What is UNISON doing about racism in the workplace?
In May, the union relaunched work directed at ‘challenging racism in the workplace’. An initial pilot involved conducting three briefing seminars in three pilot regions the North West, London and the West Midlands to a total of 15 selected branches in local government, health, police staff and education. These briefing seminars sought to empower branch negotiators and raise their confidence to engage employers on delivering actual change, using the Race Relations (Amendment) Act of 2000. This act followed the Macpherson report into institutional racism that was set up in the wake of police failures in dealing with the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. The Act placed a duty on 43,000 public bodies to actively promote race equality and positive race relations by adopting and implementing “race equality schemes”. Public-sector employers are required to monitor the impact of their policies and practices, undertake staff training, conduct public consultation and regularly publish informati
