Segregation by race in the UK

The Birmingham scrap metal business tragedy in which five men lost their lives was found ‘shocking’ by the Prime Minister. None of the reports I have seen, however, refer to the curious fact that five workers exposed to dangerous working conditions by a family-owned Birmingham firm with a were all marked by sharing one nationality, one colour and one religion.
Some papers report they all came from an ex-British colony, the Islamic Republic of The Gambia. Some reports refer to their having Spanish passports. Some hint that they were Muslims.
But what all the commentators have not commented on so far is what everyone who saw the television coverage knows: the workers who died – and probably the vast majority working at the dangerous job of handling sharp-edged metal for recycling – are black.
By a curious irony, I am currently half-way through writing a chapter called simply ‘Segregation by Race’ for an academic book on global employment relations.
The cut-backs (begun under Blair) in the numbers and powers of the Health and Safety Executive have had an effect. There are now far fewer HSE inspectors than ten or twenty years ago. This week’s HSE annual report for 2015/16 (released the same day as Chilcot) shows 43 construction industry deaths, with six waste and recycling workers deaths. There was an overall increase of two deaths to 144 being killed at work in the UK.
Much will doubtless be made of one of the two directors of the privately-owned firm, W.A. Hawkeswood, who wrote in a January 2016 strategic review: ‘The market is competitive and price volatility means margins continue to be tight.’ That, of course, hadn’t prevented him from taking a £900,000 loan from the company in 2015.
Hawkeswood Metal Recycling Ltd’s turnover had fallen from £35m in 2013/14 to £30m in 2015. But after £3.8m ‘administrative expenses’ were deducted from its £4m gross profit, since the firm didn’t pay any tax the 2014/15 year ended, as often happens, with higher profits than in 2014.
In 2015 Hawkeswood employed 22 ‘productive’ staff and 4 for ‘management and administration’. Using the total recorded as social security costs in 2015 and assuming that 6 staff are paid £40,000 or more, the average social security payment made for 20 workers was just £1,855, roughly equivalent to earnings for a 48-hour week being at the so-called National Living Wage rate.
The low wages were confirmed by the Birmingham Express and Star, which reported yesterday that ‘Members of the [Gambian] community said they were hard workers on minimum wage who had been employed through a recruitment agency. Some, it was reported in the Guardian, were working on zero hours contracts. The dead men, Saibo Saillah, Ousman Jabbie, Mohammed Jangana, Alimamo Jammeh and Bangaly Dukureh, all had wives and young children.
This tragic accident sadly highlights what the Brexiteers comforted: the unacknowledged presence of racism and xenophobia in the UK. What this concentration of low-paid black migrant workers shows is a below-the-radar level of acceptance of job segregation and exploitation.
Racial discrimination at work does not get recorded in the current spike of hate crimes. Discrimination at work by observed skin pigmentation, nationality, language and religion difference is much more insidious. It ensures those with ‘minority’ markers work in the worst and most dangerous jobs, have the least job security, work at lower pay rates, or be denied employment altogether.
The trade unions and Labour must not simply be defensive in front of austerity, wage cuts and the race to the bottom that the Tories are embarking on. The way to turn the war against racism in favour of all workers is by fighting for better workplace rights for all and specifically for a new Labour Inspectorate to ensure that these rights are complied with.