Black, Minority, Ethnic

On the second day of UNISON’s national health conference, the union was proud to host Baroness Doreen Lawrence (pictured above) in conversation with UNISON’s head of health, Helga Pile.

Baroness Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, is one of the most prominent anti-racist campaigners in the UK and since 2020 has been race relations advisor to the Labour party. It was her tireless campaigning for an inquiry into the murder of her son in a racist attack in 1993 that brought about the Macpherson report.

The Macpherson report, published in 1999, concluded that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist and included 70 recommendations that aimed to address racism in the police and public services.

“If you look back to when we had the Macpherson inquiry, it felt like institutions were beginning to understand the impact of racism and what they needed to do to change,” Baroness Lawrence said. “But I feel like in recent years racism is beginning to rear its head again. And for more and more young people, it’s getting dangerous.”

“I think we need to go back to where we were after the inquiry came out. It helped institutions, for the first time, understand racism, and the impact that racism can cause.”

Baroness Lawrence has been a member of the House of Lords since 2013, a place in which she says racism is ‘very rarely discussed’. “If we, within in Parliament, are not discussing race, how are we going to discuss race outside?” she said.

The rise in anti-immigration rhetoric and Reform UK

Speaking about the rise in anti-immigration political discourse across the UK, the prevalence of union jack flags, and the ‘polarised’ public conversations on immigration, Baroness Lawrence said, “We need to challenge the government, and challenge our MPs a bit more, for them to start talking more and doing more around these issues.”

“So many of us here are here because of migration, whether because of our parents or grandparents,” UNISON head of health Helga Pile noted, before asking Baroness Lawrence how she thought the union could push back against Reform UK’s hostile narratives on immigration.

Baroness Lawrence advocated for the unions to step in and support workers by challenging the government and its policies. “If you think back to Windrush, and the difference that we were making in the NHS, and the racism we were facing at that time… We’ve gone back to that again,” she said.

Racism in healthcare and the impact of Covid-19 on Black workers 

Last month, the government’s third report from the Covid-19 inquiry described workers in the health service as ‘superhuman’. However, as Ms Pile noted, the report did not address the disproportionate impact that the Covid-19 pandemic had on Black communities and Black workers within the healthcare system.

Baroness Lawrence (left) and UNISON head of health Helga Pile (right)

In 2020, Baroness Lawrence published  ‘An avoidable crisis’, a report into the disproportionate impact Covid-19 had on Black communities, in which she named the healthcare issues as ‘systemic’ and rooted in housing, immigration, education and employment policy.

When Ms Pile asked Baroness Lawrence how far she thought the UK has come on these issues, she replied, “I think those things are still headlines.

“During Covid, when I was asked to look into the impact, I wanted to make sure I was speaking to ordinary people,” she said. “In the early stages, the frontliners, and the first individual to die was from the Black community.

“One of the nurses said, as we were talking, ‘I didn’t go to work to die’. And that has really impacted me.”

Moving on to discuss Baroness Lawrence’s role as chair of the race equality engagement group, Ms Pile cited the statistic that Black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women and asked what other issues were prevalent in maternal health and racial disparities in healthcare.

Baroness Lawrence shared an anecdote from a roundtable she had hosted in December of last year with Roma and Traveller people, where she had met a woman who had become disabled after having twins and now uses a wheelchair.

She also shared her own experiences of childbirth and how she has been treated, which were brought back to the forefront of her mind when she hosted these focus groups. “When I was really young, they didn’t think I was married. So they wanted to treat me completely differently as a single mum. But why would I be treated any differently as a single mum?”

Decolonising education and supporting young people

Baroness Lawrence shared her thoughts on the education system and the importance of decolonising education by teaching about colonial history to fight racism through the education system.

“If you don’t do that, racism continues to exist. Because people think you come here to take other people’s jobs, but that’s not it. They need to understand what happened in the centuries before and slavery. Until children begin to understand that history we’re going to have racism,” she said.

She also spoke about the fight for Stephen Lawrence Day, which is held every year on 22 April, the anniversary of his death. Baroness Lawrence founded the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust in 1998 to promote a positive legacy in his name and support for young people’s ambitions. The day has been formalised nationally since 2018.

“For years I’d been talking about it, and everybody keeps saying to me it needs to be part of Black History Month. That’s not where it needs to be: it needs to be front and centre and for people to use his experience to help other people,” she said.

