How quick is quick enough?

Check out my thoughts.

Two points:

Firstly there is the reasonable objective of treating everyone equally. So this legislation is geared more at changing the perception of recruiters rather than recruits. Secondly,
workforce equality is still a long long way away.

On the latter point, perhaps this article is germane:

http://blogs.bnet.co.uk/sterling-performance/2008/04/15/should-uk-boards-follow-camerons-lead/?tag=homeCar

It shows the snails pace of gender equality in the boardrooms of our nation. Without a technically motivated culture change – in other words a kick up the arse – nothing much will happen.

Lee,

This legislation is a fancy way of doing bugger all except making a statement, while not putting any money or resources whatsoever in to tackling the real problems that exist.

Exactly! Legislation to “send a message”. Another part of Labour’s idiot modus operandi.

Anonymous CV’s

How would that work?

For instance:

- Anonymous CV’s
- Rewarding equal employers better rather than vilifying “inequal” ones
- Putting money in to actually tackling poverty properly (unlike Labour putting money in to poverty to simply maintain it’s level) to break down poverty of opportunity that goes with it
- Providing free courses to tutor those that have problems getting jobs despite having the requisite skills, i.e. interview tutoring, CV writing, etc.

Sitting here and saying that the gender pay gap is evidence of a imbalance to women, for example, is a double edged sword. Yes women are paid less than men and I believe this is an inequality, especially when it comes to the licensed trade and boardroom level employment BUT statistics also show that women are employed and promoted faster than men currently are.

We can all sit here and look at stats like the pay gap, or like my 100% white example above, and extrapolate our own view on discrimination but it doesn’t make it so. A blanket rule does not work for all, and it is frankly absurd for us to assume this bill is going to mean anything other than subjective analysis of employment practice using a centralised set of measurements that lack the finesse required to truly gauge the situation.

This legislation is a fancy way of doing bugger all except making a statement, while not putting any money or resources whatsoever in to tackling the real problems that exist.

I obviously do not agree with this:

Ultimately if a company is not discriminating, only employing the best people it can find, and that means a 100% white, male, 20-30 year old work force then it is not a sign of discrimination.

I am not the cause of confusion. What I am clearly trying to advocate is that that criteria is a nonsense.

What you are advocating is more of the same. Lee, it is beneath you. You are a better person than that.

Will reitterate again here, no-one knows the real truth about gender pay gap figures, because no-one has asked the right questions.

Douglas: Incentives for getting themselves out of the rut without discrimination? Ultimately if a company is not discriminating, only employing the best people it can find, and that means a 100% white, male, 20-30 year old work force then it is not a sign of discrimination. A lot of people seem to confuse statistically irrelevant workforce make-ups with discrimination, and it harms the cause. As does this type of legislation when it seems to only be legislating for what is already the case, and (as someone mentioned above) will only actually go to entrench companies abilities to discriminate.

I’d agree that they are flip sides of the same coin. But I’d like you to explain how else structurally entrenched dicrimination ought to be tackled. Any thoughts beyond wishful thinking?

I agree with Lynne Featherstone that the legislation doesn’t go far enough. There is a need for a societal change here, and if it cuts across private sector employers rights to be bigots, so be it.

What you call ‘positive discrimination’ and discrimination are not the same thing. The wrongness of one doesn’t show the wrongness of the other.

What nonsense. Discrimination in favour of one group necessarily means discrimination against another. They are flip sides of the same coin. How can one positively discriminate without at the same time negatively discriminating?

Sunny:

This isn’t positive discrimination – its positive action. Its a small but significant difference.

Bullshit – discrimination by any name smells as foul.

Lynne Featherstone:

The proposal is that when all else is equal between applicants for a job – the employer can now choose the one they feel will balance some sort of imbalance in their workforce.

Oh for god’s sake, an employer can do so at present.

The underlying issue here is that some employers don’t seem skilled at choosing who they wish to employ without it appearing to be a gender/race/religion issue – see the recent case of the hairdresser, for example. Nothing more needs to be said than, “we regret to inform you that you haven’t been selected for the job.” Similarly if the hairdresser was predisposed to Muslims she could have said to the other candidates that they weren’t selected. Nothing more needs to be said.

There is evidence that women tend to choose different occupations than men. There is evidence that they are less likely to negotiate their initial salaries than men. Are women less aggressive when asking/negotiating pay increases? These things must not be casually dismissed in such debates, but I never see them mentioned by Harman’s ilk.

The issues behind this seem twofold:

1. Primarily Labour want to appear as if they are doing something about discrimination in the workplace – it is not about what is right, but what is expedient.

Harman using the same alleged (and just plain wrong) gender pay gap figures in support appears ridiculous to anyone who bothers thinking for one moment about her English skills, let alone take apart the statistics as people such as Unity and Tim Worstall have done very satisfactorily. It is not a good reason (if indeed there is one) for discrimination.

2. Labour probably want some centralised thought employment police to look at what the private sector gets up to (how dare they be able to exercise the right to employ who they wish). Eventually they will look at Barclays Bank, say, and enquire on pain of fines why its employees don’t reflect the proportions of ethnicities in the locality of each individual branch. It is after all the party’s idiot modus operandi to interfere on a micro scale with our lives, for the good of us all, because Labour knows best.

