I got myself involved in a small controversy over there on Twitter.
I was reading a fairly vigorous thread from a group called “Staff of Colour”, about their many grievances against their employer, who is Nottingham Castle. The specific nature of their grievances is quite difficult to discern, but I’ll come to that later.
They tweet often and ubiquitously about how bad their employer is. They are, according to the Staff of Colour, sex pests, they are sexist, they bully and harass staff, they break the law, they don’t follow charity commission rules and regulations, they are incompetent, and they don’t have any or any sufficient skills to do their job, they lack experience and they are institutionally racist.
They post their complaints anonymously, saying they are afraid their employer will victimise them if they identify themselves as aggrieved employees.
I, perhaps foolishly, suggested that they should work through their union and that the great characters in black history, the ones we know about and remember, were those who stood up to be counted rather than whinging about it behind anonymity. I urged them to fight the employer through their union who has the training, the skills and motivation to handle such disputes while protecting vulnerable workers.
Whoops! I shouldn’t have said that for I was promptly blocked from developing that line of argument.
I was thinking of people like Rosa Parks and some of the other great black American champions of racial equality and civil rights. But also, of Black English characters like William Cuffy, a black trade unionist who went on strike with the Tailors Union, way back in 1834, in the full knowledge, it might cost him his job. As indeed it did. And in Nottingham itself, people such as Louis Broady (you can check him out here), or George Powe, trade unionist and socialist author of “Don’t Blame the Blacks”, and Bill Morris the local union activist who rose to become General Secretary of the TGWU.
I was told in rather blunt terms by a black academic that I was wrong, knew nothing of racial struggle and should not see the grievances of the Staff of Colour simply as a workplace dispute.
I thought about it for quite a while and went back and re-read the Twitter thread, and browsed my library for a bit, before deciding that in fact I am right and that dissatisfied workers, coloured (to use their word) or white, really ought to take their grievances to the union first, before setting up a separate group of disgruntled collages, which by definition separates the workforce into staff of colour and staff of non-colour ( to use their terminology) rather than just employees acting together in the union.
There are one or two rather important examples of what I suggested. The Mansfield Mill workers, members of the Hosiery and Knitwear Union, almost all of them immigrants, struck in the early 70s against an employer that refused to promote black workers, practised harassment and bullying and kept them in the lowest paid of jobs. Classic institutional racism. There was even racism in their union. They won their dispute. The General Secretary of the National Union of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers described it as “perhaps the most significant dispute in the union’s history” After the dispute, a significant number of immigrant workers were promoted. They had stood their ground, fought and won.
And of course, there are the women of Grunwick. Again, all immigrants, who struck against a racist employer in the full knowledge that it might cost them their livelihoods, and who, in a two-year struggle inspired trade unionists from across the UK with the stand they took. From John O Groats to Lands’ End, from Belfast to Brighton, they shone out as brave principled trade unionists prepared to take a stand. The dispute was lost and some of them did indeed lose their jobs, but they were and are heroes in the struggle against racism, who knew that to take on racism you need to stand up and be counted
Most of the members of the Staff of Colour group are no longer employed by Nottingham Castle. They were not sacked, they just moved on, so the argument that the castle might victimise them, or that they might lose their jobs, is rather moot. It is probably a further reason for them to stand up and be counted. It would help those still in the employment of the Castle, black and white, who might legitimately prefer, at this stage, anonymity. If they did, they would undoubtedly attract more respect and a lot more support from across the trade union movement. Victimised workers taking a stand, through their union would make their grievances a different and more powerful story altogether.
I suggested earlier that it was difficult to discern, from the Staff of Colour tweets, exactly what the specific grievances they may have with the employer actually are.
There is a letter of grievance that they sent to their employer. It is signed anonymously. I reproduce it below.
It is followed by a great flood of tweets mostly making the same point. They never, in all their tweets identify a specific incidence of employer discrimination, employer harassment or bullying against any specific employee (even an anonymous one) that would explain their grievances.
As in the grievance letter, they make wide general claims and mostly repeat the claims made by the Castle’s former Chief Executive Officer in a pending Employment Tribunal application for unfair dismissal.
They do so with such an intensity that it might well lead you to believe the account is a proxy account, or a support group for the ex-CEO and that its main purpose, is to embarrass the castle into settling with the CEO or to influence the Tribunal who will hear that claim.
