Jennie,

Some good points here. I am also against positive discrimination ‘in principle’, although I am prepared to concede that it’s the least of the two possible evils in the context of established patriarchy.

But I’m very skeptical about the argument that gender wage differentials reflect maternity leave. An overall 17% difference for full-time work seems particularly high, especially since, as far as I know, that is a measure for equivalent jobs.

Let’s take an example – a woman has two children over a 40 year career and takes 9 months maternity leave each time. From a total of 480 working months, she will be absent from work for 18 months, or 3.75% of her total working life – which is also the percentage of her time that her employer(s) will have to pay her for when she would otherwise have been working for them. Since the employer(s) will also have to pay someone to replace her, and since this also involves costs in terms of transition, interviewing etc, I think we can round up to 8% as a maximum plausible difference over a career to compensate for the possibility that a female employee will get pregnant.

There are, of course, other factors – some people will only have been in a position for a short period before getting pregnant and will then leave immediately after the baby is born, which of course massively raises the proportional loss bourne by the employer. But this cuts both ways, since some employers will have staff working for them for extended periods who never take maternity leave. The amounts should work out the same as averages applying to ‘UK PLC’.

In addition, the figures will probably be significantly lower for working women since a good number of women who get pregnant are still life-long housewives and carers who have never been heavily active in the job market and whose ‘costs’ are not bourne by employers. Moreover, every man who takes maternity leave should also decrease the differential, particularly if he takes the leave instead of his partner.

Maths isn’t my strongest suit, but I think that kind of calculation shows that there is an ‘excess’ at play that cannot be explained simply by economic rationality.

Or not?

“In my view, Positive Discrimination is still discrimination and it is wrong. Even in this limited way, endorsing discrimination perpetuates it, rather than eradicating it.”

I’d like to see some evidence for this claim.

Do societies with positive action have higher inequality rates?

In my view, formal legal equality is not equality at all; equality is a material thing, in the real world, not on bits of paper. Laws should reflect and deal with inequality, rather than ignoring it… I don’t see how they can claim to treat people equally while treating them all the same, despite differing material circumstances. The same arguments against positive action are analogous to those against progressive taxation.

Definitely agree about extending rights for part time workers and making parental leave transferable.

I don’t agree that what Harman has suggested involves ‘legislating for Positive Discrimination’. The thing about being able to pick someone from an under-represented group if two candidates are otherwise equal isn’t positive discrimination (because PD is about choosing less qualified candidates over better qualified candidates). It’s something to reassure and protect employers who, say, want to increase the diversity of their employees, or reduce an imbalance between the number of men and women in their workplace, but who are worried that they would get sued if they do so.

One example could be a primary school head teacher choosing to employ a male applicant if all the other teachers are women, in order to help make sure that the pupils have at least one positive male role model. I wonder whether the Daily Mail would be so quickly to condemn that?

The idea that this is about legislating for positive discrimination seems to have been invented by the media. That’s the problem with New Labour, the substance of the new Single Equality Bill seems pretty good if not perfect, but they just didn’t take the time to think about how it would be spun

Further to the discussion at yesterday’s LC meeting, it’s worth mentioning the post on the Single Equality Bill at the F Word, and to acknowledge that I nicked the example of the male primary school teacher from ‘Qubit’ in the comments.

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2008/06/equalities_bill

Pablo: the problem is that, as someone said in the comments to my original post on this, it’s not about the actual choices of actual women, but what an employer assumes the choices of women will be, should they have children. This necessarily muddies the waters somewhat.

Miller: I look across the Atlantic, and see what happens there. I have a female doctor friend across the water, and a couple of years ago she got a new colleague (who was black) who was given the job because of Affirmative Action. She found herself judging him negatively before she’d even met him, and chastising herself for it later.

Positive Discrimination may or may not have a net effect on equality of outcome, but it CERTAINLY has an effect on perception, and discrimination is caused by dodgy perceptions.

Don: there are some interesting comments about perception in the thread you link to, which I would agree with wholeheartedly – this proposal does nothing to address those either.

Jennie,

And that ‘perception’ is precisely where the discrimination and patriarchy come in. If employers are really paying women nearly 20% less for the same jobs even though the maximum possible economic cost to them is closer to 8%, then clearly their ‘reasons’ become a lot less acceptable and a lot more eligible for regulation. At the very least, it would mean that we’re talking about very bad business people since they could be getting much better candidates by paying wages more in line with actual ‘market’ values.

