Working against Racism in the Trade Unions is a research partnership made up of teams working closely with the trade unions in Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Italy and the UK. It has been funded by the European Union’s Fifth Framework Programme, under the Key Action 'Improving the Socio-economic Knowledge Base' to conduct research into the role of the trade unions both in challenging racism and xenophobia in the workplace, and in tolerating these attitudes.
The Belgian partners are based in the Work Sociology Centre of the Free University of Brussels (ULB). The team members are Nouria Ouali and Mateo Alaluf. Andrea Rea is a collaborator of the team.
ULB page »
The Bulgarian partners are the International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations (IMIR) in Sofia. The team members who work at or with IMIR on the project are Antonina Zhelyazkova, Violeta Vili and Mihailov Dotcho. Grigor Gradev, currently at the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels, is also active on the project.
The French partners come from URMIS, a nationally-supported research unit that researches migration and society. There are two universities directly associated with URMIS - Nice University, where Joyce Streiff and Phillippe Poutignat are involved, and University Paris 7, where Véronique de Rudder is involved – and Christian Poiret from Rennes University is also part of the research team.
The Italian partners come from the Laboratory of Training and Research on Immigration at the University of Venice – where Fabio Perocco and Pietro Basso are principally involved – and from the IRES research group associated with Italy’s biggest trade union confederation, the CGIL.
The British partners – who also coordinate the whole project and who have created this Web Site – come mainly from the Working Lives Research Institute of London Metropolitan University. The team members are Umut Erel, Mary Davis, Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick and Steve Jefferys. Rachel Annand from Keele University is another team member. The team is supported by a National Advisory Board made up of trade unionists, managers and academics.
Working Lives Research Institute page »
The principal objective of the WaR project is to evaluate participation mechanisms for collective action at all levels of governance in a key area of civil society. Trade unions are voluntary voice organisations representing a significant proportion of EU citizens in dialogue with their employers, governments and civil society. This research will examine the processes by which unions succeed or fail in the inclusion of the voice and interests of racial and ethnic minorities and immigrants, and ascertain the effectiveness of their impact on discrimination in labour market policies and practices. Through matching case studies of race relations and trade union behaviours in selected workplaces and within their surrounding communities in four Member States and in one Candidate State, our research will evaluate the trade union participation mechanism as a means of challenging racism and xenophobia. It will help increase the understanding of the causes and effects of racism in Europe and will report and encourage best practice in combating racism by governments, the social partners and civil society.
We
will conduct a focused study of the issues involved in discrimination and
of the trade union policies and practical responses in comparable sectors
in five countries: Belgium, France, Italy, the UK and Bulgaria. This will
enable us to examine the factors leading to different outcomes and to identify
good practices that can be disseminated and used by the trade unions and policy-makers.
Throughout, our aim is to keep the research focused and manageable but also
sufficiently broad in order to allow the most fruitful generalisation of its
results. We are using the same criteria in each country in deciding upon the
case study areas and are everywhere adopting the same methodologies, with
common interview schedules and qualitative computer data analysis software;
the initial interviews in each sector in each country will be conducted by
joint research teams in order to ensure full comparability of the interview
process.
The project researchers will pay special attention to the historical and cultural dimensions behind the current situation of each union and country through the examination of the trajectories of each country’s racial and ethnic minority communities, of attitudes to race among workers and the general population, and of current policy and actions by public authorities and the unions themselves around these issues. Further, we will bring a gender perspective into our research, as in each country at least one of the case study areas selected is highly feminised. The project is multi-disciplinary, bringing together researchers from industrial relations, labour sociology, the humanities and history.
The RITU project research will provide a major addition to the existing literature on trade unions and race, and will contribute to the construction of a model of trade union responses that will identify the conditions under which they are capable of countering the social exclusion resulting from racism and xenophobia. Our research builds on the valuable work already carried out, most recently in the framework of the 1997 European Year against Racism and as part of previous projects.
This research will enable European and national-level policy makers to draw up new initiatives to address the persistence of racial discrimination and to enable unions and other voluntary organisations to promote social equality and inclusion. The detailed case studies will provide fresh insight into the situation of individual members of ethnic minority groups and their own experience of discrimination at the workplace and within society, thus providing essential information for the development of policies at the local, national, and European levels to combat racism and encourage the integration of ethnic minorities in society.
The project will also provide direct evidence and argument through its Web Site and through a series of booklets published in each of the partner states in cooperation with the trade unions.
The research will be undertaken by the academic partners in each country, in cooperation with trade union organisations at local, sectoral and national levels, and with the ETUC. National unions will also be involved in the research into each sector, as will EU agencies and social actors as appropriate. It will be carried out in three phases, as outlined below:
Phase One will focus on comparing the historical, socio-economic
and legal contexts of workplace discrimination and anti-racism in five countries,
the UK, France, Belgium, Italy and Bulgaria. The first three countries were
chosen because they all have a similar colonial history and considerable levels
of immigration from the 1950s onwards; Italy has been chosen because while
it has the same general social and industrial characteristics, its experience
of migration is very different. As a Candidate country Bulgaria has been chosen
because it provides a complete contrast with the four EU Member States in
terms of its economic and political situation, but is facing somewhat similar
problems in respect to discrimination against important ethnic minorities.
