Racism at Work: A community legal toolkit for navigating workplace race discrimination in England & Wales

By Sistren Legal Collective

Workplace Racism

Summary

What do we do when we experience racism at work? This toolkit is for anyone who has experienced race discrimination in the workplace. It is written for people – employees, workers and individuals in work trying to make sense of their experiences and how the law might apply.

There is an asymmetric power imbalance inherent in traditional or hierarchical workplaces and bigger employers often have HR departments, legal teams or the financial means to obtain specialist resources. People usually do not.

Sistren, in partnership with Spark, undertook a trauma-informed survey exploring people’s lived experiences of workplace racism. Following that, with support from an employment law expert Melvyna Mumunie, Sistren has developed a free and accessible toolkit to help individuals navigate the legal channels available to them to address and challenge racism at work.

This toolkit is not legal advice, and you shouldn’t rely on it alone to make legal decisions or to take legal action.

Prologue

Why we developed this toolkit
Who this toolkit is for
How to read this toolkit
Terminology & language
Trigger warning

Section 1:

Mapping the Employment Law Landscape

A brief history of employment law in England and Wales
The legal framework today
Where the law falls short
Understanding the Equality Act in the context of race discrimination at work
Black women, misogynoir and employment rights
Mental health and race discrimination

Section 2:

People’s Stories: Applying the Law to Navigate Race Discrimination at Work

Legal terms used
Caution!
Be aware of time limits!
Scenario 1: Experiences during interviews for recruitment or promotion
Scenario 2: Experiences when being considered for a promotion
Scenario 3: Experiences of microaggressions, stereotyping and isolation in the workplace
Scenario 4: Experiences of racially insensitive ‘jokes’ or ‘banter’
Scenario 5: Experiences of being undermined, excluded or isolated
Scenario 6: Experiences of feeling unsafe at, and in accessing, work

Section 3:

Section 3: Taking Action: A Practical Checklist

Whether to take action
How to take action
Practicalities to be aware of
- Request reasonable adjustments
- Maintain continuity and mitigate losses
- Time limits are critical
- ACAS Early Conciliation
- Getting legal advice and deciding when to go to the Employment Tribunal
- Document request and data rights
- Interim safeguarding measures
- Training and organisational remedies
- Process literacy is protection

Epilogue

Disclaimer; Licensing & Use

Racism at Work toolkit

Downloads

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Racism at Work toolkit

Authors

Licence

This guide is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

This means you are free to use it to create or develop your own policies and processes.