What this demonstrates for me is that the ‘old’ feminist critique is very much still applicable – I doubt very much that the Daily Mail thinks the wage differential is down to patriarchy. Their line, and the line we have to be very careful about reproducing or endorsing, is that woman get paid less because of their choices and that lower wages are a rational response to the propensity for motherhood among woman as a whole, even if it can be unfair on those who do not choose to have children.

But to an employer, like an insurer, it’s about risk. I think that putting the wage differential down simply to patriarchy is not going to solve anything. To address a problem, we need to find the root causes, yes? And pointing the finger at employers and saying “you are bad businesspeople, you agents of the patriarchy!” is not going to get them to change.

Your method for reaching 8% as a cost doesn’t take into account (for example) selection and training costs for temporary replacements, and is also a pure economic measure. It doesn’t take into account the hassle of having to replace someone, not knowing if they will come back which you don’t get with someone who doesn’t take maternity leave.

We might not like it, but hiring someone who you know for certain is not going to take maternity leave is just EASIER.

Pablo, you are right, taking as a blunt instrument, lifetime pay remains 17% less for a full time woman than a full time man.

But lifetime pay is a difficult measure and thus can still show past discriminatory practices. There is a huge amount of evidence showing that current pay differentials for younger women can be accounted for by the choices they themselves have made (Jennie links to one, there are many others, I’ve been reading the literature for ages, feel free to Google). The important thing is to ensure that women who choose to work in high worth, high pressure jobs get paid equally to men within the same job of equal worth.

We also, as a society, need to determine if the work women choose to do that is ‘valued’ less (by having a lower pay reward—specific example of primary school teachers, overwhelming female) should be valued less, etc. Also, when women enter a profession in serious numbers, does the relative payscale go down (teachers used to earn similarly to doctors) because there are more people seeking the work, or because of some discrimination and/or less ‘negotiating ability’ within ‘female brained’ types (I use that as a specific because I’m crap at negotiation for salary and score as ‘female brained’ a lot)?

You may also want to take into account factors such as the ‘lesbian pay premium’:

the researchers who conducted the analysis say there is no clear cut explanations for the startling pay premium enjoyed by lesbians.

“Everybody speculates about that,” says co-author Alan Marin of the London School of Economics. “There are various possibilities, the most likely relates to child bearing. “When employers consider recruiting for high-paying jobs they are less likely to hire women who tend to go off and have babies at inopportune moments.”

Which does seem to indicate that there is a lot more than simple gender discrimination going on. I said this at Jennie’s original post, reposting here:

If maternity leave were transferable, then, for example, I could take a lot more time off and SB could go back to work earlier, that would probably suit both of us. It would also mean that employers would have to treat all employees as potentially taking a 6 month+ sabbatical a few times and thus give women more opportunities—NB, the evidence shows that employers aren’t, normally, consciously discriminating. But you normally have a massive number of factors in weighing up applicants and possible promotees, and a subconscious preference for someone that’s likely to stay around and do the job is important to take into account

There used to be discrimination, open and overt. Those days are, mostly, gone. We need to fight the real fights, not tilt at 70s windmills. That means looking at the actual evidence, and also making sure we don’t annoy people—perception is all in politics, people perceive this as discriminating against white men, but it’s white men we need to ensure are on side. N’est ce pas?

At least the Mail was better than the Express’s blatantly made up headline: “White men to face jobs ban.”

* points and laughs at Mat in the Spam trap *

Aside from the issue of maternity,

Men’s legal retirement age is 5 years older that women’s and this encourages them to work longer careers which lifts their average wage. Plus, women choose more socially rewarding or emotionally fulfilling jobs while men have a priority on higher wages whatever the cost. There are plenty more very innocent explanations.

Yet another bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Why do left-wing governments insist on testing all their ideas to destruction? I wish all the lefties in the world could wake up one morning and say “Gosh … we were wrong about everything!”

In my view, Positive Discrimination is still discrimination and it is wrong

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

Gah, not only am I spam trapped, I’m also not subscribed. Ah well, there are some nice links in there for Pablo when it goes live.

“I’d like to see some evidence for this claim.”

I’d like to see some evidence full stop on this whole issue. As far as I’m concerned women are discriminated against in the work place in a wide array of jobs, but that view is only half educated with perhaps only half the truth. The trouble is no-one knows what the true situation is and what needs to be done to rectify it. We need empirical studies and total truths first.