“It’s been 33 years since Stephen was killed. The impact that Stephen’s name has made has been positive,” said Baroness Lawrence, urging people not to focus on his murder but on how to build positive futures for young people. “I want young people to have ambition and to think about what they can achieve. Stephen was an academic and he would have done really well.”

Concluding her talk, Baroness Lawrence encouraged UNISON members to think about how they can support young people. “They’re our future,” she said.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube

Jonathan Peddie, executive director of investigations, enforcement and litigation at the SRA, said: “If we find evidence that anyone we regulate has acted in ways that contravene their duty to act legally and uphold the law, we will take action.”

In her small shop on Merritt Island, racks of orange, blue and black T-shirts depict hand drawn rockets, mission patches and moonscapes, ready for the crowds who arrive on regular launch days. But this launch is different, she tells us. “We’ve wanted to go back to the Moon since the ’70s. People are excited. People are beyond excited,” she said.

At UNISON’s annual Black members’ conference in Brighton this year, Windrush was top of the agenda.

Speaking to conference, Reverend Clive Foster from the Windrush Commission acknowledged the contribution that UNISON has made in holding the government to account over the Windrush scandal.

Reverend Foster talked about post-war public services being shaped by the Windrush generation, then the shock of some of them being wrongly deported and treated as if they had no part in this.

“People should not have to navigate complexity to receive what they are owed,” he said.

Hetticia McIntosh (pictured above), a former nurse, shared her experience of having her UK status revoked. “I had my children here, I married here, I was in the army. And yet in 1978, when I went to renew my British passport, I was told that I was not entitled because I am no longer British,” she said.

“Windrush survivors don’t need sympathy, we need action.”

Ms McIntosh urged delegates and conference visitors to sign a petition calling for Windrush survivors’ legal representation to be covered by the state, in the same way the state has provided for the Horizon Post Office scandal survivors and infected blood scandal survivors.

“We, the Black ones, don’t have any legal representation,” she said.

Sign the petition

The first conference motion passed was for the union to fight to close the ethnicity pay gap for Black women.

Davena Rankin from Scotland said: “It’s easy for the debate on the gender pay gap to be abstract, but for UNISON women it’s the lived reality of not getting a mortgage, a lost promotion, no career progression. It’s double jeopardy for a Black woman.”

Another motion called for stronger action on the racism that Black NHS workers face. Moving the motion on behalf of Eastern region, Conroy Trenchfield said: “Black workers particularly face hostility from the public, and often there is a lack of support from colleagues. It’s isolating and demotivating.”

Conference agreed that protests from the far right present a health and safety risk to Black workers. This includes when travelling to work on the day of a far-right demonstration, but also in workplaces in which white colleagues vocalise their support for racist policies.

Another motion called for UNISON to oppose racism and the rise in far-right misinformation, harassment and intimidation. Speakers highlighted the significance of the Together Alliance national demonstration in London on 28 March 2026.

Sandra Okwara, Andrea Egan and Kevin Imoloame. Credit: Marcus Rose

UNISON general secretary Andrea Egan opened Black members’ conference with a speech in which she committed to ‘a new chapter’ for Black union members.

She also gave two prominent UNISON activists awards.

Sandra Okwara (pictured left) won this year’s 2026 Nelson Mandela Award, which is given to those who exemplify Nelson Mandela’s values of ‘determination, a desire for unity, and strength in the face of injustice’.

Kevin Imoloame (pictured right) won the 2026 young Black members’ award UNISON activists under 27 who are dedicated to race equality and passionate about improving workplaces.

Watch Andrea’s full speech on YouTube

“For too long, Black members have carried the weight of discrimination cases that drag on for years, disciplinary processes that fall disproportionately on your shoulders, and workplaces that treat equality as an optional extra.

“I know the hurt, the frustration, the exhaustion that comes from being ignored or sidelined by employers when you raise racism. When your grievance sits unanswered,” she said. “When the trauma is compounded by delay, denial, and silence.”

Andrea explained that, when she was UNISON president in 2023, she led the Year of Black Workers. Now, in her post as general secretary for the next five years, she outlined her vision:

“A union where Black workers are protected, represented, and empowered. A union that uses its collective bargaining strength to challenge racism head on. A union that organises to win.”

A bigger, stronger UNISON

Andrea stated that the fastest-growing part of UNISON’s membership is migrant workers, particularly migrant care workers, many of whom are Black and of African origin.

