Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (Barac) UK was formed in 2010 to defend young black and ethnic minority workers from austerity and cuts, which amplify the already existing discrimination towards them in the labour market.

Over the past five years the disproportionate impact of cuts on this group has been largely ignored or disregarded by government, politicians and media, alongside the double impact on black and minority ethnic women and black workers generally.

When young black people are featured in the national debate they are demonised and blamed.

There is no serious consideration of the crisis they face, which has included the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance, the tripling of university fees, a lack of work opportunities, discrimination in the labour market and an increase in zero-hours contracts and casual work, which is often the only option when they do get a foot in the door.

This is combined with the knock-on impact of young BME people’s families being hit by poverty because of job cuts, increased pension contributions for public-sector workers, pay freezes, low pay and discrimination at work.

There are over a million young people unemployed but one in two young BME people are without work.

In addition to this, the failure to adhere to the Macpherson recommendations arising out of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry means that institutional racism in the police still affects young black people.

They are racially profiled and targeted disproportionately for stop and search — they are up to 33 times more likely to be stopped than their white counterparts.

They also face racial and religious stereotyping and harassment in education, the workplace and wider society.

The Labour Party recently released a report based on official figures from the House of Commons, revealing that there are now 41,000 16 to 24-year-olds from black and minority ethnic communities who are long-term unemployed — a 49 per cent rise since 2010, with the number unemployed for more than a year having risen by 50 per cent since the Con-Dem coalition took power.

A Labour spokesman declared his astonishment at the figures, but the question is: what is Labour doing and what commitment is it giving to address this horrendous situation?

Equality impact assessments are treated largely as tick-box exercises. When a judicial review was taken by a union because redundancies were falling disproportionately on black and disabled staff, a judge ruled that a made-up retrospective diversity impact assessment was sufficient to demonstrate due regard.

This indicates that the courts have no real understanding of Equality impact assessments and equality duties.
When black workers or applicants do wish to pursue legal action, employment tribunal fees prohibit austerity-stricken would-be claimants from lodging cases.

In 2010 Barac served a freedom of information request on the Treasury asking it for an equality impact assessment to demonstrate what consideration it had given to the impact of its proposed cuts on BME people.

Its response was to cite public interest immunity as a reason for not making the equality impact assessment public.
Cuts to the Equality and Human Rights Commission have meant that work on enforcement has reduced, despite a damning report produced by the Commission for Racial Equality just before it was abolished, which demonstrated that the majority of public-sector organisations were failing to comply with their equality duties.

In a speech to the CBI in November 2012 David Cameron said he was “calling time” on equality impact assessments, describing them as “bureaucratic nonsense” and “tick-box stuff.”

He said they were unnecessary because there were enough “smart people in Whitehall” who would think about equality when developing policy.

As a mother of a young black man I have witnessed first-hand the soul-destroying attitude of employers towards young black people in the labour market and have advised, campaigned and represented some of those young black people in discrimination cases against educational institutions and workplaces.

My son is in his final year of university but when he approaches employers in his chosen career, for which he has studied for the past three years, he is largely ignored.

Letters seeking not just paid work but internships, work experience or shadowing opportunities are ignored and he does not even receive a response the vast majority of the time.

When he does it is to inform him that he must have experience in order to be successful in securing opportunities to gain experience.

The whole point is that he needs the opportunities to gain experience to apply for jobs.

One employer for a part-time job he applied for working in a coffee shop told him that he wasn’t suitable even though he had recent experience in the catering industry because he wasn’t experienced in making coffee.

What happened to training people to do a job? How long would it take to train someone to make coffee?

The truth is that it has nothing to do with experience but an excuse to reject young black people by employers, many of whom have no regard for equality legislation or policies.

The experience of many young BME people trying to enter the labour market is that employers are not interested in giving them opportunities or investing in them for the future.

Many public and voluntary-sector employers are still cutting jobs as part of the Con-Dem coalition’s austerity measures and when young black people do get jobs they often experience a climate where institutional racism and harassment and bullying are allowed to thrive.

Every day is a battle for survival — job satisfaction and security are alien concepts.

The jobs available are minimum wage, casual and temporary posts and mostly on zero-hours contracts. This means that they can’t plan for the future, save, rent a home — let along think about buying one — and they don’t know if they will earn enough to survive from one week to the next.

Cuts to the public and voluntary sector mean that the opportunities are no longer there for a new generation of black workers.

There were over 37,000 fewer BME public-sector workers in 2012 than 2010, with the biggest losses in the south-east with 12,702 fewer BME workers.

Of the 17,000 voluntary and community organisations working with minority ethnic communities in the UK, 53 per cent had received funding from statutory sources and many of these organisations have been forced to close their doors because of funding cuts.

Forcing public-sector workers to work longer in order to receive their pensions means that young people will be practically middle-aged before they even get a foot on the career ladder in the public sector.

Instead of blaming each other for this crisis, political parties ought to be seriously looking at an urgent and robust action plan to address this horrendous discrimination — and not just talking about it but putting their words into action.

Young black people don’t have a whole lifetime to waste in poverty and misery waiting for the government to address discrimination and should not have to live like third-class citizens in the meantime. A whole generation is being failed and rejected.

In the run-up to the the general election, black communities don’t need to hear from political candidates how terrible it all is. We know this — we are living and breathing it and, as a parent, it fills you with anger, dread and pain in equal measure to know that a worse future is being passed to your children than was passed to you by your parents who faced horrific racism.

What we need to hear and see is real and urgent commitment, effort and action to address this gross discrimination. In the meantime we should consider boycotting those employers who discriminate against young BME people.

- Zita Holbourne is national co-chair of Barac UK.