As I said, angst exists because we’re concerned that it gives employers an opportunity to legally positively discriminate without anyone questioning the fairness of that decision. As I said above, where is the scrutiny going to take place in to whether or not two candidates were “equal” to work out if the whole situation is legal or not?

I’d appreciate it if you’d (or anyone) clarify if it’s illegal to employ a person from a pool of equal talent for any reason, specifically also whether a company has the right to simply say “we think this candidate will fit in better so we’ll pick them”? It’s my understanding that employers don’t really have their hands tied as much as this legislation makes out and therefore makes me question why the bill is even being proposed.

The way you’re restating it, and the way Chris Huhne presented it on QT last night made it seem much less objectionable to me (and I’ve actually used the argument in a shortlist selection once in a previous life).

It’s partially I suspect that Harman just seems completely unable to make a case for it as an equality measure, and can’t at all understand the objections to it and answer them, thus making the legislation seem worse than it actually is (her concentration on women and BMEs over examples where it could help men doesn’t help either).

I think there’s the potential this could be very good, and a clarification would definitely be useful, but her presentation on the issue puts a lot of people like myself strongly off it.

It’s not like even read the Graun…

People from non-anglo ethnic groups may not be privileged absolutely in this country, but that is not to say there is absolutely no privilege available to them, nor is it to say definitively that restrictions are artificially placed upon them because of their background – at least, not as per norm in this country, but it does depend entirely on the environment of any encounter.

Social dialogue can be likened to a card game, where ‘race’ can trump most other concerns and can be played by people on either side of the conversation for different effect. The race card is just one more method of exploiting people’s weaknesses – look at how it is used in advertising, for instance, to highlight the strength of different cultural, ethnic or racial identities and generate sales on the back of that positive image.

I fully agree that the necessary selectivity within any focus enables sections of society to create distortions or have distortions created about them, but it is all in the mind how this is applied and whether the effect is good or not.

The point I’d make is that artificial inequality is abhorrent and avoidable but universal equality and indifference is impossible.

So whether the equality law is irrelevant and I also agree with Lee depends on the success of employers and employees alike avoiding the need or requirement to take recourse to it. Like referees, the best laws are the ones which are invisible to all intents and purposes.

There are clear double standards in place when discrimination can be outlawed in the workplace but nobody does anything to stop the discrimination faced by e.g. white or black people from the families of an Asian partner.

To claim that “Ethnic minorities are absolutely not privileged, but because of selective news reporting, idiot, ill-educated people think that they are and thus they suffer more.” is in itself patronising and idiotic.

Firstly many minority families prosper and do extremely well, so your sweeping statement betrays a certain viewpoint.

Secondly, to suggest that people are not able to evaluate news coverage and that “idiot, ill-educated” (presumably white in your book) people are slaves to media coverage is a weak argument. The press wouldn’t pick up these stories, and people wouldn’t listen to them, unless they were indicative of something going on. Just because the Guardian doesn’t mention something doesn’t make it reactionary if others do.

People like you are the ones who are allowing forced marriages and honour killings to thrive in the UK, by deliberately turning a blind eye.

The BNP are not addressing any double standards, they are stirring up ill-founded racism and making things worse, not better.

Sunny: if it’s not positive discrimination, why did Harman say it was on the Today programme yesterday? “Positive Action” is just a euphemism for positive discrimination anyway. Apart from anything else do you not find it supremely patronising? “You women and ethnic minorities can’t get by on your own merits because you’re not good enough, but we in the white male hegemony are SO magnanimous that we’ll give you a helping hand!”

You can almost feel the patronising head pat.

Lee: great points, thank you.

There is a letter in this morning’s Metro which echoes your sentiments about discrimination.

It reads,

“GANG ATTACK:
The unfairness in our society was hilighted by the story (metro, Weds) about the Asian youths who beat a priest and received a suspended sentence. Had it been white youths who beat an imam it would have been classed as a faith hate crime, so why not when it’s the other way round?” (name and address supplied)

Now you can say different things about who this person is, or the quality of the Metro, but I take this letter as an indicator. Somebody took the trouble to write it, and the Metro saw fit to publish it.

There is a significant portion of our society which notices these discriminatory double standards, and feels genuinely aggrieved. Currently the only political party which is addressing these double standards is the BNP- why? The left are the supposed guardians of fairness and equality, but they will not make a peep out of misplaced loyalty to minority groups. In fact they go the other way and advertise this ‘equalities’ bill which is almost custom made to push normal people towards the far right.

It is getting way past time for the left to start championing what normal people (not small clusters of marxists) regard as fair and equal. Misplaced and slavish loyalty to the demands of minority groups is what has split apart and sundered the Respect coalition in East London- that is worth bearing in mind.

To me this bill is worrying because while it says it is just giving employers the “freedom” to choose whoever they like (and I desperately contest that you can’t do this already quite legally), I can just see the “I’m sorry but there was another candidate equally as qualified as you” argument being used and no-one will be able to challenge it. Are companies in the private sector going to be made to publish their employment criteria? The answers to contesting applicants interview questions? How exactly does this bill even *work* practically other than to be a fluffy declaration of “equality is great”?