Why do unions find fighting workplace racism difficult?
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.