Discrimination in employment and labour market segmentation - Essay Example

?Discrimination in employment and labour market segmentation Introduction Discrimination in employment has been observed as a continued phenomenon inthe labour market all across the world. The bases of discrimination however change with the socio-cultural aspects associated with the job environment. The structure of the labour market also encourages discrimination. This further leads to segmentation of labour market. This creates different sectors and classifications of labour in a country. However, the permeability amongst these subgroups and the heterogeneity of the cross section of the labour market determines the segmentation of labour market. Rigid boundaries within the market demarcating various subgroups and the non existence of the possibility of crossing over indicate segmentation of the market (Edwards & Gordon,1975). The existence of discriminative approaches against employees on the basis of various factors has been observed in Europe as well. This essay investigates the Legal and Social Regulation of Equality, Diversity and Anti-Discrimination in Europe and the role of discrimination in the segmentation of labour market. The transformation of the structure of the labour market from an industry oriented one to a service oriented one in relation with the changing economic policies in the United Kingdom has been analysed in the essay. The paper provides background information on the concepts on inequality so as to critically review the policies implemented in this regard. Extensive literature review has been done on the theories of employment discrimination. The Equality Action policies implemented in UK has been critically analysed in the paper. Understanding inequality Inequality in workplaces has been observed as a global scenario. The level and seriousness of these inequalities are however dependant on specific cultural and social realties relating to the workplace. This resultantly forms inequality regimes within the organisation. These are basically organisational meanings, processes, actions and practices which lead to bias on the basis of gender, class or race. It has been observed that in due course of time organisations automatically tend to develop these kinds of regimes which are unequal with others at various aspects. In contemporary organisations in Europe and all across the globe, these inequality regimes are denoted generally by gaps in salaries, powers and respect. Kertesi & Kollo (2000) has reported that there was substantial growth in inequalities within the organisations in Central and Eastern Europe. It is interesting to note that these trends are observed in Europe even in organisations which work towards specific social causes. Ferree and Martin (1995) and Scott (2000) have provided evidences suggesting inequality regimes prevalent in egalitarian feminist organizations. This must be read together with the fact that the larger vision of these organisations are bringing in gender equality. This observation suggests the extent to which labour market is segmented inequality is prevalent in work environments and confirms the existence of labour market segmentation in Europe. Acker (2006) has defined organisational inequality as “systematic disparities between participants in power and control over goals, resources, and outcomes; workplace decisions such as how to organize work; opportunities for promotion and interesting work; security in employment and benefits; pay and other monetary rewards; respect; and pleasures in work and work relations”. As mentioned earlier the extent of disparities in these factors will differ with organisations. It has been observed that out of these factors the most reported ones are inequality over goals and resources. Inequalities in organisations are both direct and indirect in nature. The direct implication of inequality is the formation of inequality regimes as mentioned before. It has been widely approved by researchers that on the job inequality does not constrain its causal roots to the behavioural traits of the employees. Organisational characters and functionalities have a larger role to play in constructing inequality regimes. Reskin (2000) has identified an organisational factor that affects the inequality levels in organisations. These include; organisational leadership, organisational demography, recruitment procedures; personnel procedure formation level; availability of resources and external pressure (Reskin, 2000). However, it must be noted that these factors don’t directly cause inequality. It is the result of the individual or individuals to act appropriately who are in charge of these organisational areas. Connecting these two theories together, it can be assumed that inequalities within organisations are people driven consequences of organisational structure and functionalities. The complexity involved with the inequality regimes those are created within the organisation is that these are dependent on a number of factors in and around the organisation. Acker (2006) has opined that the inequality regimes are closely associated with the society around the organisation, the politics associated with this society along with the culture and history of the society. These many variants make the structural makeup of the inequality regimes complicated in nature. Moreover, it must be considered that these societal factors undergo continuous changes. This is the reason that Acker (2006) has explained inequality regimes to be fluid and changing. The inequality regimes are constituted by the organisational functionalities and structure as explained before. The inclusion criteria of different employees into their respective regime are based on several factors. Based upon the continued incurrence in reported cases, the major amongst these factors which form the bases of inequality are class, gender and race. “Class in an organisation is created according to the systemic variations amongst the employees in having access to the organisational resources and have control over them (Acker 2006; Nelson 1993). In large organisations it has been observed that their hierarchal makeup is a smaller sample of the class structure of the larger society. This suggests a complex relationship between organisational inequality and sociological factors around the organisation. A more prominent form of inequality in organisations is on the basis of gender. The socially constructed norms on the perceptions on women and men carry over to the organisational perception of men and women. It has been observed till recent history that inequality amongst women and men