Labour must tackle persistent barriers to Black and Asian people getting on in life and work

A lot has been said about Black and Asian voters in this election. My experience from doorsteps across the country, and from my own Hindu community in west London, is that the old ties that traditionally bound some communities to the Labour party are less reliable than in previous elections.

It’s no longer enough to say ‘we’re Labour and you always vote for us’. We need to show Black and Asian communities that we are listening and that we have delivered concrete improvements to their lives.

And the new government has put its money where its mouth is. It’s hard to overstate what an important moment it was for communities like mine to hear the King proclaim that his government would bring forward a Bill to enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for Black and Asian people.

Punjabis are hard workers. My dad came here as a teacher, but his qualifications weren’t accepted in this country. Undeterred, he spent over 40 years working as a postie. My mum worked in a factory but between them they saved enough to move from our council flat and to buy their own home.

That’s the story of so many Asian families in Leicester, in London, in Birmingham, in Wolverhampton and across the country. Our parents and grandparents overcame countless barriers to make a better life for their children in this country.

But 70 years after my dad came to this country there are still barriers to Black and Asian people getting on in life, and this is especially so at work.

Office of National Statistics data shows that UK-born white employees earn more on average than most ethnic minority employees. Non-UK-born black employees registered the highest pay gap in 2022, earning 12% less than UK-born white workers. With the previous Conservative government unwilling to do anything they saw as a ‘burden on business’, on current trends it would take over 40 years for the gap to be bridged.

Structural racism is of course a key driver of the ethnicity pay gap. Simply put, employers still pay some Black, Asian and minority ethnic workers less than white workers due to inbuilt prejudice and discrimination.

But there are also other issues at play.

Black, Asian and minority ethnic workers often find it harder to access training and promotion opportunities, finding their career and pay progress unfairly blocked. And employers still don’t value part time workers, who are disproportionately ethnic minority women. Part time workers are overlooked when it comes to career development and the chance to move to a better paid job, getting stuck on the bottom rung of the pay scales.

Black and migrant women are also over represented in low paid sectors such as social care and catering. Occupational segregation means they find it hard to get more secure jobs in other sectors. Black African and Caribbean workers in particular often find themselves more likely to face unnecessary formal disciplinary proceedings, which can end in job loss. They then end up moving to a lower paid job elsewhere, fuelling the pay gap.

With so many drivers of the ethnicity pay gap, there is a lot for the new government to do. But introducing ethnicity pay gap monitoring is a great start from Angela Rayner.

Echoing the gender pay gap regulations, all employers with 250 or more staff will need to publish their ethnicity pay gap. This is something my union UNISON has been campaigning for over a number of years, but it’s important we get it right.

The gender pay gap rules are based on the idea of name and shame. If employers have to publish the information then the hope is that they will take action to improve it. However this hasn’t always happened. So it’s crucial that the new government strengthens both the gender pay gap regulations and the new rules for ethnicity and disability pay gap monitoring to require employers to produce a robust action plan to address their pay gaps. Name and shame only goes so far when some employers are shameless about inequality.

And there is still more to do. Flexible working needs to be a day one right so that we no longer have Black and migrant women workers stuck in low paid part time jobs with no route to progression. Social care workers also need to be valued and paid a fair wage. Labour’s new deal for working people and its plan for a national care service should address both of these issues.

Black, Asian and ethnic minority voters will stick with Labour if we deliver real equality. Our new government is already showing it is serious about taking tangible steps to help families like mine to succeed and to prosper.

The post Labour must tackle persistent barriers to Black and Asian people getting on in life and work appeared first on Progressive Britain.