Here are some examples of what I mean.
There is a further example tweeted recently that I would like to include but which I consider to be a slam dunk defamation against named individuals so I chose not to. You can visit their site and decide for yourself..
I am quite sure it is not a proxy account. The CEO would not be so foolish as to be associated with a group circulating her claims to the Tribunal in such a manner. It could backfire at the hearing.
But is pretty much a megaphone/echo chamber for the claims of the CEO and it, therefore, makes it difficult to discern the difference between what is their own specific grievances, acts of discrimination, acts of bullying or harassment, as opposed to those claimed by the ex-CEO.
A further difficulty in discerning the actual grievances is this; If any one of the Staff of Colour has experienced, at work, any of the following, then they have a legal claim against the employer, before a tribunal and in the case of unwanted inappropriate sexual behaviour, before a court. Yet there are no such claims apart from that of the CEO. If a union knew of such claims they would file papers within a week. If a lawyer, the next day
- Bullying and Harassment
- Racial discrimination
- sex discrimination
- inappropriate sexual behaviour
The ex-CEO is at least standing up and putting her name to the claims she makes to the Tribunal. If she wins and brings home the allegations she makes, she will rightly become a cause celeb.
Clearly, the employees of the Staff of Colour group have a lot of dissatisfaction with their employer (although at least three or four of them are no longer employees)
They may well be right. The pending Tribunal will determine that, although they will not be allowed to appear as anonymous witnesses.
But as a workplace dispute, it needs somehow to be de-escalated. Not even Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT, slags off the railway employers to the degree occurring here. Because he knows it won’t help to do so, and that at some time, they are going to have to sit down with their employer, to negotiate and try and resolve and settle their dispute. If they can’t resolve them then the RMT will strike harder. That’s what unions do, and it would be far better, I believe, for these Castle grievances to be handed over to the professionals of a proper union and, to stand up and be counted as union members, black and white, fighting for their rights.
Can’t find the letter of grievance at the moment. Will edit it in when I do.
UPDATE (3rd August) I have now located the grievance letter and publish it below with a few notes of my own
Board of Trustees
Nottingham Castle Trust
Nottingham NG1 6EL
4 November 2021
Subject: FORMAL COMPLAINT – Response to the racist incident of 17 August 2021
Mr Ted Cantle, Chair,
Ms Susan Hallam, Vice-Chair, the Board of Trustees.
We are writing to you, as employees of colour at Nottingham Castle Trust, to express our deep concern, exhaustion and fear, in our current situation at the Castle. Out of real concern of losing our jobs for speaking out, we write to you anonymously and collectively. On 17 August 2021, a black curator, Panya Banjoko, and her family were racially abused and physically attacked in the grounds of Nottingham Castle. The subsequent poor handling of the incident, the treatment of Ms Banjoko and the lack of any formal anti-racist statement, have led to an environment of fear, distrust and extremely low-morale among staff of all backgrounds, but particularly those of colour. Staff have had to take sick leave, have been anxious and in tears at work on many occasions, and have shared with senior management that they are upset and stressed by the behaviour of the board in response to the racist attack on Ms Banjoko and her grandchildren. Twelve weeks on from the attack, Nottingham Castle Trust’s Board of Trustees have yet to offer any support to staff of colour, despite advice that it was of utmost importance. Irreparable damage has been done to the organisation’s relationships with communities and partners and public opinion is at an all-time low. The Board of Trustees are no longer allowing Nottingham Castle Trust (a museum of Nottingham and all its people) to serve the public interest. Following the sudden dismissal of our former-CEO, Sara Blair-Manning (with whom Ms Banjoko shared a good relationship), and at the time of the attack, the governance of Nottingham Castle was in the hands of Trustees. Indeed, even now with an interim-CEO in place, the Board continues to exert control over communications and other aspects of the organisation’s day-to-day running. After the incident of 17 August, Trustees fell silent on the one subject most crucial to maintaining staff wellbeing and public confidence – that of an anti-racist statement. When urged repeatedly by managers to issue an internal anti-racist statement to reassure staff, nothing was forthcoming. Trustees later acknowledged, in writing, their inaction in reassuring staff but continued to offer no support to managers in dealing with the growing anxiety in their teams, or indeed provide the much needed statement. At the same time, Trustees maintained that the incident was a police matter and that nothing would be said externally either, compounding what was already a steadily worsening reputation within the Black community and wider public. While it is true that police were investigating accusations surrounding the attack, the Trust’s handling of it, its