Paddy Lillis - Usdaw General Secretary says: “The ethnicity pay gap is a major factor contributing to the in work poverty Black Workers experience. Usdaw’s cost of living survey found that over a third of Black members are missing rent and mortgage payments compared to a fifth of white workers. Black workers are more likely to have relied on insecure borrowing to pay everyday bills and almost twice as likely to have opted out of our workplace pension scheme.
“The causes of the ethnicity pay gap are well documented and the role structural discrimination in the labour market plays is not disputed. Black workers continue to be concentrated in lower paying jobs in low paying sectors of the economy, less secure employment with less access to training and promotion. So we are backing the call for employers to be legally required to report on the ethnicity pay gap in their businesses as a key step towards tackling this inequality.
“We very much welcome the work of the TUC Anti-Racism Taskforce. Usdaw has a strong track record of campaigning against racism in the workplace. Our ‘No Room for Racism’ campaign has supported hundreds of reps to raise the issue in their workplaces.
“This week delegates at the Usdaw Annual Delegate Meeting unanimously supported a strategy to help our reps and members to be loud advocates in the fight against racism. Wherever it rears its ugly head, unions must be at the heart of the struggle for racial justice. Usdaw certainly will be.”
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest trade union with around 360,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades.
For further information please contact Usdaw’s Media Officer, David Williams on: 0161 249 2469, 07798 696 603 or by e-mail to
[email protected]
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter
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