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    Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain

    Johnathan R. Razorback
    Johnathan R. Razorback
    Admin


    Messages : 20637
    Date d'inscription : 12/08/2013
    Localisation : France

    Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain Empty Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain

    Message par Johnathan R. Razorback Mer 21 Aoû - 12:42



    [Préface de la première édition]
    "This book is an attempt to put in historical perspective the Black presence in Britain as it relates to the development of British capitalism and its control and exploitation of black labour. The making of the black working class in twentieth-century Britain has been a long process, reflecting essential changes in Britain’s labour needs over time, both at home and abroad.

    As overseas trade expanded, the discipline and control of labour (both black and white) became imperative to Britain’s economic well-being. To ensure the continued exploitation of colonial labour, an ideology based on racial differences, which bred an inferior/superior nexus both in interpersonal relations and in international trade, was constructed to keep Blacks in subjection.

    Thus, plantocracy racism supported by British capitalists, politicians, historians and influential people of letters, engendered dogmatic belief in white supremacy and institutionalised racism in Britain and her colonial ‘possessions’. Consequently, the cultural transmission of racist ideas was handed down over generations. Historically, as Blacks in the colonies laboured under the inhuman and deplorable working conditions endemic in slavery, indentureship and trade union-regulated working conditions, in response, they resorted either ‘spontaneously’ or in an ‘organised’ way to various forms of resistance [...]

    In general, ‘black’ refers to non-white persons, particularly those from former colonial and Commonwealth countries. Within this usage, there are sub-divisions denoting the various constituent groups: these are Africans, Asians, West Indians, Afro-Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Asian-Caribbeans and Black British. ‘Working class’ refers essentially to those unskilled and semi-skilled Blacks who came to Britain throughout the period, but particularly during the heavy post-war immigration in search of jobs."

    [Préface de la seconde édition, 2017]

    "Given that there had been Black people in Britain since Roman times, I structured the book in three parts to cover the period from 1555 to 1986; a perspective which I thought was preferential if one was to better understand not only the pre-twentieth-century Black presence, but also the interwar period and the turbulent forty years prior to 1986."

    "In recent years, however, the influx of migrants (including those seeking asylum and refugees) from all over the world has added to an even more diverse working population; an extraordinary commingling of people speaking a large number of languages, especially in London and the larger British cities.

    Soon after I’d completed the manuscript there was no doubt in my mind that The Making (for so long a hidden story) was an essential and timely text which not only broadens and gives depth to our understanding of the past, but also foregrounds an evolving multicultural Britain. It was also very rare that a book of this kind should become a bestseller and quickly go out of print at a time when academics were still largely disinterested in the growing populations of Black and ethnic minorities as integral to British history. But while The Making has been informative for students and general readers, for a new generation of those born and bred in Britain, as well as new immigrants from outside the Commonwealth, a great deal was (and is) taken for granted! Some fundamental ‘rights’ (for example, the Race Relations Act, affecting people at the workplace and in communities) enjoyed by today’s citizens were not achieved overnight. In fact, such ‘rights’ became law as a direct result of insistent, bitter campaigns against racism and sexism waged by Black and Asian workers in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s."

    "Today, the fundamental question that confronts us is this: where are Black and ethnic minority workers located in the employment structure? As if to confirm the persistent, stark daily lived reality of many working people, a few reports on pay and disadvantage have recently appeared. ‘Analysis of pay data by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) suggests that the difference in average pay rates amounts to a gap of 23 percent,’ stated a BBC Education and Social Affairs report titled ‘Black Workers “earning less than white colleagues” adding that Black graduates earn less than their white counterparts, the average pay gap between Black and white workers with A-levels being 14 percent; and at GCSE level, the gap is 11 percent. So many issues raised and dealt with in The Making, including the inequities in relation to race, education and pay, still confront us. A generation on, how should we address the problem?

    Frances O’Grady, the TUC General Secretary identified the problem: ‘Race still plays a huge role in determining pay.’ She added the ‘harsh reality is that at any level of education, Black and Asian workers are getting paid LESS than their white counterparts. The Government cannot afford to ignore these figures and must now take genuine action to tackle pay discrimination.’ And what role could or should the government play? One way forward was urgently needed ‘interventions’. When dealing with the deprived and disadvantaged, the last Labour Government was convinced throughout its long reign that the key to social mobility was ‘education, education, education’. Alas, whatever the beneficial effects of the Labour Government’s policies, though masked by self-righteous rhetoric (and, at times, exaggerated political correctness), deep-seated problems remain. While disproportionality in the number of disadvantaged Blacks and Asians attending universities was flagged up repeatedly as a major hurdle, beyond this, there were other consequential inequalities to confront. Various researchers, including those at the BBC and the race equality think tank the Runnymede Trust have found that ‘pay gaps are not due to the type of university attended, they even extend to Black workers with degrees’. In fact, the TUC’s analysis, based on the Labour Force Survey figures from 2014 and 2015, shows the pay gaps were widest among the more qualified. And so education is not working for the benefit of the aspirant as it should. This is shocking."

    "On 14 September 2016, an Evening Standard headline read: ‘POLICE DO TARGET BLACK PEOPLE.’ In the article Scotland Yard’s new diversity chief, Victor Olisa, a Black man, admitted ‘stop and search’ on the streets targeted Black people. Thirty years earlier in The Making, I had written at length about ‘sus charges’, Black youth and confrontations between Black people and the police. Now, with great interest, I read that the police were still ‘routinely discriminating against Black people in stop and search operations in London as part of a misguided performance culture’. Furthermore, the diversity chief attested that ‘it was accepted practice to stop young black men to try to boost arrest rates for drugs such as cannabis’. To avoid the ‘negative stereotyping of black people’, he felt stop and search should not only be based on intelligence, but most importantly officers should be able ‘to explain as an individual why you stopped Joe Bloggs’."

    "For many people, Dadabhai Naoroji, elected in 1892 is known as the first Black MP. But new research refutes this. The first Black Member of Parliament was James Townsend, whose election to the House of Commons predates Naoroji by some 125 years. He was also the first Black Lord Mayor of London."

    [PART THREE : The Black Working Class (1962–1986)]

    After 1962, in view of the decreasing numbers of black workers allowed into Britain, black migrant labour had become part of the British working class, at least in theory. Given this broad categorisation, it is necessary to locate black workers more specifically within the class politics of British capitalism. [...]
    Given that Britain is a capitalist social formation, according to [le sociologue Erik O. Wright], class relations can be understood in terms of three processes underlying the social relations of production: control of labour power, control of the physical means of production, and control of investment and resources. Control of all three processes is in the hands of the capitalist class, while the working class has no control over investment or the means of production. Indeed, the worker’s labour power (both mental and manual) is sold for a wage. Moreover, the worker has no control over the labour power of others."

