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Black workers must unite against the structural racism exposed by Covid-19
The last year has seen longstanding factors consolidate under the pandemic to become a racial justice emergency, writes NASUWT general secretary and chair of the TUC Anti-Racism Taskforce DR PATRICK ROACH
Young people from black backgrounds are more likely to be unemployed than white workers at every qualification level. As we witnessed in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher’s government, young black people once again face a very real prospect of being left behind.

ON the eve of UN Anti-Racism Day, it is prescient that our trade unions will be coming together at the TUC Black Workers’ Conference to advance a progressive agenda of anti-racism on the anniversary of the first coronavirus lockdown.

In the last year we have seen the country plunged into a health emergency, an economic emergency and a racial justice emergency. A health pandemic and the government’s response to it has reopened the deep wounds of structural racism that continue to blight and scar our country and our economy.

Structural racism continues to hold back communities and blight life chances. We have seen that most starkly in data showing the highest rates of Covid-19 deaths amongst black communities that have been systematically failed by a government response that was supposed to protect all of us during the pandemic.

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