I mean the daily mail goes on about how they’ve said only one high court judge is from an ethnic minority, etc….these facts don’t matter. What if only one person in the entirety of the UK wants to be a judge who is also an ethnic minority? The trouble with Harman’s bill is it assumes every single job should have exactly the right proportions of diversity in it, and this is bullshit. If white men are more sociable in interviews and therefore seem more the right “fit” that a black candidate then that’s the employer’s decision to make and who are we to question their judgement, all else being equal, on who they think will fit best? If no woman ever wanted to be a policewoman then that would be seen as an issue for Labour it seems, rather than accepting market forces in various jobs as they should be they’re saying let’s artificially pump up the numbers in jobs so we can be seen as diverse and multicultural.

It’s all bullshit, ultimately the best people get the jobs, pretty much, and if that means a disproportionate level of diversity to the UK then so be it, not everything has to be THAT structured. We’ll only have a problem is disproportionate amounts of the whole population are in the wrong place…i.e. that blacks earn disproportionately less than whites, women disproportionately less than men, etc. On the latter I’m fairly confident they do, but simply gifting women job’s isn’t the way to solve it, as I’m sure is the same for other minorities or diversities, it’s about recognising equality and rewarding people equivalently.

@15
“What you call ‘positive discrimination’ and discrimination are not the same thing.”

They are two sides of the same thing.

“The wrongness of one doesn’t show the wrongness of the other.”

Yet they are still both wrong.

Jennie (and MattGB),

I’m clearly not saying that the differential is all patriarchy or the result of ’simple discrimination’ – hence the attempt to come up with a rough percentage for what would be ‘reasonable’ based on the risk justification.

My rough estimate did take the replacement costs into account, which is why I rounded up to 8%. I also took care to factor in the cost of paying the replacement during maternity as well as the outgoings to the person on leave. I built in some generous assumptions towards employers (all women who get pregnant are already permanent workers, no men at all take maternity leave, there is no help from government or other sources). Most importantly, my calculations also assume that the entirety of maternity leave is paid at full wage cost throughout, which as I understand it is nowhere close to the truth.

And if there is a ‘lesbian pay premium’, then that only makes the situation starker – the true differential for straight women will be even more out of wack with actual costs than a 17% difference implies. I’m also not sure how much previous discriminatory policies can apply to the 17% lifetime earning differential (if it is calculated over a lifetime). The Equal Pay Act is almost 40 years old, which means that only a few women will have started their careers before it came into force and even for them we’d have to assume that they hadn’t really progressed in jobs since.

This is precisely a search for ‘root causes’. Unless I’m missing something, Jennie hasn’t linked to any ‘evidence’, just a Telegraph opinion piece without figures or references to academic literature. As for some simple google searches and resulting abstracts, other factors appear to include: that women, and jobs in which women are clustered, are less likely to be unionised, which decreases collective bargaining; that gender pay inequality internationally is correlated with overall income inequality within a society; and that work ‘cultures’ embody subtle discrimination. This last dimension appears to be a conclusion of both the Women and Work Commission and commentators that disagree with other parts of their findings. The head of LSE’s labour market research programme thinks it has at least something to do with subtle discrimination and that, contrary to what is claimed here, it is not at all clear that wage differentials reflect ‘market attachment’ (i.e. commitment to work). He notes that women who never take any time off from their career still earn some 12% less than their male equivalents.

I’m also very puzzled as to why you don’t think patriarchy counts as a root cause. Of course, we have to get more detailed about its workings, but we must be careful not to load the dice so that the only eligible explanations are those that focus on the agency of women rather than the structure of society. Patriarchy makes for a fairly good understanding of previous gender inequalities and I don’t think it takes too much insight to identify themes that continue to exist today. It’s plausible to me that it continues to play a role and that’s why I’m interested in separating out the elements here.

The issue is precisely how we differentiate between what is and what isn’t ‘reasonable discrimination’. It may well be that it’s not good tactics to shout ‘patriarchy’ or ‘blame employers’, but that hardly means that the analysis is wrong.

Bloody hell, this issue is all over the place.

And for once I’m supporting Harriet Harman on this. The Libdem MP Lynne Featherstone, who I spoke to today, is absolutely right on this – it doesn’t go far enough.

Look, its great us lefties are against discrimination….. and I’m also against positive discrimination. But the Daily Mail is chatting out of its backside and I think us on the left should really do some more research before buying into their propaganda.

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

I’m going to blog about this later in fact… I think this should be supported.

Jennie – as you popped onto my blog posting and challenged me to come and defy your logic here – I am! As usual – the Daily Mail has just trumpeted the worst of headlines – something like (as I don’t read it) white men forced out of jobs (that’s a guess)!

