Why do unions find fighting workplace racism difficult?

Steve Jefferys
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Steve Jefferys: Professor of European Employment Studies, Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University

Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2007, vol. 13, issue 3, 377-395

Abstract: Trade unions are committed to anti-racism. However, with the growth of job insecurity in the increasingly inegalitarian but global economies that are sucking in new generations of international migrants, racism and xenophobia have re-emerged as major threats to European social cohesion. This article examines the problems unions have in fighting racism within the workplace. It documents different ways in which these problems present themselves, and suggests that they offer trade unions two structural-ideological challenges: the need to defend broader, societal trade union objectives, alongside bread and butter ones; and the need to strengthen the legitimacy of trade union activists acting within ‘representative democratic’ rather than ‘delegate democratic’ traditions.

Keywords: racism; trade unions; Europe; market unionism; societal unionism; representative democracy; delegate democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:treure:v:13:y:2007:i:3:p:377-395

DOI: 10.1177/102425890701300305

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