Unite: May ‘must re-double efforts’

If you happen to be a black or Asian ethnic minority (BAEM) person in the UK today, you’ll inhabit a vastly different world than the rest of the population – you’re much more likely to be jobless, to be poor, to be incarcerated or indeed even to die young.

This stark racial and ethnic divide in the UK was thrown into sharp relief by a new Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report published today (August 18) which found that the country is divided now more than ever before.

In the job market, BAEMs are more than twice as likely to be unemployed at a rate of nearly 13 per cent, compared to white people whose jobless rate is 6.3 per cent. Black workers with degrees earned an astonishing 23 per cent less than their white counterparts.

Young BAEMs who’ve come of age in the era of austerity have fared by far the worst in the labour market – between 2010 and 2015 they saw a 49 per cent rise in unemployment compared with a fall of only 1 per cent in overall long-term youth unemployment and a 2 per cent fall among young white people.

Apprenticeships

There is a cavernous gap between white people taking up apprenticeships and BAEMs – 89 per cent of apprenticeship starters were white, compared to only 2 to 5 per cent of black and ethnic minorities.

Living standards too are vastly different between white people and BAEMs. More than 30 per cent of Pakistani/Bangladeshi people live in overcrowded accommodation, while for black people the figure is 26.8 per cent and for white people it is only 8.3 per cent.

The report showed that there is seemingly one justice system for BAEMs and another for the rest – black people are prosecuted and sentenced at three times the rate of white people.

Among migrants, a shocking gap exists in health outcomes. For example, black African women migrants had a mortality rate four times that of white women migrants.

As the EHRC unearthed these figures in their latest report, the organisation highlighted that many of these racial and ethnic disparities have widened in lockstep with the government’s austerity agenda.

The EHRC challenged the new prime minister Theresa May to back up what she said in a recent speech and take racial and ethnic inequalities seriously by setting to work immediately on a race equality strategy.

“The combination of the post-Brexit rise in hate crime and deep race inequality in Britain is very worrying and must be tackled urgently,” said EHRC chair David Isaac.

Unfairness

“Today’s report underlines just how entrenched race inequality and unfairness still is in our society,” he added.

“We must redouble our efforts to tackle race inequality urgently or risk the divisions in our society growing and racial tensions increasing.”

Unite national officer for equalities Harish Patel agreed and highlighted the central role austerity has played in furthering the racial and ethnic divide that’s tearing apart the UK.

“Sadly this report is of no surprise to us,” he said. “We have seen how austerity has supercharged inequalities in this country, attacking the public services that ought to be allowed to get on with the job of raising life chances, like education and youth services, but are, in parts of the country where they are needed most, barely functioning.

“We see it too how the drop in wages since 2008 and still far from recovering has made everyday life a struggle for low income and minority communities. This report has also highlighted the racial discrimination which is taking place in the job market in which lives are being ruined and talent held back on grounds of race.

“Cuts hold people back,” Patel added. “If the prime minister has any intention of making good on her promise to make the UK a fairer place she has to start by abandoning mindless austerity now and giving back the support our communities need which has been stolen from them.

“The prime minister must redouble her efforts to build a fair society as a number one priority and act now by engaging with stakeholders and trade unions to make a fair society a reality.”

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