Marking the 20th anniversary of the TUC black workers conference the TUC race relations committee hosted a well-attended and successful fringe meeting at TUC Congress this week entitled Race, Racism and Austerity, Defending Workers, Communities and Trade Unions.

The meeting was chaired by TUC general council member and TUC race relations committee chairwoman Gloria Mills.   

As a member of the committee I was part of the team that organised the event and spoke on the panel in my role as national co-chair of Barac UK.

The other speakers were  London Assembly Member Jennette Arnold, Houari Ziane from the RMT J33 campaign, which is fighting for justice for 33 agency workers who were sacked by London Underground, and, recognising that racism is a global issue, our international speaker was leading Brazilian student activist Tamiris Pereira Rizzo from the Brazilian student union Anel and the University of Sao Paola.

Tamiris reported on Anel's recently organised three days of national strike action and other direct action such as blockading the motorways in response to price increases on public transport.

On two of the strike days Anel was supported by six other union federations.

Tamiris went on to talk about the way in which racism is affecting the lives of black workers in Brazil and the growth of a new black consciousness movement responding to the deepening impact of poverty, racism and class discrimination.

She told delegates about the attempts of the Brazilian government to socially and ethnically cleanse parts of Rio in preparation for the Olympic games which we could relate to as it was poor and black communities in the host boroughs for London 2012 that were negatively impacted by the Olympics here.

Illustrating the impact of racism and injustice in Brazil, Tamiris informed delegates that in Brazil a black youth dies violently every 25 minutes.  

ANEL is affiliated to the Black Quilombo Race and Class Movement in Brazil.  

Standing in front of the Quilombo banner at the end of the meeting for a photo opportunity we held up a placard asking: "Where is Amarildo?"

Amarildo, a black construction worker earning less than minimum wage, was arrested by police and has not been seen again, while his wife and children are being harassed by the police.  

In response black communities in Brazil have been running a campaign asking where is Amarildo in order to raise awareness of his plight and put pressure on the police.

Houari Ziane reported on the ongoing campaign by RMT for justice for 33 Trainpeople agency workers whose jobs were terminated this year despite them having been in their posts for up to five years.

Twenty-nine of the 33 are black and a third of them women.

All joined RMT and successfully campaigned for equal pay with permanent workers, only to be victimised for standing up for their rights when the employer failed them in assessment centre roleplay exercises for permanent jobs.  

Ziane called on delegates and trade unions to join them at their weekly Monday protests at London Bridge Tube station from 8am to 10am as part of their campaign for justice for the 33.

Arnold talked about the impact of cuts on black communities, particularly young black people, bringing a message of solidarity to black activists and congratulating trade unions and black community campaigners for the work they do.

The success of joint community and trade union campaigns was highlighted, including the Mary Seacole curriculum campaign and the Olympics Voice Media Accreditation campaign that I was involved in, leading the latter.

In my contribution I spoke about the particular impact of cuts on black young people with one in two out of work and many being barred from education by cuts.

Black women face a particularly bleak prospect, with 17-20 per cent of black women out of work compared with 6.8 per cent of white women and I discussed the severity of public-sector job cuts on black women, as illustrated by the case of two London boroughs where black workers made up 5 per cent and 31 per cent of the workforce but 23 per cent and 63 per cent of redundancies.

I spoke about the need for trade unions to work with community organisations and justice campaigns in order to challenge the ever-increasing injustice and racism being experienced by black people in Britain.

I called on them to not wait to be asked for support and solidarity as most of these groups survive solely of strength and determination of those involved with little or no resources or finances.

I asked participants to go back to their unions and where commitment to combating racism was lacking to challenge this, making it clear that race and racism are trade union issues and not the sole responsibility of those on the receiving end to address.

It's not enough to be against racism. Trade unions have a responsibility to actively campaign to bring about race equality.  

It's not enough to attend counter-demos against the far-right. Activists must also stand with black workers and communities and challenge the everyday racism they experience and work to end institutional racism and racist harassment and bullying.

Racism destroys the lives of black workers, families and communities - the trade union movement must demonstrate its commitment to destroy racism through collective action.

Zita Holbourne is elected to the TUC race relations committee and the PCS union national executive committee. She is the co-founder of Barac UK.