Government ‘failing Black and Asian workers’ with Employment Bill delay, union warns

Racial inequalities in the workplace will become further entrenched due to government delays on the long-awaited Employment Bill, campaigners have warned.

Plans to introduce the legislation will be dropped from this month’s Queen’s Speech, government officials confirmed last month, marking the second successive year it has been pushed back.

The Conservative Party first committed to introducing an Employment Bill - which is supposed to better protect workers’ rights - in 2019. However, ministers have failed to follow up on this since then and no draft has been produced.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: "Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity at work and to be paid a fair wage. But the discrimination that Black and minority ethnic (BME) workers face means they are far more likely to be trapped in low-paid and insecure work.

"This structural racism will continue unless ministers take proper action. An employment bill is badly needed to help tackle discrimination in our labour market to and improve pay and conditions for millions at work.

“There is no reason for ministers to have dragged their feet for so long. If the government doesn’t deliver a bill in May’s Queen speech - having repeatedly promised to do so - BME workers will once again pay a heavy price."

Systemic inequalities have exacerbated working life for Black, Asian and minority ethnic workers across the UK.

Black, Asian and minority ethnic women are twice as likely to be on zero-hours contracts as white men, it recently emerged.

Figures have also shown that minoritised workers were three times more likely to have lost working hours during the pandemic than their white counterparts.

The TUC has recommended the introduction of mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting and banning of zero-hours contracts which already have a disproportionate impact on ethnic minority workers.

Zero-hours contracts hand the employer total control over their workers’ hours and earning power, the TUC has previously said, which means workers never know how much they will earn each week, while their income is subject to the whims of managers.

This comes as the Labour Party recently urged the government to introduce mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting within the Employment Bill.

The Independent revealed in March that ethnicity pay gap data will not be widely published by companies in the UK until 2075 unless the Government intervenes, as highlighted by research from Business In The Community.

“Businesses, unions and MPs from across the political spectrum all agree that mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting would boost prosperity and address inequality,” Shadow Equalities Minister Taiwo Owatemi said at the time.

“The government itself has said it’s an idea whose time has come, but now it looks set to break yet another promise.”

Recent analysis found unemployment rates among minority ethnic workers are still more than twice the rates for white workers, while around 1 in 12 black and minority ethnic women are now unemployed compared to around 1 in 29 white workers.

The government has been approached for comment.