In the first three countries the researchers will each examine workplaces
within health care, retailing, and urban transport. The choice of these three
sectors has been made on four criteria: they all employ significant numbers
of migrant and ethnic minority workers; they are expanding, and should therefore
theoretically be more open to minority career development; they involve considerable
contact with customers and the public; and there are trade unions present
whose practices and policies can be evaluated. In Italy because only healthcare
is a significant employer of minority workers, and in Bulgaria because none
of them are, the researchers will add other sectors with large minority workforces
and which also have unions present.
In Phase Two, we will carry out three case studies, comparing
the experiences of the actual and potential victims of discrimination and
xenophobia with the words and actions of different levels of trade union structures
within and outside each of the workplaces/occupations chosen. In each one,
we will explore the same issues in relations to each of four interrelated
elements: Trade union policy approaches to race discrimination; workplace
trade union practices; actual experiences of discrimination and xenophobia;
and participation or non-participation of minorities in unions. Each of the
country case studies will involve probing multiple areas of union structure,
policy and practices as well as the experience of racial and ethnic minority
workers. Through analysis of the fifteen in-depth individual case studies
involving action at the [national level ?]
In Phase Three, we will carry out a comparative analysis of all the research data, including comparisons within and across countries and sectors. The final report will focus on the cross-national conclusions to be drawn from the research and lessons for policy-makers. We will present our comparative findings at an international conference, and will seek continued funding for the Web Site so that it can be maintained after the end of the project.
The researchers will use two innovative research methods that build upon earlier European comparisons that some have undertaken:
First, in the fieldwork phase we will ensure that the different research teams are not left isolated to undertake their own interviews entirely on their own. The Research Coordinator will participate in at least two of the first interviews in each new case study area in each country. At the outset of the fieldwork phase, at least two researchers from every country will participate in the early interviews being conducted in at least one country other than their own. This will help overcome the risk in cross-country qualitative research that each team asks its own questions within its own framework and ends up with answers that are not really comparable.
Second, we propose to overcome the potential problem of winding up with ‘nationally’ influenced analyses of the interview data by each partner using the same qualitative analysis software, NVIVO from QSR. A common analytical framework will be established by the Project Management Team on the basis of the first set of interviews, and will be regularly reviewed and updated as the fieldwork progresses.
The search for answers to these questions - are unions truly representative and responsive to the concerns of black and ethnic minority members, and are their official policies carried through to the grass roots? - is one of the main objectives of this research. The UK research team, which includes several former trade union officials, has long-established links with several of the largest British national unions. The researchers have already discussed the proposed research project with leading officials of these unions and with the TUC's Equality and International Departments; all are supportive of the project and are committed to assisting the researchers.
The UK research will be carried out in three industrial sectors: health care, public transport and retail distribution, all of which employ significant numbers of black and ethnic minority workers. The National Health Service alone is one of the largest employers in Europe, and employs large numbers of black and ethnic minority professional and support staff, from doctors to health care assistants and cleaners. The NHS recently launched a new initiative on racial discrimination, a move welcomed by the unions. UNISON, which was founded through a merger between three public sector unions, NALGO, COHSE and NUPE, in 1993, adopted an innovative form of self-organisation of black, women, gay and lesbian and disabled workers as part of its basic structure (McBride 2000: 100). The union’s key national officers have expressed strong support for this research.
Public transport also employs large numbers of ethnic minority workers, in particular Afro-Caribbeans (Wrench 1996: 28), many of whom work on buses and the London Underground. These workers are heavily unionised, mainly in the TGWU, which has also expressed support for the proposed research. The TGWU is at the forefront of British unions in opposition to racism at the workplace and within society, and has a long-established system of black workers' committees, training and education programmes and organisation of black and ethnic minority groups.
Unlike most other countries in the study, the retail distribution sector in the UK employs large numbers of ethnic minority workers, particularly in London and other urban centres. The shop-workers' union USDAW represents many of these workers, particularly at the larger retail chains. USDAW has a national Race Relations Committee and carries out training courses challenging racism at the workplace. The union has also concerned itself with the problem of religious discrimination, which often interacts with racial discrimination.
Each partner country is in the process of establishing a national Advisory Group, consisting of five or more experts in racism and migration in the employment field, drawn from relevant employer, trade union, community and political organisations. They will be invited to all formal meetings of each national Project Research Team. The role of the Advisory Group is fourfold:
(a) to ensure that the content and direction of the project stays true to
the project objectives;
(b) to remain in close touch with the current debate about exclusion and trade
union policies;
(c) to assist in providing quality access to the specified sectors; and
(d) to contribute to the dissemination strategies.
Each partner’s national Advisory Group members will also be invited to sit in on the international Project Research Team and Project Management Team meetings when they are held in their country. In addition each national Advisory Group will nominate one of its member to an International Advisory Group meetings with the international Project Management Team in January 2004, coinciding with the project’s first International Conference. Their travel and subsistence will be met by from each country’s national budget.
Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University
L’Unité de Recherche
Migrations et Sociétés, CNRS
Centre de Sociologie du
Travail, de l’Emploi et de
la Formation, ULB,
Brussels
Laboratory of Training and Research on Immigration, Venice University
Instituto di Ricerche Economiche e Sociali (IRES)
International Center for
Minority Studies and
Intercultural Relations (IMIR), Sofia