attention to staff wellbeing or the issuing of an anti-racist statement were nothing to do with that investigation. The failure to issue any formal external statement (even to say that NCT opposes racism) was seen by staff of colour as potentially giving far-right groups a green light to be racist on our site. This fear was legitimised by other incidents of racism from members of the public on our site and the displaying of a ‘white lives matter’ banner by the Robin Hood statue. For us, as staff of colour, coming into work in the wake of this attack has been both emotional and frightening. No one from the Board of Trustees communicated with staff of colour to ask how we felt or reassured us that they are taking this seriously. In the only internal communication to go out to managers, Trustees said that an apology had been made in the comment section of a social media post, but that no further statement would be made. They said “controlling the media’s awareness of the incident has been a priority”. No priority was, or has yet, been given to the wellbeing of staff of colour. Trustees claimed to have “sat down” and had a positive conversation with Ms Banjoko, only for it to emerge that she had been approached on her way to her car by a Trustee and “accosted”, to use Ms Banjoko’s own word. There has been a distinct lack of empathy or compassion shown towards staff of colour and their experience of the event, so much so that several staff members and volunteers have quit their roles in protest, with others close to following. It is no exaggeration to say that seeing colleagues in tears is a daily occurrence. In several cases, the actions and inactions of the board have had a significant negative impact on the disabilities and ongoing illnesses of staff members of colour, leading to them having to be signed-off sick. It is an environment in which we no longer feel safe and one which we feel unable to endure any longer. We feel completely unsupported by Trustees, afraid that we will be victims of further racism and that no one will protect us were that to happen. We feel that had Ms Blair-Manning been allowed to remain in post, the handling of the incident of 17 August would have been very different and staff would have felt safe and reassured of the organisation’s seriousness in dealing with the incident, as well as staff wellbeing. Instead, Trustees communicated extremely poorly with Ms Banjoko, refused to apologise formally, attempted to blame this situation, via the media, on the former CEO and then hired what they called an ‘independent investigator’ into the incident. It quickly emerged that the person hired for the job had two connections to Trustees, meaning a conflict of interest. This was raised to the chair of the board, Ted Cantle, who first acknowledged the issue, conceding that a new investigator should be hired by the interim-CEO, and then several days later u-turned, again in writing, to say that there was no conflict of interest and that the appointed person would remain in post. For staff of colour, this is the latest evidence that the Nottingham Castle Trust’s Board of Trustees are not interested in fixing the problem of structural racism at the organisation, nor addressing the wellbeing of its employees of colour, but that they prioritise their own professional reputations above all else. We have had enough of this now and for that reason, see no choice but to share this letter publicly. We no longer have confidence in Ted Cantle to effectively chair the Board of Trustees and ask that pressure is applied on him to step down, along with other Trustees, to allow for a Board that is appropriate and more reflective of the diversity of Nottingham to take over. Until we see people with community backgrounds and people who look like us in positions of influence at Nottingham Castle Trust, we can not trust that the organisation will understand how to fix its own problems, listen to us, its staff, or fulfil its duty to correctly represent this city.
Signed, 7 current and former employees of colour at Nottingham Castle Trust.
Some notes on this letter.
It does not identify a single act of discrimination against any employee, black or white
It reiterates their support for the former CEO who the Trust sacked and who has a Tribunal pending. All their subsequent tweets are in support of that CEO
It endorses the complaint of the black grandmother re the alleged racist attack.
It expresses” fear” of a further racist attack when they know (the authors of the letter) that the “racial abuse and attack” was carried out by an eight-year-old girl with learning difficulties. This is just nonsense – are they expecting an invasion of racist eight-year-olds?
Their complaint about the absence of an anti-racist statement had some value, but note, not a word about the failure of the former CEO to issue one or advocate for one.
Broadsides - A collection of bits and pieces 
You are the voice of reason and common sense John .
Your arguments are sound and your refusal to be bullied is admirable
Thanks for that Sue. Quite needed!
I support Susan Dennis’ view John. Everything I have read, or researched, concerning you, has given me enormous respect for your views and judgement. You have long strived to support and help people in overcoming injustice and attaining and retaining their rights regardless of their status, race, or colour. I abhor the way that social media is used now to bully and intimidate, often anonymously!