    "Within the working class, however, there are class fractions. Miles and Phizaclea [1980] have used the concept of fraction to refer to an objective position within a class boundary which is, in turn, determined by both economic and politico-ideological relations. Thus, the structure of class determination simultaneously defines the position of one class vis-à-vis another and cleavages within a class. They argue that all classes are objectively fractionalised. Indeed, a class can be said to have objective interests in relation to that other class with which it shares an antagonistic relation but in any given social formation class relations are simultaneously relations between class fractions and this applies both within and between classes. Moreover, they contend that the precise nature and effect of these relations between fractions of classes (and hence between classes and classes) is a ‘historical and conjunctional’ question.

    Since 1945 then there have been important changes in the British labour market. For example, decline in the staple heavy industries was offset by expansion in the service sector and white-collar employment. By the mid-1970s, it was in these expanding sectors that half the female wage labour force was employed, compared to only a quarter in the manufacturing industries. Increasingly, women were employed in industries that paid low wages. As women, they were paid women’s rates so that the sexual division of labour within the family was repeated in waged work. In time, ‘industrialised housework’ were the types of jobs done by women in the public and private sectors of the economy. The more ‘female’ a job became, the more it was devalued."

    "Thus, the married woman’s objective of alleviating the economic distress at home by doing wage-work was frustrated. This need to work was reflected in the fact that the number of married women in the workforce doubled in the twenty years from 1951 to 1971. Moreover, always ready to exploit labour, employers (aided and abetted by the state) viewed women as playing a dual role. Their primary function was as domestic labourers, while of secondary and temporary importance, was the wage work for the employer. This duality armed their employers with a number of reasons why their opportunities for training and promotion (never mind higher wages) should be reduced. It is not surprising, therefore, that with all the demands made on their time, some two-thirds of women wage labourers were part-time workers. Thus, their already vulnerable position became even more so.

    Given the low status and low pay of these women, a distinction must be made between black labour and white female labour. Before moving on, a further distinction seems necessary. One survey showed that among black workers there was a lower incidence of discrimination among black women who had applied for jobs in comparison with black men.

    Of major significance in the field of female employment for those aged between 16 and 54 years, it was found that 75 per cent of West Indian women were working compared with 55 per cent of all women. This is not surprising in view of the larger families among West Indians. Indeed, the difference in the proportion of West Indian, as compared to all women engaged in wage labour is highest during child-bearing years. Therefore, that dual role in production was (and is) more likely to be performed by black women in Britain taken as a whole.

    Overall then, as an actual or potential domestic labourer, a woman’s role was, (and is) used ideologically against her, in the form of sexism. This kind of discrimination helps to determine her subordinate position as a wage labourer. Thus, sexism, like racism, refers to a process of social categorisation. Women have therefore come to occupy a particular position in terms of economic, political and ideological relations in order to constitute a class fraction, within the working class."

    "There is an international exploitation of labour to meet the demands of the capitalist mode of production. In many Western European countries migrant labour is directly recruited to low grade jobs. This economic subordination is accompanied by disadvantage in housing, education and in political rights. It has been argued that migrant workers should be seen in the context of this common social and economic situation, and that this objective division within the class is also accompanied by a subjective division, namely that the indigenous working class, because of its authoritarianism, ‘a product of repressive socialisation’ and a fear of competition, is highly prejudiced towards migrant workers. In turn, this leads to division in the labour movement, giving the advantage to the dominant class. Thus, the specific economic and social circumstances do not change the class determination of migrant labour. Hence, migrant labour constitutes a distinct fraction of the working class.

    Moreover, migrant labour as a class fraction is better understood when set against the backdrop of post-war economic growth and accumulation of capital. The expansion of service industries and the emergence of new industries attracted labour away from the undesirable low wage jobs. This labour shortage, in the context of full employment until the late 1960s, was filled by the internationalisation of the labour market. In other words, by migrant labour. But, there were alternatives to this option. For example, higher wages could have been paid to attract labour into the low-wage jobs. However, this alternative ignores the fact that some sections of capital depended upon migrant labour ‘as a source of excess profit necessary to compensate for their below average rate of profit’.

    Further, capital was able to draw on female labour. This option however would have been cumbersome and costly in terms of child care and other social facilities. Thus, the contract labour system was preferred in Germany, France and Switzerland, and migrant labour from the New Commonwealth was used in Britain. The British case is particularly interesting in that migrant labour involved almost no expenditure on social capital. Therefore in retrospect, it has become abundantly clear that many of the ‘problems’ that arose from migration had little or nothing to do with the character of the migrants themselves, but rather to the failure of the British authorities to provide adequate housing, social and welfare facilities."

    "British capitalism made good its labour shortage, beginning in the mid-1950s, through its continuing relationship with the British Empire Commonwealth. This ‘legal legacy’ is central to black migrant labour in Britain in that Commonwealth citizens shared with citizens of the United Kingdom and the colonies the right to live and work in Britain. Therefore, it was comparatively easier for Commonwealth citizens to sell their labour power in Britain than for Turks and Greeks, for example, who were not only ‘alien’, but needed work permits. Coincidental with this labour shortage were certain factors in Commonwealth countries which encouraged black migration to Britain for economic reasons."

    "In the early 1950s then, an economic migration from the West Indies was followed by migration from the Indian sub-continent."

    "Given that most of the migrant labour to Britain came from the New Commonwealth between 1950 and 1968, it is important to note that the populations of these countries were predominantly black. And, apart from this, at least initially, migrant labour from the New Commonwealth countries were not as officially organised and recruited selectively (with perhaps the exception of the recruitment office set up by London Transport in Barbados) on a contract basis as in most of the European Economic Community countries. Related to this feature is the fact that the 1962 Immigration Act effectively restricted free entry of the New Commonwealth citizen from the right to live and work in Britain. Gradually, these rights have been removed to the extent that, since the 1971 Immigration Act, Britain had a contract labour system in line with those of the EEC capitalist formations which has come into effect.

    This meant that migrants already here in Britain before the 1962 Act were separated from their dependants who did not have the right to live with them in Britain. However, New Commonwealth migrants to Britain during the 1950s and 1960s could, and have settled in Britain. Thus, given its specificity as a fraction of the working class, it is reproducing itself as part of the working class, not as migrant labour, but as black indigenous labour. Moreover, unlike migrant labour elsewhere in western capitalism, New Commonwealth migrant labour has, theoretically at least, the right of full political participation in electoral politics.

