BME women face "double whammy"

Unions must establish collective bargaining on race equality if the double discrimination faced by black and minority ethnic (BME) women in the labour market is to be defeated, a new TUC study says.

Black women and employment uses official data to examine BME women’s position in the labour market and the barriers they face to gaining and progressing in employment.

Statistics show that BME women are more likely to be unemployed or economically inactive than any other group in the labour market. At 5.4%, the unemployment rate for black women is almost twice the 2.9% among white women, and Asian women are faring little better with an unemployment rate of 4.8%.

Although black and Asian women have come a long way at work, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said, employer attitudes and prejudices are still holding them back — they are far more likely than their white counterparts to be in low-paid and temporary jobs.

“Faced with a double whammy of discrimination because of their gender and colour, it’s no wonder that true equality at work is still some years away,” Barber added.

Black women and employment can be downloaded from www.tuc.org.uk/extras/bwae.pdf