🔥Watch & share opening plenary here: https://m.facebook.com/StandUTR/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0

🔥Watch & share the closing plenary here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4070024323031031&id=485067858271721

More than a thousand trade unionists and workplace activists took part in Saturday’s online conference organised by the TUC and Stand Up To Racism, ‘From Covid19 to #BlackLivesMatter – Fighting for Anti Racist Workplaces’.

The event was part of the build up to the international #WorldAgainstRacism #NoRacismNoFascism day of protest to mark UN antiracism day on Saturday 20 March. 

The conference included opening plenaries including speakers from Unison, PCS, the TUC, NEU, CWU, RMT and BFAWU, alongside activists from All Black Lives UK, ex footballer Shaka Hislop founder and general secretary of Show Racism The Red Card, and inspiring international speakers from the US, and Greece where the anti racist and anti fascist movement struck a serious blow with the defeat of fascist Golden Dawn.

The workshops really reflected the breadth and sharpness of the anti racist struggle. 

The conference came just as a TUC report highlighting the institutional racism that has led to BAME frontline workers and communities being hit disproportionately by the Covid19 crisis hit the headlines. A session on institutional racism with over 100 taking part heard from activists in Unite, CWU, RMT, Unison, and Hazards – a panel that sparked a brilliant discussion about the experience of racism and how to collectively challenge it. 

The Tories have continued their racist ‘hostile environment’ for refugees and migrants throughout the pandemic, while the inspirational Black Lives Matter movement has clearly focused debate amongst trade unionists about how we respond the racism and scapegoating. Two sessions – on solidarity with refugees, and on opposing the ‘hostile environment’, brought together over 100 to hear speakers from FBU, CWU, the TUC, UCU and Unison, alongside Care4Calais, Windrush campaigner Patrick Vernon, Grenfell campaigner Moyra Samuels, refugees from the Penally and Napier camps and migrant workers in UVW union.

The events on Capitol Hill and ongoing attempts by the far right to breakthrough into the mainstream were also a key focus of debate. A workshop on this topic was attended by 70 activists, hearing from US anti racist campaign United Against Hate, Stand Up To Racism’s Michael Bradley, the TUC’s Stiofán Ó Nualláin author of TUC report: The Rise of the Far Right: Building a Trade Union Response, and leading activists from GMB and CWU. 

The biggest session with over 220 attending was on decolinising education and the legacy of slavery and empire, reflecting the impact of the BLM movement in opening up big questions at the heart of the system on the history and existence of deeply entrenched systemic racism. Liverpool Lord Mayor Anna Rothery alongside an anti racist campaigner from Barbados, David Denny general secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace & Integration, and speakers from the UCU, EIS and NEU unions.

Key leading figures in the trade union movement spoke,  including NEU general secretary Kevin Courtney, BFAWU general secretary Sarah Woolley, RMT assistant general secretary Steve Hedley, Unison National Race Equality Officer Margaret Greer, Unison assistant general secretary Roger McKenzie, TUC Race Relations Committee chair & Unison National Secretary & Head Of Equality Gloria Mills, CWU vice president Jane Loftus, TUC general secretary Frances Ogrady, NEU president Daniel Kebede, Wales general secretary Shavanah Taj, TUC and TUC Race Equality office Wilf Sullivan, who was a key organiser of the event with Stand Up To Racism. 

The mood of the conference and the growing number of new black activists getting involved across the trade union movement shows that in the present crisis the trade unions can play a crucial role in combating racism and opposing the politics of divide and rule.

The international day of action on 20 March supported by the TUC gives us all the chance to build a positive show of antiracist unity – get involved.