From Everyday Racist Incidents at Work to Institutional Racism: Migrant and Minority-Ethnic Workers’ Experiences in Older-Age Care

Nina Sahraoui

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-25089-8_5

Abstract

AbstractThrough a focus on experiences of racism and discrimination at the workplace level, as narrated by respondents themselves, this chapter attempts to shed light on some of the mechanisms that foster disintegration by impacting negatively on migrants’ and racialised minorities’ access and outcomes in the labour market. It explores non-EU migrant and minority-ethnic care workers’ experiences of racism and discrimination, as well as their coping strategies, within older-age care in London, Paris and Madrid. The chapter highlights that, against the background of contemporary manifestations of racism in interpersonal interactions being less overt, victims of racism often feel insecure about their ability to challenge such forms of racism. The chapter further analyses how, in the cases under study, managers tolerated manifestations of racism or sided with the dominant group. The chapter equally examines how managerial practices were, at times, directly discriminatory, ranging from unfair workloads to bullying and stigmatisation. Finally, it explores how workers coped with racism and racist discrimination and why these situations were particularly difficult to challenge legally. These lived experiences are, furthermore, inscribed in structural discriminations produced by the intersection of migration, employment and care regimes. The chapter sets out to relate the level of individual interactions to the workings of institutions in order to inform our understanding of how policies can produce disintegration. It argues that challenging these inequalities, and the resulting configurations of power relationships at the workplace level, requires a political economy analysis of the conditions under which racism and discrimination thrive.

Highlights

Analysed as part of an institutional context shaped by employment rights, migration policies and anti-discrimination legislation and practice, such narratives reveal how these experiences reflect differentiated forms of institutional racism
The following section provides insights into selected aspects of migrant and minority-ethnic care workers’ experiences of racism at work and points out why some elements amount to institutional racism
While the discourses and practices around anti-discrimination legislation present notable differences in each of these countries, as outlined above, the structural vulnerabilities created by the intersection of migration/racialisation, employment and care regimes produced similar challenges for the everyday experiences of racialised workers in the three cities under study here

Summary

Introduction

If you see somebody oppressing someone, you have to speak up or if you can’t do anything, in your mind you have to be against it. Through the analysis of non-EU migrant’ and minority-ethnic care workers’ narratives around their experiences and perceptions of racism and discrimination within older-age care in London, Paris and Madrid, this chapter attempts to shed light on some of the mechanisms fostering disintegration. It addresses in this regard what is at the heart of integration – equality of both access and outcome for migrants and racialised minorities – named by the editors of this volume ‘equal participation in social systems’ (Collyer et al 2020). The last section explores how workers coped with racism and racist discrimination and why these situations were difficult to challenge legally

Methodology

Racialisation, Institutional Racism and Anti- discrimination Policies

Everyday Racism at Work Embedded in Power Relationships

Racist Attitudes Amongst Colleagues

Discrimination and Harassment by Managers and Employers

Challenging Racist Practices Collectively

Findings

Conclusion