BLACK WORKERS have the collective power to challenge racial injustice in the workplace, Britain’s most senior black trade union official has said. In a New Year message, Dr Patrick Roach — who leads a 300,000 member teachers’ union – said “now is the time” to get involved in the movement so the collective power of labour can tackle structural racism.

Dr Roach, who is general-secretary of the teachers union NASUWT, added: “I want to see more black workers playing an active role within their trade unions. MAJOR “Whether that be as caseworkers, negotiators, organisers, or employees within trade unions, black workers are part of that process of bringing this change, about setting the agenda for what our unions say, and what our unions do in practice.”

Dr Roach is only the second black generalsecretary of a major union in British history, after Bill Morris led the Transport and General Workers’ Union (now Unite) from 1992 to 2003. The only other black union boss is Maheta Molango, who took over at the small footballers’ union, the Professional Footballers’ Association, in June last year following Gordon Taylor’s retirement.

Monitoring

The son of Jamaican parents who settled in Walsall, West Midlands, Dr Roach is a former teacher and lecturer in social policy. He was elected leader in 2020 after two decades of service as an official at the union, having previously served as deputy general secretary. TUC research found that unemployment rates for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) workers rose three times as fast compared to white workers at the beginning of the economic dip.

As the UK appeared to be recovering from the Delta variant, the data also showed that BAME workers were rehired three times more slowly, proving a pattern of ‘first out, last in’ that was also seen at the start and end of the banking crisis of 2008-09.

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