    A closer look, however, is more revealing. Firstly, there has been a continuing trend of substantial discrimination against black workers in the vital and related areas of employment, housing and services. Indeed, until 1966 discriminators had no legal constraints. Thus legally disadvantaged black migrant workers were not able to change their subordinate position. There was some attempt through the 1966 and 1968 Race Relations Acts to change this situation, but it was the 1976 Act, on the other hand, which was most effective. Furthermore, evidence suggests that black migrant workers and their children occupy second class status in the process of law enforcement."

    "Among male black workers (excluding African Asians) a 1976 Political and Economic Planning study found that 42 per cent were in semi – or unskilled jobs, with a further 45 per cent in skilled manual jobs. By comparison, the figures for male white workers were 18 and 42 per cent respectively. Among black women 63.5 per cent were engaged in manual work, compared with 45 per cent of white women."

    "Within manufacturing one also found disproportionate numbers of black migrants in shipbuilding, vehicle production, textiles, construction and food manufacture. An analysis of the regional data showed a substantial, disproportionate concentration of black migrants in the textile industry in Yorkshire and Lancashire and a lesser concentration in metal manufacture in the Midlands. Further, where black migrants were employed in the service sector of the economy, they were disproportionately represented in transport and communications, hotels and catering and the National Health Service, precisely those sectors in which semi – and unskilled labour predominate."

    "Those manufacturing industries and services where black migrants were concentrated share several (if not all) of the following characteristics: shortage of labour, shift working, unsocial hours, low pay and an unpleasant working environment."

    "Faced with a labour shortage then, employers in these sectors of the economy were willing to employ black migrant labour. Thus, in the context of full employment during the 1950s and the early 1960s, black labour served as replacement labour for socially undesirable jobs vacated by white indigenous labour. And finally, there was evidence that the concentration of black labour in the manual working class was being reproduced in part because of racial discrimination."

    "Black children born in Britain and who have completed higher education experience considerable discrimination. In fact, black graduates tend to find jobs commensurate with their qualifications only when there are no well-qualified Whites competing with them. Consequently, it is significant that with limited opportunities, the black working class include not only a substantial proportion of black migrants with degrees obtained abroad, but also the black British who hold degrees from British universities. Given their economic position in Britain, the black working class, then as now, clearly constitute a class fraction."

    "‘Racism’ [...] is [...] to refer to those negative beliefs of one group which first identify and then set apart another by attaching significance ‘to some biological or other inherent characteristic(s) which it is said to possess, and which deterministically associate that characteristic(s) with some other (negatively valued) feature(s) or action(s). The possession of these supposed characteristics is then used as justification for denying that group equal access to material and other resources and/or political rights’."

    "Although racist beliefs can be held about certain groups which are not distinguishable by colour, for example, the hostile sentiment in Britain about Irish migrant workers and Jewish refugees, one cannot ignore the significance of skin colour to racist beliefs. Indeed, the question of colour formed the basis of the racism articulated from within all classes in Britain since the 1950s. Thus, it is the question of ‘race’ and the articulation of racism in Britain which places black workers in a special position in ideological relations. Indeed, the evidence shows that governments, politicians, neo-fascist political organisations, the mass media, employers, institutions representing the labour movement and sections of the British working class have all acted upon and articulated racist beliefs."

    "In response to the evolution of this socially constructed community, accumulative evidence about racial discrimination and racial disadvantage has led governments to introduce not only anti-discrimination legislation, but also a number of initiatives to tackle the steadily deteriorating position of black workers bounded by the decaying urban environment where their homes are located."

    "There had been a decline in the working population in all the central urban areas following a reduction in the number employed in manufacturing industry and the distributive trades. This reflected a general shift to tertiary employment nationally, as well as a decentralisation of manufacturing industry.

    However, in spite of these characteristics in all urban areas, they were not of the same magnitude, nor were they moving at the same pace. In fact, of all these urban areas, London showed the most dramatic contrast. This is reflected in the largest absolute increase in employment in the inner London area in the 1950s, and the largest absolute decrease in the 1960s, while the metropolitan outer ring showed the largest absolute growth in both decades.

    This decline is illustrated by the fact that between 1966 and 1974, London’s total population fell by 9.4 per cent, although the decline in inner boroughs was much greater at 17.3 per cent than in the outer boroughs. During the same period there was a decline in manufacturing employment of 27 per cent. It has been argued that permanent factory closure and relocation is a more explanatory factor than relocation in London’s decline.

    Among the reasons put forward for factory closure and relocation were lack of space for expansion, large increases in rates and rent and wage costs, a shortage of certain types of labour, the impact of the rationalisation of capital, nationally and internationally, leading to mergers and factory closures in order to maintain and improve profitability, and finally government policy which encouraged closure and relocations.

    This decline seriously affected patterns of unemployment, disadvantage in housing and housing relocation, education, youth service provision and social services of Blacks in the urban centres. Employment is vital to the black workers’ fight for survival."

    "New Commonwealth-born males tend to be overrepresented among all active males in employment (except in the case of Africans and those from other countries) and West Indian females were overrepresented among all females in employment. Pakistani women, on the other hand, were underrepresented. Moreover, West Indian women were most overrepresented among all females in employment. Indeed, they were highly prone to unemployment; being twice as likely to be out of a job as to be in one. Unemployment, then, not only tended to hit the West Indians harder than any other ethnic group, it also hit the West Indian woman harder than other women workers. Thus, on the question of activity rates, a clear and systematic difference emerged between ethnic minority workers as a group and the indigenous population. In effect, black workers experienced a ‘systematic pattern of disadvantage’ in employment in that they were (and are) significantly more likely to be unemployed than their counterparts in the indigenous population.

    However, while these national figures were likely to underestimate the activity rates and the unemployment rates which ethnic minorities experience in different regions (because of uneven distribution of its population), ethnic minority workers tended to concentrate at or near the centres of employment in the urban areas. Cross observed that when this uneven pattern of ethnic minority settlement is taken into account, the impact of their activity rates and their unemployment rates is exacerbated. Consideration of the settlement patterns and activity rates in conurbations such as Tyneside, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, South East Lancashire, West Midlands, Greater London, Outer Metropolitan Area and Scotland showed that while New Commonwealth-born persons accounted for 2.1 per cent of the total population of Britain, they constituted much larger proportions in some conurbations than in others. Indeed, they constituted 6.4 per cent of the population of Greater London and only 0.6 per cent of the population of Scotland. Further, when the uneven distribution was compared to their activity rates, their unemployment rates in such conurbations (i.e. Greater London, West Midlands and West Yorkshire) contrast sharply. This suggested a pattern of disadvantage in unemployment which affects ethnic minorities in some conurbations to a greater extent than is reflected in the total populations in these areas. In fact, Greater London, West Midlands and West Yorkshire figured among the worst conurbations for unemployment among the ethnic minority groups."
    -Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain, London / New York, Verso, 2017 (1987 pour la première édition).



