END RACISM IN THE WORKPLACE

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: may/june 2025 :: RMTnews 22 RMT’s campaign to bring outsourced workers inhouse is also part of the struggle for racial justice in the workplace senior assistant general secretary John Leach told delegates at the black and ethnic minorities members’ advisory conference in Swansea. Thanking delegates at the well-attended conference for all the hard work that they put in as activists he urged them to put their full weight behind the new initiative. “Some 15 per cent of Network Rail workers are from black and ethnic minorities and the figure is 25 per cent for those directly employed by the train operating companies. Yet when it comes to outsourced workers that jumps to 58 per cent, highlighting shameful institutional racism,” he said, using figures compiled by RMT. “Cleaners, caterers and security guards are on low wages, often on minimum wage. “It is the right thing that the railway is being taken into public ownership, but the union won’t rest until all these people are brought in-house rather than left in the hands of private companies,” he added. RMT regional organiser Steve Skelly welcomed delegates to Swansea and talked about the industrial and trade union heritage of the area. Conference chair Walé Agunbiade gave the report on the work of the committee over the past year including participation in the Notting Hill Carnival, Black Pride and hosting an event for South Asian History Month, with particular thanks to Nathan Wallace, Central Line East, for his work. An event was organised for Black History month and the union’s annual reparations conference for which he thanked Mel Mullings, Bakerloo. She presented her work on the TUC Race Relations Committee and the research project Black women’s experience of sexual harassment, which was followed by a lively discussion. Local anti-racist campaigner Andy Marshall, Justice for the Cardiff 5 Campaign, told conference of the notorious case of injustice where local black men were fitted up by police for the murder of a woman in 1988. Mr Marshall explained that they still campaign today as there are a further 16 cases of injustice since then showing that the judicial system that facilitated the injustice remains fundamentally unchanged. Delegates backed a call for the union to support the campaign nationally. Shoab Malik, Liverpool No. 5, moved an unanimously backed motion condemning the resumption of fighting in Gaza. He also lambasted Donald Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza and called on the UK government and opposition END RACISM IN THE WORKPLACE Black and ethnic minority members calls out outsourcing as a source of racism