“Your fight is UNISON’s fight. Your fight is my fight,” she said.

“Together we have to defend jobs. Together we have to protect pay. Together we have to campaign for £15 an hour. Together we have to fight austerity and the cost of living crisis that hits Black communities hardest. We will push for better pay and pensions across public services. And together we have hold to employers to account when they fail our members.

“Tackling racism in the workplace requires more than statements. It requires action.”

Andrea committed to turn the recommendations of the UNISON Race Discrimination Inquiry into action.

“We will support branches to take on employers who fail to protect Black workers. We will ensure equality is not an afterthought but a core industrial issue. This is about justice in the workplace. Fairness in practice, not just policy. Dignity for every member.”

Andrea welcomed the Labour government’s commitment to making ethnicity pay gap reporting mandatory in the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, but said that UNISON will be also demanding mandatory action plans.

She also committed to working with employers across the UK to sign up to the union’s anti-racism charter.

Reform UK

Speaking to the wider political environment, Andrea said the government and Reform UK were painting a false picture that claimed migrant and trans people are a danger to women and girls.

“This transphobic and racist rhetoric does not protect women — it endangers us. It fuels the real causes of harm: misogyny, underfunding, and the privatisation of public services.”

“Right‑wing forces have disguised a class war as a culture war. And I do include Reform UK in that category, selling us a story that asylum seekers seeking refuge in this country are the cause for our broken infrastructure. When it is the rich and powerful who seek to profit from our labour.

“It is years of underfunding from successive governments who choose to fund illegal wars, who profit from arms flowing from the UK to Israel to fund a genocide in Palestine so that their land can be stolen, it is private profiteering that sucks out profit on the back of our labour to build up their stocks and shares.”

A union that organises and challenges

Andrea concluded her speech with a summary of her vision. Under her leadership, UNISON will be ‘a union that stands shoulder to shoulder with Black workers every single day, a union that turns pain into power, a union that delivers change you can see and feel in your workplaces.’

“Together, we will build a union that truly reflects the strength, resilience and leadership of Black workers. A union that fights for justice. A union that wins.”

There are 25 athletes representing Great Britain at the Winter Paralympics, alongside dozens of coaches and support staff.

But at ParalympicsGB House in the mountains of Cortina, one “very good girl” has been stealing the spotlight.

Pickle is an eight-year-old black labrador retriever guide dog.

Her human, Hester Poole, is competing in the visually impaired Para-alpine skiing events.

“She loves the mountains – she’s always really bouncy when she sees the snow,” said Poole, who has had severely limited vision since birth.

“When she comes skiing, it’s nice to get to the bottom of the piste, win or lose, and have this furry ball of love waiting for me.”

Images: Marcus Rose

Debate continued Wednesday morning at national delegate conference with a group of motions concerning Black members.

The motions came on the same morning as the High Court ruling that the government’s decision to scrap key recommendations from the independent review into the Windrush scandal was unlawful.

The first motion, supporting Black members experiencing racism, focused on training and education as an effective way to combat racism.

Moving the motion, Annette Heslop of the national Black members’ committee said: “Racism is real, we need to stop it and stamp it out.”

The motion called on the NEC to work with UNISON College and learning and organising services to create specific training resources on the issue and promote them to stewards and branch officers.

Gloria Hansen (pictured above) said: “The Year of Black Workers was an extraordinary campaign celebrating UNISON’s proud history – and we owe it to the efforts of members across unison” to continue the struggle.

Sue Silva spoke about acknowledging “the slow pace of change and the exclusion of Black workers from discussions” on the issue.

Adding: “UNISON has made progress but further development is necessary enhanced training for branch officers will help them support members effectively.”

Chris Akaluka (above) from Newham Healthcare followed saying: “Racism is a disease that thrives on ignorance, the only thing that can cure this disease is knowledge.

“A union like ours, 1.3m strong, if we all pledge to be allies and fight racism in our workplaces our homes and our streets.”

He asked conference to commit, with him, to pointing out racism in all different aspects of their lives. “We shall point it out,” conference repeated.

After the motion exploring the experience of racism, debate turned to the UNION’s work embedding the legacy of the Year of the Black Worker in 2023.

Joseph Ogundemuren of the Black members’ committee (pictured top), speaking for the motion asked conference to “sustain momentum and cement the legacy of the year,” saying, “our activism must resonate beyond our union.”