The actual measures that got the DM so steamed up are very small steps to allow employers to right imbalances in their workforce – if they wish – without falling foul of current employment and equality law. 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. For example – we often hear that the fact that most primary school teachers are female and that young children would benefit from a male role model (absent fathers etc)) All this proosal does is allow the Head to employ a man applicant rather than a woman applicant if they are broadly equal in all other respects – without being sued. The point up to now is that it was illegal for an employer to have done this.

I don’t think this is a big deal. It may make some minor changes in workforce make up.

Where you are right – is it is not the great barrier breaking stuff that is needed. The stuff that makes me most concerned – and is a huge weakness in the proposals – is that the 80% of people employed in the private sector are barely touched by the legislation. Those working in the public sector will by law or by practise see their protections extended and consolidated – but those in the private sectore – sweet FA! The business hawks in the cabinet have clearly put their foot down and cried crocodile tears about what having to be fair will do to business. As this unfolds – I have some ideas and proposals on this – and obviously will table amendments etc in due course and raise them in the passage of the Bill. The problem is – that they have already chickened out of real action to end workplace discrimination – if the white paper is anything to go by.

Excuse me for being absolutely dumb, but how exactly could an employer get sued anyway for employing whoever they want from a pool of equal candidates?

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”?

Well put Jennie.

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.

MixTogether, you prove my point, but possibly not in the way you intend. You have the ERRONEOUS perception that ethnic minorities are privileged. 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.

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.

My perception is based in large part on the discrimination faced by partners in mixed relationships who are NOT from minority groups.

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.

Jennie, I’m going to put a damper on that, even though I agree with you to a large extent – making an erroneous statement is not to necessarily have an erroneous perception.

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.

MixTogether, play the ball, not the man. Also, look up white privilege on wikipedia. I have to go to work, but hopefully someone else will pick apart your lack of logic.

It’s not like even read the Graun…

Shit. I got Dizzy too.

I will play the ball- right down the field you just walked off

Lee – you’re not being dumb – but you’re not getting it either. Under current law it is illegal to say that you want to employ a man, woman, ethnic minority, person with disabilities in order to balance your workforce because that group is under-represented. With the new law – should an employer wish to employ someone from an under-represented group – they will be able to do so and state that as the reason that the person was chosen (albeit qualifications and experience were broadly equal) without being sued. There is no onus to do so. There is no compulsion. There is only the ability to do so – if the employer wishes. It barely qualifies as positive action – so am a bit surprised to see such angst over this bit of the proposals as opposed to virtually no anger at the private sector being virtually untouched by equality law.

Lynne, partially it’s the way Harman presented it in the media, especially on Today yesterday morning—the white knuckles on Jennie as she controlled her desire to scream at the radio was palpable.

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.

Lynne – Why do you need to give a reason if you’re employing someone from a pool of equal candidates? Is it law that you have to disclose to all losing candidates exactly why the other person was picked?

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.

It does seem as if Harman is guilty of presentational unskillz here. My initial reaction was the same Jennie’s, followed quickly by “but surely this must be illegal”. Now I’m just bemused, as Lee says, as to what difference, if any, this will really make in practice.

Emmanuelgoldstein:

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.

ukliberty,

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.

“Harman using the same alleged (and just plain wrong) gender pay gap figures in support appears ridiculous ”

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.

Lee,

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.

Explain to me why a company employing the best person for the job at every interview, yet happening to have a 100% white, male, 20-30 workforce has discriminated or contributed to discrimination at any point, please.

And by the way I am not advocating “more of the same”, I’m advocating for better solutions that actually fight the real occurences of discrimination, including most importantly subconscious discrimination.

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.

Anonymous CV’s

How would that work?

Employers base their judgement on whether to bring someone to interview or not based not on name nor any other personal background detail, purely on skills and experience. It should be law that employers cannot ask that you provide information that ascertains what nationality you are, what gender, or what your racial profile is.

Douglas, if you can show where there is “structurally entrenched discrimination” I’ll give it some thought. Where is the evidence of a “need for societal change”?

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.

ukliberty / Lee,

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.

I’ve written about this on my blog. I worry that in essence this legislation will take a lot away from employees and away from a fair and equal process of employment. To me it’s a half and half bill as it stands, half good, half awful.

Check out my thoughts.

Douglas, in terms of equality of pay, as I understand it the Equal Opportunities Commission claim it is 20 years away if we introduce no new measures.

How quick is quick enough?