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. This page gives brief outlines of each sector. You can also download the UK team’s first draft report (PDF).
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’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.
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.
For more details on our research methodolgy, please see the about WaR section, in particular research design and research methods.