    _________________
    « La question n’est pas de constater que les gens vivent plus ou moins pauvrement, mais toujours d’une manière qui leur échappe. » -Guy Debord, Critique de la séparation (1961).

    « Rien de grand ne s’est jamais accompli dans le monde sans passion. » -Hegel, La Raison dans l'Histoire.

    « Mais parfois le plus clair regard aime aussi l’ombre. » -Friedrich Hölderlin, "Pain et Vin".

    Johnathan R. Razorback
    Johnathan R. Razorback
    Admin


    Messages : 20637
    Date d'inscription : 12/08/2013
    Localisation : France

    Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain Empty Re: Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain

    Message par Johnathan R. Razorback Mer 21 Aoû - 13:55

    "The size of the household is crucial in determining the kind of family dwelling. The 1971 Census showed there was a significant difference between the average household size for ethnic minority communities and that of the indigenous population. For example, the average household size for the general population in England and Wales was 2.8 people. On the other hand, the General Household Survey showed an average household size of 3.71 for ethnic minority communities. Moreover, the PEP Survey on Racial Minorities (1975) showed ‘even larger average figures’. This showed that the average household size for West Indians and Asians was 4.76 but for West Indians the average household size was below this figure (at 4.31) whereas all Asian groups had an average household size of 5.19 persons.

    Such large families were attributable to two basic factors: firstly that the majority of the ethnic minority groups are in the reproductive phase. Consequently there were more children in each household than in the indigenous population. And secondly, these large families were due to the number of adults within them. According to the 1971 Census there were 2.25 adults in each household. This number was exceeded among Asian groups. Few of these adults, however, were over 60 years of age.

    The relatively lower levels of gross earnings among ethnic minority workers reflected their marked concentration in low-paid manual jobs as opposed to the better-paid white collar jobs. In this sense, minority workers were (and are) at a clear disadvantage in competing for housing in the open market, because this competition is fundamentally dependent on their earnings.

    In 1974 poor black people were in worse housing than poor white people. By 1978, it was clear that a larger proportion of Asians were borrowing money to buy their houses, and their use of council housing was only one-third of the national average, with very few owning their houses outright. In the changing situation, council renting was decreasing. In fact, the PEP report showed the proportion of West Indian households in council housing as 26 per cent and for Asians as 4 per cent, compared with the 1978 National Dwelling and Housing Survey figures of 45 and 10 per cent. Indeed, contrary to the claims that black workers take up all ‘our’ council houses, it was clear that neither West Indians nor Asians were occupying council housing to the extent that members of the indigenous population were."

    "A further disadvantage that black people face is in obtaining loans to buy their own home. Once again, their disadvantage was (and is) reflected in the fact that Blacks were generally poorer than Whites and were therefore in ‘a worse position to make the best choice’. Additionally, Blacks and Whites had to face the policy of ‘red-lining’ practised by some building societies. In effect, this did not allow mortgages on houses in specified inner city areas, regardless of the quality of the houses or the ability to pay of the mortgage applicant. While Whites often turned to the local council for a mortgage, most Asians tended to seek a bank loan, which was quicker to get, but involved much higher interest rates. Through this process, Asians were quite often able to buy houses with cash, thus arousing complaints from Whites who were involved in a much slower process in the housing market.

    Council housing The 1975 Runnymede Trust report showed that black people were underrepresented in council housing and that black tenants of the Greater London Council were far more likely to be in pre-war flats in central London, while white tenants were more likely to be in the newer cottage estates.

    The GLC explained that the report’s findings were not that discrimination had taken place but that the allocation procedures were working against rather than for the disadvantaged and the black tenants. In fact, today the homeless (numbering more Blacks than Whites) are in more urgent need of housing; therefore they tend to accept offers (indeed the procedures restrict the number of rejections allowed relative to other prospective tenants) forcing them to the ‘more available’ but ‘less desirable’ accommodation. Moreover, housing managers, though denying that they purposely discriminate, admit that, in the interests of speed, white people are often not offered accommodation on estates where black people predominate, on the assumption that they will refuse."

    "The economic position of Britain’s black population is reflected in their housing. Given that they tend to occupy the lower end of the labour market, black migrants could only afford accommodation which was relatively inexpensive. Thus, their housing was of a poorer quality and located in less desirable ‘ghetto’ areas. Underpinning this situation is the economic position in which black people are placed in British society. This forces an association between them and low standards of housing.

    Further, concentrations of black people in rundown areas of the major cities has the effect of heaping blame on Blacks themselves. Thus they came to be seen as a cause for the decline in these areas, rather than what in fact they were: the victims of it. To say that black immigrants are the cause of inner city decay is nonsense."

    "One attempt in redressing the balance was made by Lambeth Council in January 1979 by announcing a target proportion of 30 per cent of the housing on new estates and modernised properties should be allocated to black people on the waiting list.

    Incredibly, keeping records of the ethnic origin of council tenants, though strongly advocated, was only recently adopted. Indeed, one of the main reasons for keeping such records was to provide information on how existing housing allocation procedures do not benefit black people to the same extent as Whites. In fact, indirect discrimination means that Blacks do not benefit as much as Whites because of the characteristics of the criteria itself. The residency requirement, for example, means that unless a person has been resident in the area for a period of time, they cannot register on the housing list. Consequently, black people, particularly Indians and Pakistanis, are less likely to fulfil this requirement, and are thus less likely to get council accommodation. In effect, the rule provided the means for this kind of discrimination."

    "Among decision-makers there was opposition to changes in the curriculum designed to provide instruction in mother tongues, black studies, single-sex schools and the appointment of black staff as a special consideration of the educational needs of black school children. This was in contrast to the parents’ wishes, which favoured studies reflecting their cultural and religious backgrounds, and instruction in their mother tongues. They argued that teachers who shared their cultural background would be better able to provide the kinds of instruction required and would also be able to understand the children better. Of course, those who belonged to the assimilationist school would not accept this, adopting the ‘when in Rome do as the Romans do’ approach. Most black parents, however, were relatively satisfied (47 per cent) with their children’s education, but only 10 per cent ‘positively approved’ of the schools attended by their children, in the main because of the neglected aspects of education in these schools.

    There is little evidence that government or local authorities anticipated that changes might be required in the education system, following the entry of the children of migrants into British schools. In fact, these children were entering an education system organised on the assumption of cultural homogeneity. Therefore, it was staffed by persons without any training which might prepare them to teach children either born outside Britain, or in Britain, of parents with a distinct culture.

