Originally published here.

The coronavirus pandemic, and our government’s response to it, represent a serious threat to equality at work. Pre-existing inequalities have been highlighted and deepened. The social and economic impacts of pandemics fall harder on women than men.[1] Since the Covid-19 crisis began, women have borne the brunt of meeting rising care needs, providing unpaid care for children, friends and family.[2] They are at increased risk of domestic abuse, face restrictions accessing sexual health and family planning services and are more likely to be affected by job losses at a time of economic instability.[3] This is particularly the case for BME women who face intersecting systems of oppression across their multiple identities that compound one another. These intersections include disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation, class, nationality, migration status, and faith.

BME women experience systemic, structural inequalities across the labour market that mean they are overrepresented in lower paid, insecure jobs and at higher risk of being underemployed:[4]

• Insecurity: One in eight BME women are in insecure jobs compared to one in eighteen white men
• Low pay: Three out of five BME women in self-employment are low paid compared to two out of five white men
• Underemployment: One in eight BME women are under-employed compared to one in thirteen white men

These inequalities are compounded by the distorting lenses of stereotyping and prejudices about race, gender and class that BME women are often seen through. That leads to discrimination and unfair treatment in the workplace that holds BME women back and has a profound impact on their mental and physical health. As we have seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, the cumulative impact of that discrimination and disadvantage can cost BME women their lives.[5]

• Unfair treatment: Close to half (45 per cent) of BME women say they have been singled out for harder or unpopular tasks at work compared to their white counterparts
• Discrimination: Almost one third (31 per cent) of BME women report being unfairly passed over for or denied a promotion at work, this rose to nearly half of disabled BME women (45 per cent)
• Racism: More than one in three (34 per cent) BME women have experienced racist jokes and so-called banter at work and 30 per cent have experienced verbal abuse

This briefing brings together evidence and data from a range of sources including:

1. An ICM survey commissioned by the TUC in February 2020 involving 1250 BME workers, three-fifths of respondents were BME women
2. Responses to TUC’s call for evidence issued in June 2020 with 1,670 responses
3. A poll conducted by Britain Thinks on behalf of TUC involving over 2,000 workers, with sufficient representation of BME workers to make the results nationally representative.
4. TUC analysis of labour market trends by ethnicity and gender using the Labour Force Survey and Family Resources Survey

Action is urgently needed to combat the racism and discrimination BME women face in the workplace and to prevent a roll back on BME women’s hard-won rights and progress in the workplace.

In order to identify effective solutions to the issues highlighted in this report, it is crucial we centre the voices of those workers who experience structural and individual racism and sexism at work on a daily basis. BME women trade unionists have been at the forefront of the fight for equality and they must be again now. BME women at work need a range of measures and actions, urgently. Those solutions must be led by BME women with their needs and voices centred. The TUC will be working with BME women trade unionists to drive this forward.  

Institutionalised, structural racism and sexism is shaping the experience of BME women at work. BME women are at disproportionate risk of experiencing the triple impact of underemployment, low pay and job insecurity. This is putting their economic security and financial wellbeing at risk.

Across the labour market and in work BME women experience life changing disadvantage and racism. As the survey results show BME women with intersecting identities, particularly BME disabled women, face significant levels of discriminatory treatment in the workplace because of racial and sex-based stereotyping and prejudice. The cumulative impact has a profound impact on BME women’s economic security, their mental health and wellbeing.

The TUC and our affiliates have continually highlighted the barriers facing BME women in employment. Whilst welcoming the positive changes that have led to more access for BME women in the labour market and initiatives from trade unions to identify and tackle the problems that they face, much more needs to be done.

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the government’s response to it, have intensified the inequalities that BME women face at work, in our homes and in wider society. Wider systemic issues need to be resolved and this scale of change cannot be driven by individual employers alone. 

Numerous reports – some commissioned by the government itself - that have called on successive governments to act to tackle entrenched, structural racism and sexism. If these recommendations had been acted on, BME workers would perhaps not have suffered the disproportionate number of deaths during this crisis.

Action is needed urgently now and it must be led by those workers who experience structural and individual racism and sexism at work on a daily basis. The TUC will therefore engage with BME women trade unionists who have been at the forefront of the fight to transform toxic workplaces and end structural inequalities to design effective solutions that must be implemented with urgency.

You can read the complete article here.