The toolkit is for active PDA Representatives, members, and other pharmacists. It is used to analyse workplaces and will help create a pharmacy sector that doesn’t just challenge racism but is actively anti-racist.
The PDA’s approach to the toolkit is founded upon 3 things:
- Roger Kline’s research. This demonstrates that accountability and debiasing processes are the underpinning factors in ensuring that all staff are treated fairly and not influenced by biases and stereotypes that distort decision-making and cause discrimination.
- The PDA’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) values. This is evidenced in member representation and educating members on their employment rights, campaigning and lobbying on behalf of their members, challenging employers to treat pharmacists fairly, and empowering members through various PDA EDI Networks to tackle issues around discrimination.
- The Trade Union Organising framework. This is a practical approach to support members to come together, assess their employer and decide which areas in their workplace will require work and bring to life the PDA values and theory set out in Roger’s research.
The toolkit includes:
- Race and BAME terminology factsheet to help fill the gaps in members’ knowledge around discrimination.
- Further details on Roger Kline’s 6 essential criteria, which sets out the approach to creating an anti-racist workplace environment and informs members on what good practice looks like.
- A member questionnaire, which can be shared in member meetings, face to face, or circulated electronically to colleagues to enable PDA Reps and active members to find out what is important to them.
- An employer questionnaire that can be shared electronically with management and other relevant departments. The aim is to gather answers to questions raised and secure evidence as to what an employer is doing in those specific areas to be anti-racist.
- A PIPOW (Problem Information Plan and Organising to Win) action template, which can be used with members and colleagues to analyse the results from the research and help decide which areas to improve on.
- The PDA Anti-Racist Charter is a 6-point plan that has been designed by the BAME Committee. The PDA is asking employers to adhere to this and pharmacists and allies to support this, as it will help members hold their employers to account.
Download the toolkit here
Pharmacy is a very diverse industry, as 44% of the entire workforce identifies as BAME, which equals 9 out of 20 pharmacists. However less than 1% of those in leadership positions are of BAME background.
As diverse as the workforce is, BAME pharmacists are still being underrepresented in leadership positions and not given access to opportunities for career progression. A recent survey of the BAME Network highlighted that the 3 main issues BAME pharmacists face at work is racism, lack of representation in leadership positions, and lack of access to career progression opportunities.
From a legal perspective, cases of racism and discrimination are often handled individually and are confidential. This toolkit provides an alternative way. It puts the power into members’ hands and creates an opportunity for them to come together collectively, using the PDA’s approach and Roger Kline’s research to create an anti-racist employer.
In fact, Roger highlights in the research that perhaps the most important criterion is for workplaces to be ‘organised’ if members want to see positive changes to the work climate. This is exactly what the PDA and other unions do to support members. The approach requires trade unions, as well as HR directors, to collectivise the issues and to work proactively and preventatively to embed accountability and interventions backed by evidence. This is just one of the reasons why the PDA established their EDI Networks and rep networks, so that members can have a collective voice at work. Together, they can hold leaders to account on equality, diversity and inclusion issues and work towards creating anti-racist working environments for all pharmacists. It is only through union organising that members will see a rebalancing of the power between employees and employers.
The PDA encourages every member of the BAME Network and allies to:
- Read and share the toolkit.
- Carry out the employees’ surveys.
- Enquire about your employers’ policies and practice and gather the evidence in relation to issues raised by employees.
- Endorse the PDA Anti-Racist Pharmacy Charter.
If you are unsure of where to start, please contact PDA Organising Assistant, Manuella Asso via email manuella.asso@the-pda.org.
Get involved
- Join the PDA BAME Network here.
- Follow the PDA BAME Network on social media using the hashtag #PDAbame
Learn more
- PDA BAME Network
- The PDA’s Anti-Racist Pharmacy Toolkit
- National Inclusion Week
- PDA BAME Network requests nominations for upcoming elections
- March BAME Newsletter
Not yet a PDA member?
If you have not yet joined the PDA, we encourage you to join today and ask your colleagues to do the same.
Membership is FREE to pharmacy students, trainee pharmacists, and for the first three months of being newly qualified.
Read about our key member benefits here.