    Moreover, the education system, in terms of its staff and many of the books used, tended to reflect the racist ideology within British society which is essentially a product of Britain’s colonial and imperial past. Taken together, these factors have played an important part in creating educational disadvantage amongst black children greater than that faced by white children in similar economic circumstances."

    "The view that the entry of black children into British schools is an ‘immigrant’ problem is clearly redundant. Some 40 per cent of the black population in Britain are British-born. Moreover, the problem lay not with the children but with the education system’s failure to react quickly and ‘intelligently’ to a new situation of cultural diversity which was clearly set against a background of widespread racial discrimination. In spite of the real problems arising from the fact that the British school population includes children of a different culture, recognition has been slow and little effort has been made to solve these problems.

    By 1976, however, some moves were being made. Both the Report of the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration on the West Indian community in 1976 and the Green Paper ‘Education in Schools: A Consultative Document 1977’ have emphasised the need for statistical monitoring of pupils, students and teachers. Earlier in 1971, 3.3 per cent of all pupils in maintained primary and secondary schools in England and Wales were immigrant pupils. More recently, only indirect estimates have been made based on the number of births to women born in the New Commonwealth and Pakistan. Through this rough guide, the black school population was estimated at 7 per cent of all births by the end of the 1970s. Given the uneven distribution of the black population, the proportion of black births to indigenous births varied to such an extent that in some areas black children constituted a significant element in the school population. Surely, this cannot be ignored. Moreover it is essential that the authorities, as policymakers, bear in mind that while people from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan are categorised ‘black’, they nonetheless have different cultural backgrounds and they also have different experiences and needs."

    "The hope that black children would learn English through interaction with the indigenous pupils did not materialise. Indeed, as this became increasingly apparent, extra language tuition became a necessity. Even so, the further assumption was made that only children of Indian or Pakistani descent required this tuition. West Indian children, on the other hand, were regarded as having an adequate command of the English language. Thus, the emphasis was placed on teaching English mainly to Asian children.

    Although language tuition facilities were provided since the early 1960s, there was (and still is) an acute shortage of skilled teachers in English as a second language and of teaching materials. Further, the scale of provision seemed to be closely related neither to the size of the black population, nor to the extent of need. This follows a common trend in both employment and housing. The most common arrangements have been the ‘reception classes’ recommended in the pamphlet English for Immigrants by the Ministry of Education. According to the Runnymede Trust, this method had the advantage of combining intensive training without separation from the school, so much so that in some schools the classes have grown into special English departments.

    One area of real concern has been the education of West Indian children. The patois spoken by West Indians in Britain (including those born in Britain) ‘varies along a patois-standard English continuum, the balance between the two being determined by the social situation’. According to Edwards (and others) an increasing proportion of West Indian children in Britain (particularly teenagers) are using a form of Jamaican patois much more exclusively as a response to their feelings of rejection and alienation. Moreover, the argument is maintained that because there is a continuum between standard English and patois, there is a constant interplay or ‘interference’ between the two elements. Therefore, this places West Indian children in a disadvantageous position when educated through the medium of standard English. Thus disadvantages arise because teachers are commonly unsympathetic to the problems of comprehension and production of standard English faced by West Indian children, often to the extent that use of patois is believed to indicate low academic ability. Consequently, a process of low teacher expectation leading to low pupil performance is set in motion."

    "Obviously most teachers in Britain are white. According to the Caribbean Teachers’ Association by 1979, 0.15 per cent of all teachers were of Caribbean origin. In the mid-1970s, a study of 102 black teachers in London by the Society for Immigrant Teachers reported discrimination against black teachers. They found that black teachers were concentrated in the ‘ghetto areas’ and kept on the lowest pay scales.

    What is equally disturbing is that many educationalists believe teacher expectations can seriously affect their pupils’ performance. One study found that although teachers have a positive attitude toward Asian children, they tend to see West Indian children as a problem, particularly in the way they behave in the classroom. Moreover, the use of patois leads teachers to have low expectations of West Indian pupils. Further, not only do some teachers believe in racist stereotypes, they also ‘incorrectly’ believe that white pupils do not hold racist beliefs. Consequently, they are incapable of making an explicit effort to challenge racist beliefs at school."

    "The material and emotional circumstances of family/home life which are dependent on the level of income (among other things) substantially affect the educational achievement of black children. It follows then, that as the parents of black children are disadvantaged in the jobs they do and the quality of housing they occupy, there is also a tendency for their children to be disadvantaged within the educational system because of these factors. Thus, material disadvantage is compounded by the insistent effects of racism and racial discrimination."

    "Another Circular (7/65, issued in June 1965) recommended that the proportion of immigrant pupils in any one school should not exceed 30 per cent of the total. Government support reflected thinking which had nothing to do with a multi-racial society. The government felt that an increase in the proportion of immigrant children in a school or class increased the problems and would become more difficult to solve, and the chances of assimilation would become more remote. In spite of the argument for ‘dispersal’ based on educational need, it was mainly black pupils who were dispersed, thus incurring a further disadvantage! Later that year, a White Paper Immigration from the Commonwealth put forward a multi-purpose policy, which it hoped would integrate immigrant children, both to prevent a fall in school standards and to assist in the organisation of special English classes.

    Thus a contradiction resulted between the pamphlet English for Immigrants and Circular 7/65 and the White Paper Immigration from the Commonwealth. While the first aimed at bringing together immigrant children for English classes in one school, the White Paper suggested that although the teaching of English was a goal, ‘such arrangements can more easily be made, and the integration of the immigrants more easily achieved, if the proportion of the immigrant children in a school is not allowed to rise too high’. The significance of this contradiction was stressed rather than the pressing language need. Thus, it was correctly argued that the bogey had not been discrimination – less favourable treatment – but concentration. This brought condemnation not because it might lead to less favourable treatment, but more often than not because it was perceived as the development of ‘foreign enclaves within British culture and society’."

    "Asian parents are not only strict about participation of girls in mixed activities, but also impose dietary and other restrictions to both sexes. Moreover, the strong family ties pressurise some Asian adolescents to seek social and leisure activities within their own group, in spite of their fluency of English.

    Even among West Indians (though they are less inclined to object to their daughters being involved in mixed youth clubs) there has been a tendency to maintain strong discipline over the activities of girls and the hours they spend from home. Interestingly there has been greater success in the recruitment of ethnic minorities by such youth organisations as the Junior Red Cross, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Boys Brigade and church groups involving, in the main, West Indian youth. This is due partly to their parents’ familiarity with these organisations before arrival in Britain, and partly because of the appeal of the uniforms and ideologies of these organisations. West Indian church organisations have also been particularly successful in recruiting West Indian youth."

