Originally published here.

Racism remains a global epidemic which plagues every nation and institution to an extent and the United Kingdom is no exception (Bukodi, Goldthorpe, Waller, & Kuha, 2015; Cottle, 2005; Flemmen & Savage, 2017; Fox, 2013; Macpherson, 1999). Yet, racism has a particular and unique nature in each context. In this chapter, we explicate race discrimination in the context of work, organization and employment in the United Kingdom.

Racism is defined as ‘the ideology that makes use of essentialized phenotypical, biological and sometimes cultural difference to express and reinforce these inequalities’ (Miles, 1982, p. 157). Racism leads to racial inequalities and unequal outcomes not only in institutions but also in every aspect of life (i.e. income, education, employment, health, social care, justice) (Ford et al., 2018; McGregor-Smith, 2017; Modood & Khattab, 2016; Wellman, 1993).

Race discrimination at work happens when an ethnic group is disproportionately negatively affected due to a workplace policy, practice or treatment. In order to understand race discrimination at work, we need to understand the intricate interplay between historical context that gives meaning to ethnic differences in the United Kingdom, the social and political framing of racial and ethnic groups as well as the legal frameworks which help regulate the field of ethnic relations in the United Kingdom.

Minority ethnic and minority racial individuals are commonly and politically referred to as Black and Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) individuals in the United Kingdom. Thus, we adopt this term for this chapter. In this chapter, we first explore the historical context of immigration which shapes the meaning and practices of race discrimination at work and in life in the United Kingdom. We then describe the contemporary debates and the key actors in the field of race discrimination at work.

The legal context is presented in the subsequent section with key turning points which have led to the enactment of laws and the emergence of the particular way race equality and ethnic diversity are managed in the United Kingdom. We present a country case study which illustrates the complexities of race discrimination in a specific sector of work. The chapter summary is presented at the end and it provides also a discussion of possible ways to combat race discrimination at work in the United Kingdom.

Race discrimination at work in the United Kingdom remains intact despite centuries of struggles against racism, slavery and xenophobia at the societal level and decades of activism, legislation and interventions for race equality in the workplace. There are many reasons why the race equality efforts remained partial in the United Kingdom workplaces (Salway, 2007). The dominant equality push has been gender equality in the United Kingdom.

Most organizations consider race equality as an afterthought in their equality interventions. Even when race equality is practiced at the organizational level, race discrimination does not start or end in the workplace. Race equality should be tackled at macronational, meso-institutional and micro-individual levels. The responsibility for race equality should be shared across all societal partners, that is, the government, the employers, the trade unions, workplaces, work teams and individuals.

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