Transport for Wales welcomes first black female train crew
Two railway colleagues who realised they were the first all female and all Black traincrew to operate a Transport for Wales train have urged people of all backgrounds to join the railway.
Train driver Jamilla Fletcher and Train Manager Danielle Adams have said the found the company very welcoming and full of “fantastic opportunities”.
“I’ve felt really proud working here and what I’ve achieved,” said Danielle, from Cardiff.
“When I joined it was on the catering team but I worked hard and became a train manager.
“I was used to working in the transport industry so I did have an idea what to expect in terms of shift patterns and I have to say the training I received was really thorough.”
Surprise
While both work mainline services, rostering and shift patterns mean that it can be unpredictable which driver will be paired with which Train Manager on any given shift, so it was only when the pair got talking on arrival into Cheltenham Spa where their service turned round that they realised.
Incredibly, both Jamilla and Danielle both worked as cabin crew before joining the railway, with both having stints with Virgin and EasyJet. They also both spent time working for the NHS but didn’t meet until they joined Transport for Wales.
“It was incredible just how similar our career paths had been,” added Jamilla, who initially joined TfW as a dispatcher at Newport.
“We’d never met before but now we’re really good friends.
“When we worked together it wasn’t a conscious thing to think we were the first black female train crew, but we put the picture up internally and the reaction we had was fantastic.
“You do have to go into it with your eyes open in terms of the shift work, but I think it is a fantastic job and it would be amazing to see more people from different backgrounds and especially more women coming forward to apply.”
Pledge
Earlier this year Transport for Wales Chief Executive Officer James Price signed the Zero Racism Wales pledge as part of Transport for Wales’ commitment to support the anti-racist pledge
Mr Price said: “Transport for Wales should represent the communities we serve. When it comes to racial diversity, we’re currently falling far short of where we should be.
“Just 1.2% of TfW’s workforce are people from minority ethnic backgrounds. Among the Welsh general population, that figure stands at 9.4%.
“To improve, we’ve met with and learnt from other public sector organisations, community groups, academics and colleagues. Their honest feedback has been invaluable. I thank them for it. We hope this plan assuages their concerns and gives them faith in our intent to make tangible and effective changes.”
For more information about the opportunities available at TrC visit their website
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Martin Luther King spent a lifetime campaigning for skin colour to become irrelevant, and now we seem to be obsessed by it. I can guarantee that the least interesting thing about these two lovely young ladies is that they’re black!
I agree. I came on intending to post at greater length pointing out that as long as we’re reading news items like this one, we’re in effect tacitly acknowledging that race and ethnicity are still very much an unresolved issue here in Wales.
Which is a pity.
Direct forms of racism might have reduced, but is still a big issue, but it’s also the case that unconscious bias is a factor, and does have a negative effect. There is also the factor of the numbers: nearly 10% of the Welsh population is from a minority ethnic background, but only just over 1% of Trafnidiaeth Cymru’s workforce is from those communities. The number of Welsh speakers should be subject to similar scrutiny, but I suspect that such monitoring would be subject to such widespread criticism. At the end of the day, fairness in our society can only be… Read more »
I wasn’t at all intending to propose the end of monitoring – merely to suggest that its continuance shows that monitoring underlines the reality that race and ethnicity remains an unresolved issue.
Which, as I said, is a pity, given the length of time that it’s been an issue in our society.
By all means equalise opportunities (where genuinely needed), but history shows that equality of outcome is a catastrophic idea to aspire to. Unconscious bias is a crackpot hypothesis with no scientific underpinning whatsoever.
Bias is easily proved so if it’s not unconscious it must be conscious and intentional.
We’re talking about the ‘unconscious’ type: there’s no scientific evidence proving its existence..
Sounds like you’ve just been told unconscious bias is made up by some grifter on the internet and have decided to believe it contrary to the scientific peer reviewed evidence available. What a suprise.
As I’ve said before, point me in the direction of the ground-breaking scientific research paper that proves it exists and you will have my apology.
It is an unresolved issue in Wales.
And not just in Wales – it seems to be increasingly an unresolved issue across much of western Europe in more recent times.
A reflex that instantly portrays a good news story about individuals from a minority group as a example of obsession with people who are not white and a warning about the “catastrophe” of “equality of outcome”.
Would if unconscious bias is “a crackpot hypothesis with no scientific underpinning whatsoever” therefore logically be an example of conscious bias.
That’s a beautiful circular argument you have there!
I suggested that Adrian’s response was due to bias. If Adrian rules out the possibility of “unconscious bias” then that leaves conscious bias as the explanation.
The original premise may be wrong but it’s not a circular argument.
.
You claiming that there is bias does not make it so I’m afraid.
They seem like 2 bright people so we may get better services if they can be replicated quickly across the country.
The transport sector is still very much a male dominated industry. It’s good to see women, of whatever skin colour, getting the chance to work within the male dominated transport services.
Why is this even ‘news’? These are 2 highly skilled Women. Why should the colour of their skin be flagged up? While there are irrelevant articles like this, there will always be racism. Just let it go. 🙄