    "The West Indian population has a particularly high incidence of one-parent families. In fact, the General Household Survey 1972 reported that 13 per cent of West Indian households were comprised of single-parent families, compared with 9 per cent in the general population. Apart from this, the extent of full-time female employment in minority groups probably leads to a greater demand for pre-school day-care provision from the black population than from the general population."

    "The popular stereotypes of black workers as being shiftless, lazy, and living off social security must be challenged. For far from being ‘work shy’, it was argued that minorities in Britain have been, in general, ‘more industrious than white people’. In fact, apart from the single exception of Moslem women (many of whom were prevented from going to work by cultural factors) the proportion at work, by 1977, was the same or higher among all minority groups than among comparable white groups.

    In this comparison, the age factor is important since far more whites than the minorities are above retiring age. Moreover, there were far more black working mothers than white. In addition, full-time rather than part-time work was more the norm among Asian and West Indian women than among women generally."

    "The explanation that inadequate English is responsible for the low job levels of Asian men is unfounded for ‘there is a very strong relationship between fluency in English and academic qualifications – so strong, in fact, that nearly all Asian men with degree-equivalent qualifications speak English fluently. Nevertheless, a substantial proportion of them are doing manual jobs’. Furthermore, among West Indian, Indian and African Asian women, job levels were lower than for white women. It was also found that in regions containing the main concentrations of Pakistanis (Yorkshire, Humberside and the North-West) there were comparatively high proportions of minority men doing unskilled or semi-skilled manual jobs."

    "Comparing white and minority men at each job level, it was found that at the higher level, Whites earned ‘substantially more’ than the minorities; at the middle levels, they earned ‘about the same’ ; and at the lower levels, the minorities earned ‘more’ than Whites."

    "Among Asians, the facts do not bear out the popular view of them as shopkeepers. Apart from African Asians, the proportion of all the minority groups working in the distributive trades was relatively low by 1977. The African Asian accounted for 15 per cent, compared with 13 per cent of the whole workforce. Further it was found to be untrue that a high proportion of Asians were controlling small businesses of various kinds, such as shops and restaurants. While self-employed white men accounted for 12 per cent of the working population, the proportion was lower among the minority groups: 8 per cent of Asian working men and 6 per cent of West Indian were self-employed."

    "The PEP Report of 1977 demonstrated very clearly the existence of ‘very substantial racial discrimination against Asians and West Indians when seeking manual jobs and that discrimination is worse for non-skilled than for skilled job applicants’. This discrimination was based on a ‘general colour prejudice’ which does not distinguish between people of different racial groups with different religions, speaking different languages and coming from different countries. They tended to be all lumped together as ‘coloured people’.

    The results of correspondence testing showed that Asian and West Indian applicants for white-collar jobs were discriminated against in 30 per cent of cases, compared with only 10 per cent for Italian applicants.

    Bearing in mind that the method employed identified discrimination only at the screening stage, a level of 30 per cent is very substantial. Smith argued that if nearly one-third of Asian and West Indian applicants failed to get an interview because of discrimination, we should expect an even higher proportion to fall by the wayside, as a result of unfair treatment by the time a selection is finally made. Indeed, the very much lower figure for Italian applicants showed that discrimination in manual jobs was based largely on colour prejudice."

    "Racial discrimination reinforced this cultural confinement, by discouraging contacts outside the communities."

    "In May 1965 one of the first important ‘immigrant’ strikes took place at Courtaulds Red Scar Mill in Preston over management’s decision to force Asian workers (who were crammed with a few West Indians, into one area of the labour process) to man more machines for proportionately less pay. This first skirmish has become a landmark in black labour history in Britain. The weaving firm, Red Scar, used chemical processes in making its products. Workers in the Tyre Cord Spinning Department supervised a bank of spindles on a machine. Not surprisingly, throughout 1964 Courtaulds was seeking improved productivity from its plants and in the person representing management at Red Scar duly negotiated (without consultation with the workers) a deal with the regional organiser of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. Thus, a devious deal was struck. After signing an agreement, the union official told the shop stewards (only one of whom was Asian) to convene a meeting and get the workers to accept supervision of one and a half machines instead of the existing one. The financial reward for this was a ten shilling bonus a week. Incensed by this, the workers called a meeting with the union’s regional organiser who was asked to explain his ‘agreement’ with Red Scar management. His attempt to explain his indefensible action was jeered. The workers drew his attention to the fact that the agreement meant a 50 per cent increase in output for a 3 per cent increase in their wage !

    Needless to say, they voted against the new proposals. Consequently, the plan to increase productivity at the expense of disproportionate wages, an unviable proposition in the face of unanimous black workers’ resistance, was shelved for a month.

    This brief respite was ominous. The ever resourceful capitalist cunning was put into operation. Without warning, the workers on the afternoon shift were suddenly confronted with new work allocations. The line managers moved in with red paint and brushes and drew boundary lines along the machines dividing them into halves. Each worker was now allocated the supervision of 1 ½ machines. The men promptly refused and staged a sit-in to management’s astonishment. This action resulted in machines being clogged. There was chaos for 17 hours. In their final act of solidarity that day, the black workers, most of them Indians and Pakistanis, walked out.

    They went on strike for three days. Predictably, the TGWU Chairman at the factory, Richard Roberts, immediately began a campaign to get the strikers back to work, before any negotiations could begin. Clearly he was sympathetic to management’s threat that they would not negotiate under duress. After all, he was the link man, the mediator, the ‘responsible’ trade union leader. He could not therefore be seen to be disruptive of the smooth operation of the firm’s policy objectives. In short, the trade union officials had to be experts at man-management (for example, keeping workers within the established norms of productivity), an approach welcomed by the employer who saw human beings only in terms of labour cost.

    Revealing his, and clearly the trade union hierarchy’s position, Roberts told the press that the strike was ‘unofficial’ and ‘racial’. He told Paul Foot, the journalist, ‘I could have said it was “tribal” but that might have been a bit unfair.’ Playing ‘unfair’ then was not outside the bounds of possibility in official trade union thinking. Uncharacteristic of a ‘responsible’ trade unionist, one might add.

    Regardless of his and the union’s views, the strikers had been through a painful experience. Though disorganised (and lacking in trade union experience) they were resolute, staying out until mid-June. During this period, with no ‘precept or precedent’ they made attempts to organise themselves. They were further disadvantaged by the fact that they had ‘no recourse to a black movement equipped to mobilise the assistance they needed to win’. In disarray, and vulnerable, the pressures were indeed great. Early in June, the 120 West Indians involved in the action returned to work after a ‘pep talk’ about ‘responsible behaviour’ by representatives of the West Indian High Commission who had called a ‘strike meeting’. Ultimately, the strike failed but not before it had exposed the active collaboration of the white workers and the union with management.

