Occupational ghettos

This paper argues that employment practices constitute the operations of the labour market and that these are taken for granted in analyses of the place of immigrant and black labour. They are practices of very different kinds, with different objects, aims and calculations. One of their effects, in combination, has been to produce what is legally known and morally condemned as effective racial discrimination, and what are known in the economics of labour markets as secondary jobs. In order to succeed, struggles to eliminate racism and to achieve equality of opportunity will have to identify and change these practices. These practices go beyond a 'lack of provision for equal opportunity'. Here a general identification is attempted, and means suggested for taking such investigation further.