Over 50 researchers, trade unionists and anti-racist activists attended the first Working Against Racism conference at Brussels’ International Trade Union House on Thursday January 29 2004.
British TGWU trade unionists Pat D’Cruz and Collette Cork-Hurst at the conference
Violeta Angelova of the Bulgarian Research Institute, IMIR, chaired the Conference. Catelene Passchier, Equalities Officer of the ETUC, the first speaker, made a critical assessment of trade union activity to date, arguing that much still needed to be done. She wished the conference and the research project every success for the future.
Catelene Passchier and John Wrench
John Wrench of the European Union Monitoring Centre in Vienna reported on research he has carried out showing that trade union policies do make a difference in terms of the degree of welcome that the trade unions show to the involvement of new members from the ethnic minorities. Michel Vanderkam of the Belgian Centre for Equality of Opportunities provided a broad account of the work of his NGO in identifying the sources of racism in society.
Philippe Poutignat presenting some of the French research
After a coffee break Adriana Bernadotti of the Italian IRES research centre and Philippe Poutignat of the French URMIS research group introduced the WaR research project.
Finally, Steve Jefferys introduced the War web site while Nouria Ouali concluded the day repeating an appeal for all participants to contribute to the web page with references, documents, reports of their activities and links.