Manjula Kumari of the NEC said to achieve the aims of the motion the union: “must start where all good unions start – training and development. So, throughout the year we facilitated workshops, development programmes and mentorship training.”

She told delegates: “We still have a long way to go,” and urged delegates to go back to their employers and start the conversation with employer to sign up to UNISON’s anti-racism charter.

She finished: “Conference, remember the 190,00 Black members that UNISON has. Work with us, be our allies and continue to increase our numbers.”

The motion gave a five-point action plan to evaluate the year’s successes, develop an ongoing programme of training and campaigning and report back to NDC in 2025.

UNISON and the TUC held a joint conference yesterday evening to explore the experience of Black health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Held at Doughty Street Chambers – a barristers’ chambers particularly known for its work on human rights and civil liberties – the aim of the event was to discuss the current UK-wide public inquiry into the pandemic and to ensure that the experience of Black workers in the healthcare sector is heard and acted upon.

Surveys and research have shown how people working in the NHS encountered huge pressures and anxiety during the pandemic – and that Black, Asian and minority ethnic workers often faced additional risk that was not adequately addressed by employers and the government.

Barristers representing the TUC at the UK COVID-19 inquiry talked about the TUC’s work in the inquiry so far and how the TUC and its affiliated unions can shed light on the experiences of Black healthcare workers within the inquiry.

Key issues affecting Black healthcare workers that the TUC and UNISON have highlighted in the inquiry so far include:

• A higher risk of infection and severe disease for Black healthcare workers
• A potential (although the subject of ongoing research) higher risk of suffering Long COVID
• Higher proportions of Black healthcare staff being redeployed into frontline roles and roles that involved a higher risk of COVID-19 infection – for instance, in ‘red zones’
• A more significant mental health impact for Black people during the pandemic
• A failure to undertake appropriate, meaningful risk assessments of Black healthcare workers
• Poor working terms and conditions for outsourced workers, amongst whom Black workers are overrepresented, including low rates of pay and a lack of adequate sick pay
• The government’s pursuit of a policy making vaccination a mandatory condition of being employed within the NHS, despite the disproportionate impact this would have had upon Black workers
• Black workers being at greater risk of working in hazardous situations with inadequate PPE.

The conference also heard from Black healthcare workers about their experiences. These included problems with inadequate PPE – particularly in the opening weeks of the crisis – and even being disciplined for taking their own PPE to work.

The event was also addressed by Baroness Doreen Lawrence, who then took part in a ‘fireside chat’ with Gloria Mills, UNISON’s national secretary for equalities.

Sara Gorton, UNISON’s head of health, gave evidence to the third module of the COVID inquiry last week (above).

The module examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare systems in the four nations of the UK.

Speaking on behalf of the TUC, Ms Gorton gave evidence about both her UNISON role and her role as co-chair of the NHS staff council and the NHS social partnership forum through the pandemic.

Her evidence focussed on the relationship between the trade unions and the employer bodies and NHS England through the pandemic. She also spoke to the state of staff wellbeing morale and resilience prior to and throughout the pandemic and the impact that had on workplace issues like recruitment and retention.

Pre-pandemic

Ms Gorton’s evidence began with questions about how prepared the NHS – particularly the workforce – was before the pandemic.

When asked about the resilience levels of staff prior to the pandemic, she said: “There were signs going into the pandemic, for the few years in the runup, that the workforce had been overlooked and neglected by a government and policy makers who seemed to be obsessed with structure and system architecture rather than addressing the needs of the workforce.”

In reference to a TUC report from early 2020 she said: “The survey paints a picture of people who describe themselves at breaking point. Of not having enough staff, of not having access to the breaks they needed in order to work the shifts. It talks about the pressures they feel under to accept more work to cover the gaps.

“And it talks about the personal impact at the time from feeling they didn’t have what they needed to deliver the services they wanted to [deliver for] patients. It describes people feeling very vulnerable, turning up to work dreading their shifts.

“That’s not a description of a resilient workforce ahead of a major crisis – ahead of a major crisis you want people to feel well-motivated, well-rested and able to deal with it. The signs were there, in this report and other evidence, that this was not the condition of the NHS workforce.”

Early pandemic

The inquiry also focussed on a statement made by the NHS Staff Council in January 2020, two months before the first lockdown.

As a joint body of unions representatives and employers, the NHS Staff Council had written a statement urging local partnerships between employers and trade unions to work together to put in place a set of 12 key principles to combat COVID.

