TSSA Challenging Racial Discrimination at Network Rail

TSSA is asking for your help in campaigning to remove the barriers faced by our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic members whilst at work.

Our self-organised group for BAME members, E-Mix has identified a number of challenges including: Lack of promotional opportunities; Lower pay; Increased likelihood of being disciplined and many more.

Network Rail have undertaken an ethnicity pay gap analysis, leading to them launching the 'Race Matters' initiative which they presented to the TSSA BAME conference in May 2020. Some of the findings from the report within the ethnicity pay gap reporting presentation correlated with what TSSA members have been telling us:

• BAME external applicants applying for roles fare better than internal BAME applicants applying for roles. White internal candidates fare far better both internally and externally.
• BAME employees are underrepresented in their organisation, but especially in senior leadership positions.  
• BAME employees are proportionally less likely to be given a secondment than white colleagues.
• BAME employees were almost twice as likely to receive the lower rating than white colleagues.
• BAME employees were more likely to have stress-related absences than their white colleagues.
• And in that last year, BAME employees were twice as likely to be dismissed as white employees.  

Since Network Rail have identified these findings after conducting their own pay gap reporting and launched the 'Race Matters' initiative, they have made some small inroads into tackling the above issues, however, a lot more needs to be done to close the gap.

 Your input is vital

It's important we have your input into how this may have or may not have improved since 2020, when it was presented to the TSSA BAME conference. You can email Ricky Jones to describe your experiences via link below:

We are also running focus groups to gain more detailed feedback from TSSA members, reps and activists. At TSSA, your voice matters so please sign up to participate in a focus group by emailing Ricky. 

With your support, we want to make these necessary challenges to your employer and many others who haven't yet even gone as far as doing their own ethnicity pay gap reporting.

It's not just about providing a "Race Matters Initiative" it's about taking positive action to address these issues as appalling as the ones described by Network Rail's report. With your support we want to make sure that TSSA, with the help of the TUC, are taking the necessary action to support our multicultural members who work within our industry. 

It’s not just about identifying these issues which your Union TSSA has been challenging the company over, but to implement the crucial changes, and Make It Happen!