    The strike at Red Scar nevertheless was significant. For the first time in the industrial struggle of Asian workers, the black movement made a well publicised intervention during which Roy Sawh and Michael de Freitas (Michael X) of the Racial Adjustment Action Society (RAAS) made statements. While Sawh called for a separate union of Blacks, De Freitas later said that although he was against white people ‘he was not for separate unions’. In spite of the publicity focused on the dispute because of the intervention of the two RAAS speakers, the workers listened to these two militant West Indians, applauded their spirit and laughed at their anti-white jokes, ‘but couldn’t take them or their organisation as serious channels of industrial struggle. It was apparent to the workers from the beginning, that Michael X would bring them publicity in the quality Sunday papers, but no more. RAAS had no experience with mobilising an independent black revolutionary force in Britain, and didn’t seem to the workers as capable of analysing the issue of the strike, let alone mobilising national or international support for it.’

    When the Red Scar strike had ended, there was no shortage of views from reporters. John Torode advocated an educational drive by the union of their Asian workforces in order to avoid strikes. But would this alone alleviate the workers plight? Paul Foot, the socialist, felt ‘If the Red Scar strike shocks management and unions into greater care over communication with and promotion of immigrant workers its consequences may not be as disastrous as they once threatened to be.’

    What is revealing is the fact that although the strike was fought by the immigrant workers (with the crucial support of the Asian community and in particular, the Indian Workers Association) they failed to win against their oppressive employers, because of the lack of official union support."
    -Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain, London / New York, Verso, 2017 (1987 pour la première édition).


    _________________
    « La question n’est pas de constater que les gens vivent plus ou moins pauvrement, mais toujours d’une manière qui leur échappe. » -Guy Debord, Critique de la séparation (1961).

    « Rien de grand ne s’est jamais accompli dans le monde sans passion. » -Hegel, La Raison dans l'Histoire.

    « Mais parfois le plus clair regard aime aussi l’ombre. » -Friedrich Hölderlin, "Pain et Vin".

    Johnathan R. Razorback
    Johnathan R. Razorback
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    Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain Empty Re: Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain

    Message par Johnathan R. Razorback Mer 21 Aoû - 15:23

    "To many black Caribbean women, migration to Britain meant some change in terms of status. Among rural Jamaican women who had migrated to Britain, of particular importance to the changes in their lives were the patterns of work and the control of economic resources. In fact, work has in many cases played the positive role of providing the economic support for women’s independence. In London, for example, isolation from relatives, loneliness and boredom at home is alleviated at work, which provides the opportunity to meet other people, to socialise and perhaps to learn new skills. Moreover, this economic underpinning, it was argued could disrupt close-knit networks, thus engendering a greater sense of independence.

    In 1974 for the first time nurses came out on strike in support of their demands for more money. Earlier, in 1972, auxiliary workers were among the first in bringing the strike weapon to the hospital. In doing so, they had acted in opposition to the myth that women administering to the sick, the young and the old should not behave in this ‘unprofessional’ way. Seen in historical perspective, this strike was but a manifestation of a long struggle.

    Nursing, the ‘caring profession’ nurtured in the traditions of the family and in waged employment in Britain and her former colonies, brought generations of black women conditioned to think in this way into British hospitals. There is then a historical connection between nationalisation of the British Health Service in 1948 and the migration of hospital workers with this tradition.

    A health service covering the whole working class (and not just those who could afford it) meant a massive recruitment of low-wage workers whose conditions of service could not seriously be challenged. But in the 20 years leading up to this first nurses’ strike, the class composition of nursing had changed. In 1874, this was said of nurses: ‘Many gentlewomen were recruited because it is the belief that this type of nursing required the highest type of women who were well educated.’ One hundred years later, this was clearly not the case, and clearly did not reflect the recruiting policy of the National Health Service. In fact, what used to be a vocation for women of the middle class in the nineteenth century was now a job for women of the working class, particularly for black and other migrant women. Black women were responsive to the idea of service, regardless of the circumstances. Interestingly unlike the high-brow status which nursing had enjoyed in the nineteenth century, in recent years, black nurses found it to be a job that few Englishwomen wanted.

    Overseas student nurses had been a major source of cheap labour for the British Health Service. The number of these nurses increased rapidly each year. In 1959 some 6000 arrived; by 1970 there were 19,000. They came mainly from the Caribbean, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Malaysia (and Ireland). Their desire to train as nurses was not always the paramount reason for their decision to come to Britain. However, once here they were contracted to work for the NHS for at least five years. In a new country and hopeful, they were willing to work hard and tolerate initial exploitation and harassment in the hope that things would get better. Indeed (unknown to them) many were deliberately directed to take the (SEN) State Enrolled Nurse training and qualification, instead of the SRN, the State Registered Nurse qualification. As it was, the SEN qualification was of no use to them outside Britain. At best, however, it guaranteed a trained, low-paid workforce on the ward floor. One way in which women from overseas were directed into SEN training was by demanding educational qualifications for the SRN which they were not likely to possess.

    Moreover, during their stay in Britain, they had to renew their permits through the hospital every six months. In addition they undertook to stay in Britain for a stipulated period of time after their training, so that Britain could benefit from ‘the training she has paid for’. Throughout her training, it was abundantly clear that the SEN pupil nurse repaid for her training ‘a million times over by the cheap labour she provided’. Understandably, there was no deviation from this policy which was fully implemented and reflected by the fact that in 1972 only 120 qualified nurses were allowed into Britain.

    But how was this labour allocated (stratified) in the National Health Service? Labour in the hospital was divided according to sex, race and age. Different jobs were done by people in different uniforms, getting different wages and having different degrees of power. Significantly, though (as black workers have come to expect), those who worked hardest had the least status and the least wages. During training as an SEN, a pupil nurse aged 21 during the first year of training, received an allowance of £1065 out of which a lodging charge of £120 was deducted. The salary scales for qualified SENs were: Enrolled Nurse, £1203–1455 with a lodging charge of £162; a Senior Enrolled Nurse, £1380-£1755 with a lodging charge of £192. The next and lowest grade was the unqualified nursing staff, the nursing auxiliaries. These workers at the age of 21 received a yearly income of £1053-£1293 and had to pay a lodging charge of £120.120 Given that the prospects for promotion for these two grades were virtually nil, the exploitation becomes even more oppressive.

    These divisions within the hierarchy were reinforced by the division between the ‘professionals’ and those who were not. While in theory every one had a chance of promotion, in practice very few got one promotion and fewer still more than one. There were two types of training. There was a two-year course leading to an SEN qualification which, in effect, could not lead to promotion. A large number of Asians, Irish and West Indians were deliberately directed to become SENs.