The principles included:

• setting up effective communication channels
• identifying and mitigating risks
• ensuring adequate PPE
• ensuring sufficient fit testing for PPE
• making sure staff are able to raise concerns in a way that doesn’t impose a detriment to them
• managing risk to vulnerable staff
• maintaining care levels for staff members.

When asked for her opinion on whether these key principles adequately foresaw the issues that were faced during the pandemic, Ms Gorton said: “All of the key principles to adhere to were set out here, I think the question is, to what extent those principles were able to be put in place.

“How they were interpreted and implemented at a localised level was the major difficulty.”

Consistency of guidance, official channels

Later in her evidence, Ms Gorton was asked about the trade unions’ role in contributing to and communicating guidance for health staff based on these principles. She noted that right from the start of the pandemic the trade unions knew that: “If we had all worked separately, and all reinterpreted the guidance and put those out through our separate networks, that would mean 17 sets of contrary guidance.

“So, we worked really hard together not only producing advice as joint unions, but ensuring, wherever we could, we were a reputable source of information and were referring people back to the original source documents.

“And we worked with employers to supplement those [pieces of guidance] with frequently asked questions to respond to issues of detail. Obviously, there were areas where the trade unions had been reflecting [back to the employer] either confusion amongst the workforce with the content, or where there were gaps in the content.”

As an example, Ms Gorton highlighted: “Early on in the pandemic there was no reference to the situations in either community settings or ambulance settings and we were hearing from workers in both of those settings that they were being expected to go in and out of homes where they were potentially being exposed to people who were COVID positive.

“At that time there was no testing, so people had no way of telling, other than having symptoms if they were COVID positive or not. So, it was gaps like that we were able to flag.”

The ongoing effect of the pandemic on recruitment and retention

Questioning moved on to staff burnout and the effects of the pandemic on recruitment and retention.

Referencing an element of Ms Gorton’s written submission about 2022 evidence of staff “wanting to leave the NHS due to the pressure of not being able to deliver the appropriate quality and standard of care”, the inquiry’s counsel asked: “Was there anything that could be done to prevent staff leaving due to those concerns?”

She responded: “Working conditions are everything. You can see, in the statement, the themes that workers were raising through their unions about not enough access to rest breaks, about not enough access to rest and recuperation.

“Trade unions knew [this] as early as May 2020, we were raising issues at a central level to call for support packages to be put in place to allow the rest and recovery from dealing with that first phase [of COVID in the UK], which turned out to be a hiatus rather than an end that we might have imagined, but the signs were there that the workforce was already suffering.

“And by the period that you refer to, by 2022, it was really evident that the support hadn’t been provided in sufficient measure to make people feel resilient enough and to make them motivated enough to stay in their jobs.”

On the measures which were put in place during the pandemic she said: “A lot of work was done to set up what was called health and wellbeing portals to provide access to emergency mental health triage, hotlines and on-the-spot occupational health type interventions.

“But what’s really clear is that health workers needed an opportunity for rest and recuperation. And with the levels of staffing in the NHS ahead of the pandemic and compounded by the pandemic, that was really difficult to achieve. And it was going to be an uphill struggle to provide support in enough measure.”

Ms Gorton continued: “This meant that by 2021, one in five health workers were telling us that they were considering or very seriously considering leaving their job in the NHS. It had a profound impact on those workers and the ability of the NHS to recruit staff.

“It’s very clear that the effects of having low staffing had contributed to the way people felt approaching the pandemic, that it worsened during the pandemic and as a consequence it was more difficult for the NHS to recruit and retain staff.

The effect on Black NHS staff

The final section of the inquiry counsel’s questioning centred on the disproportionate impact of COVID on Black staff, citing an admission from NHS England, in a social partnership forum document from June 2020, that they had lost or were losing the trust of those staff.

Ms Gorton said: “This was an honest response to the issues that were coming through in the data and the issues that we were referring as trade unions. I think what you’re seeing in this set of notes is that there is a recognition of the need to look at these issues.

But she added: “The issues that are set out here are specific to the practical effect of the pandemic, but they don’t reach into some of the concerns about structural racism that had been raised prior to the pandemic and still persist beyond it.”

When asked if enough was done after June 2020 done to rebuild trust, she said: “I was at an event held last week where we had the opportunity to talk to staff who’d been through the pandemic, staff from Black backgrounds, and the feeling in the room was that not enough had been done either during the pandemic or since.”