Black communities and workers in Britain are facing deepening institutional racism from the disproportionate impact of cuts to the criminalisation of black communities. 

In times of economic crisis, racism increases but instead of working to prevent this, mainstream political parties are pandering to Ukip, which in turn emboldens those who hold racist views to express them.

Cuts to legal aid and the introduction of employment tribunal fees means that access to justice is barred for those most likely to face injustice and discrimination, with yet another disproportionate impact on black people.

Black women and young black people face a multiple impact of disadvantage and discrimination. Public-sector job cuts have impacted disproportionately on black women — for example, in a London borough, black women made up 5 per cent of the workforce but 23 per cent of the redundancies. Because of the higher proportion of black workers — particularly black women — in the public sector, around 250,000 black workers will lose their jobs. 

For young black people, the tripling of university tuition fees means that education is out of reach and there is limited if any choice of work, with employers exploiting young workers on zero-hours contracts. 

When black people lose their jobs they stay unemployed longer because of the discrimination they face in the labour market. 

This is turn impacts on black families, who live in the most deprived areas geographically, which are the very same areas facing the deepest budget cuts, which in turn leads to the closure of local support and advisory services. This in economic vandalism. 

Migrant workers are being scapegoated and blamed for cuts and labelled benefit tourists, when the truth is that migrant workers claim fewer benefits than workers born in Britain and are net contributors to the economy. 

This attack on migrants has led to a climate of hostility and fear. 

The Immigration Act, which is probably the most racist piece of legislation to be introduced in my lifetime, received royal assent in May 2014 and seeks to create an apartheid-like state and a return to the “No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs” signs faced by my parents’ generation. 

It impacts on access to health services, landlords and driving licenses among other areas, effectively meaning that workers in these areas are expected to police immigration status.

My union PCS moved a motion at the TUC black workers conference in April on campaigning against the Immigration Bill and working with the Movement Against Xenophobia (Max). 

This motion was voted on by the conference to take as a motion to the TUC Congress. 

Max was born out of concerns about the racist and anti-immigrant policies coming out of the coalition government and campaigned against the Immigration Act. Unite the Union and PCS are supporters of Max.

The TUC black workers fringe at Congress takes place at lunchtime today and is focused on the Immigration Bill, asking whether the provisions of the act undermine our freedoms and racial cohesion.

Institutional racism in the police forces after the McPherson report has got worse, not better — in terms of racial abuse, stop and search, deaths at the hands of the authorities and disproportionate prison sentences, with families forced to fight for years and decades for justice. 

The United Families and Friends Campaign is a coalition of families who have lost family members due to state violence. Each October they hold an annual march to remember loved ones which the trade union movement has been supporting for a number of years. 

The multi-layered attack on black and migrant people in Britain has led to racism becoming more direct as those who hold racist views express these openly. 

This in turn creates a hostile, unwelcoming environment for those on the receiving end. 

We are seeing a pattern of not just individuals but organisations promoting racism which in turn has led to a number of black community anti-racism campaigns. 

Just recently we saw the Sainsbury “Get the Slave Look” display in an Oxford store used to promote the film 12 Years a Slave and the Asda “Ku Klux Klan” England flag. 

My organisation Barac UK is currently part of a campaign opposing Brett Bailey’s racist Exhibit B, Human Zoo exhibition scheduled to take place at the Barbican this month. The exhibition objectifies black people, for example, by shackling them, putting them in cages and iron masks. It is a degrading, offensive exhibition which the Barbican has claimed is educational and empowering, but we have to ask for whom, given that it is an exercise in privilege and power. 

At £20 a ticket to see it, even if they wanted to go, most austerity-hit black families would not be able to afford to. 

In just over a fortnight 15,000 people have signed an online petition. Readers are invited to join the lobby of the City of London Corporation on Thursday September 11 and the petition hand-in protest on Saturday September 13. Details can be found at www.blackactivistsrising
againstcuts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09.

If the Barbican and other arts institutions were truly interested in challenging racism through art they would commission the many black artists whose work documents a lived experience of the legacy of racism.

Such events mean that black people and migrants are constantly fighting in order to challenge racism. But the cuts to the voluntary sector mean that many organisations focused on challenging or monitoring racism have lost their funding. 

In April I curated the Roots Culture and Identity art exhibition. It was hosted by the TUC and took place in the Marble Hall of Congress House. 

Following the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, the TUC set up a task group to examine institutional racism and one of the agreed actions was to make the Marble Hall available to showcase the talents of young black people. 

Young black artists face multiple discrimination because of race and age but also under-representation in the creative industries because of institutional racism and cuts to arts funding. 

We are currently touring the exhibition, with both PCS and CWU hosting it this autumn. We call on the wider trade union movement to show their support and do the same to give these artists an opportunity to bring their art to a wider audience and make connections with the trade union movement. 

More information and examples of their art can be viewed at zitaholbourne.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04.

Barac UK is planning a national pre-election conference in the spring focused on the impact of austerity on the labour market and inviting all trade union black members’ forums to attend. 

It’s essential that the trade union movement work with black communities and support community campaigns challenging racism and injustice as well as fighting the discrimination we face in the workplace, the labour market and wider society.

Zita Holbourne is co-founder and national co-chair of Barac UK. She is a member of the PCS national executive committee, TUC race relations committee, Actsa national executive council and Max steering group. She is a poet, visual artist, curator and writer.