    For the unsuspecting new trainee, the trap was carefully laid. ‘When you are interviewed’, said one nurse, ‘they ask you if you want to do the course in two years or three, and all of us said we would like to do the two year course. It’s only when you get here that you realise that if you do two years, you will be an SEN.’ The SRN, on the other hand, goes through a three-year training and it is this qualification that gives a nurse the potential for promotion.

    Black women are predominantly employed in the lower grades, serving doctors, ‘professional’ nurses and patients. Indeed, so discouraging were their promotion chances that few black nurses entered the NHS as a vocation in the hope of becoming a matron. For the ever hopefuls who did, it very soon became clear that ‘this is not what they have been recruited for’. For black women nursing is essentially a job, nothing more. By refusing to treat it as a vocation they were not only exposing the real nature of nursing in the health services, but were undermining the hierarchy which is so dependent on their ‘wanting to be part of it’. For many nurses, the stark realism has led to despair.

    Together, black nurses and ancillary workers have laboured in the NHS in large numbers for more than a generation. Their cumulative experiences led to justified resentment and the dire need for change."

    "Young black women upheld the tradition of resistance and rebellion of their colonial forebears. During the late 1960s hundreds of young women participated in the Black Power organisations in Britain. This rebellion burst forth irrevocably. It was characterised by open confrontation with the police, against school authorities and employers, and also within their own families, all of whom were unable to restrain them. The bitterness of a sense of defeat, a common experience, rankled giving rise to their boldness.

    Inevitably, within the black community, violent clashes between mothers and daughters occurred as the push for independence pointed up the conflict between the conservatism of parents and the aspirations of their children. Consequently, hundreds of young black women were accommodated in hostels provided by the state. Sociologists, psychologists, the police and community relations workers were quick to blame black mothers for ‘not caring’ enough. This was a superficial and unwarranted attack for it was a denial of the essential fact that the black mother ‘has always had to carry the burden of the black family’ from slavery, through colonialism and the racism and sexism inherent in wage slavery in Britain.

    However, what distinguishes this rebellion of young black women from their mothers is the fact that they know what is available now in Britain and want it ‘without having to be wage slaves’. They demand better jobs and in general a better deal.

    The question at issue is not simply concern over young people refusing to do the work their parents were forced to do. Rather they oppose the alternative activity practised by the youth because it makes them vulnerable to the police. However, what parents failed to see was that the refusal to do traditional immigrant jobs meant that there was less competition for the jobs they were doing and, therefore, they had the power to demand a better wage and negotiate better working conditions. To undermine this situation, the ever vigilant hospitals began recruiting cheap labour from southern Europe and the Philippines. The weakness of young black women stems from the fact that they lack a regular wage and the discipline that goes with getting one. To compound their problems the fact that many of these women had young children meant they suffered also from the powerlessness of being a housewife. Not surprisingly, many became desperate, and, it was argued, occasionally getting involved in mugging and shoplifting – manifestations of their powerlessness.

    The transition from receiving no wage at all in the West Indies (or at best a woefully inadequate and irregular one) to receiving a regular wage under the discipline of a modern industrial economy in the metropolis had given to older West Indian women ‘an access to power previously denied to them’.

    And although by 1975 the West Indian community was still relatively new, about a generation old, the black women on the National Union of Public Employees negotiating team had shown they were ready to have a say in exercising that power."

    "When asked what they thought of British trade unions, only 14 per cent of the Pakistanis were convinced enough to join. By comparison, the overall figure for all immigrants was 6.2 per cent, while that for English workers was 46 per cent."

    "It seemed clear that immigrant workers, a predominantly working age population with (originally) a relatively low number of children and dependants and a relatively small population of retirement age, made a substantial once-for-all net contribution to the economy. A careful study by members of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, concluded that taking ‘all social security expenditure and public expenditure on health and welfare benefits together, the average immigrant received about 80 per cent as much as the average member of the indigenous population in 1961 and the figure seems likely to be 85 to 90 per cent by 1981’."

    "To wage their own struggle (given the trade unions’ racism and backpedalling tactics) black workers formed their own combinations. For example, the Black Workers Co-ordinating Committee, Black Unity and Freedom Party and the Croydon Collective.

    Links were indeed forged with the Black Workers’ Alliance in an effort to agitate and struggle against racism at all levels. It was argued that the alliance must incorporate those organisations in our black communities that are equipped to participate in the struggle at the highest level. Together they must strive to develop the right political ideology among the black working class, so that it can be applied to black workers’ problems, and subsequently arrive at the right conclusions and the right tactical methods with which to tackle the stranglehold of state-instituted poverty and oppression. It was therefore necessary to understand the methods of the race-ridden capitalist state machinery, as all forms of oppression are interrelated."

    "In December 1981, a group of black trade union activists (Asians and West Indians) founded the Black Trade Unionists Solidarity Movement. They came together ‘to begin a united movement of all black people in Britain, to pressurise the existing institutions, and fight for our rights’. Membership was open to people of Asian, African and Caribbean descent, employed or unemployed. The BTUSM founders declared that as Black Trade Unionists they were concerned at the extent of racism in British society and particularly in the trades unions and labour movement.

    The disturbances in Brixton, Southall and other parts of London showed that black people are no longer prepared to accept unemployment, bad housing, police provocation and the institutional and individual racism inherent in British society.

    After several months of advertising its aims and objectives, BTUSM called its first Conference, in accordance with its first pledge, which was held on 4–5 June 1983 at County Hall, London. Notably, the Conference organisers had made arrangements for the accommodation of the disabled among the delegates and guests, and facilities for those with children. This Conference was a decisive move by black trade unionists; disenchantment and anger had given way to organisation and putting together a programme of action. Significantly, BTUSM has made it abundantly clear that they would work for changes within the trade union movement.

    The interesting thing about this development is that many militant black trade unionists see clearly the link between their workplace struggle and their community struggle. Thus, they have clearly stated their intention to organise and work within the trade union movement. In other words, they want white workers to recognise and act on the real, day-to-day problems of racism and sexism, so that together they can work effectively. So far however, the black initiative has met with only marginal response. Historically, the vast majority of trade unionists have been complacent about black workers and slow to act. The annual reports of the Trades Union Congress confirm this."
    -Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain, London / New York, Verso, 2017 (1987 pour la première édition).


    _________________
    « La question n’est pas de constater que les gens vivent plus ou moins pauvrement, mais toujours d’une manière qui leur échappe. » -Guy Debord, Critique de la séparation (1961).

    « Rien de grand ne s’est jamais accompli dans le monde sans passion. » -Hegel, La Raison dans l'Histoire.

    « Mais parfois le plus clair regard aime aussi l’ombre. » -Friedrich Hölderlin, "Pain et Vin".


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    Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain Empty Re: Ron Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain

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