edward Colston into Bristol harbour on June 7 2020. Four people who helped topple the statue were found not guilty of criminal damage by a jury in January 2022.