were a socially accepted norm. This norm was automatically carried over to the organisational structures as well. Acker (2006) has recorded that the organisations in Europe generally had a tendency to have more men mangers than women. It has also been observed that organisational functionalities like supervision, wage determination etc were largely based on gender centric attitudes. The societal assumption on gender largely affected organisational processes as well. Thus there is ample evidence labour market segmentation in Europe on the bases of gender. ‘Race’ forms a major base for the formation of inequality in organisations. “‘Race’ refers to socially defined differences based on physical characteristics, culture, and historical domination and oppression, justified by entrenched beliefs (Acker, 2006)”. As in the case of gender, race also works in correlation with class. However, the pattern of implication is much more complex than in the case of gender. As race involves a complex linkage with physical characteristics, culture, and history, the implications percolates to different aspects in the organisational structure. Resultantly the pattern of racial inequality is different from that of other factors. (Acker, 2006) has analysed the history of inequality in American jobs. It has been observed that the historical trend is that women and black could not exploit major resources of the company limiting them to low level jobs. They were even excluded from jobs in a number of organisations. There are cases were the black people were denied opportunities which were dominated by white people. It has been even observed that the US military was largely racially biased in terms of intake till the Second World War. The academic institutions like Harvard and Yale were not exceptions. Considering the extent implication of race on employment equality, it can be confirmed as a main base in the formation of inequality regimes. Apart from Class, Race and Gender there are few other aspects which form the base of inequality regimes. Sexuality forms another base of inequality regime in organisations. Kanter (1977) has found that many organisations assume heterosexuality as a mandate for smooth interactions and processes in organisations. The antithesis of this assumption is that homosexuality disrupts these processes and interactions. On the basis of this observation it can be assumed that homosexuality becomes a strong base for organisational inequality. Resultantly, lesbians and gays are at strong disadvantages when it comes to organisational intake and hierarchy. Religion is another base which determines organisational inequalities. As in the case of gender and class, this aspect is largely influenced by the cultural norms associated with the society in which the organisation exists. An example to this is that in a geographical location where Judaism is the main religion, Jews will have a certain advantage. However, there could be a counter argument in a multicultural work environment this does not matter. The contemporary developments in terrorism have created a discriminative environment against Muslims. These are two examples which clearly indicate that religion could form a strong base for the formation of inequality regimes. Other bases are physical disability and age. This is a complicated base to deal with as age automatically associates with physical wellness. This thus becomes very much related to the case of physical inabilities. These are factors strongly embedded with organisational structures. A general understanding of inequality in organisations suggests detailed analysis of this issue. Management perspective on this issue demands either application of existing management theories or formation of new management theories so as to deal with inequality. Theorising Approaches to Equality Globalisation brought forth liberalisation in the developmental policies of different countries. Resultant of this was that organisations started to involve culturally and socially diverse human resource. This added to the diversity within the organisations. Reading this together with the bases for the formation of inequality regimes, it can be assumed that a diverse work force would mean higher vulnerability to organisational inequality. Class, Gender, Race, Religion, Age and Disability has been identified as bases of inequality regimes. Thus diversity in terms of workforce would mean people from diverse religions, classes and races. Resultantly, the chances of inequalities also increase. Thus diversity is directly linked with inequality in work spaces. Management of diversity had attracted the interests of management theoreticians since 1990s. There had been ample research on the impact of diversity in organisations. However, the early researches in the area have focussed only on the impact failing to deal with the theorisation of the process of construction of diversity and inequality. Nkomo & Cox (1996) has pointed out the lacunas in the literature concerned about this field which included lack of theoretical development and lack of connection to the historical values. Patrizia Zanoni and Maddy Janssense (2004) have conducted research which provided theoretical framework to diversity and its implications. This study included an extensive analysis of the inequalities within the organisations. There had been researches prior to this work, which dealt with managerial options relating to individual inequality bases. For instance, Van Dijk (1993) formulated a theory which related the use of language to the effective management of unequal race. Similarly, (Benschop and Doorewaard ,1998) and Fletcher (1998) formulated theories which dealt with management of gender diversity. Patrizia Zanoni and Maddy Janssense formulated their theory by analysing the authoritative language of mangers which they used to both manage diversity and convince the work force. They also correlated these observations with the conceptualisations on diversity done by other authors. As observed by Patrizia Zanoni and Maddy Janssense (2004), the earlier studies done on diversity emphasised more on conceptualising the feasibility of diversity as a business factor. An example to this is the conceptualisation of Cox and Blake (1991) examined the economic benefits of having a diverse human resource and also suggested methods of managing such a workforce. One major argument made by this paper was the scope of multiple perceptions that a multifaceted workforce would bring into the organisation. However, this study failed to theorise the organisation inequality aspect. Interestingly, the research approaches of those days, denied the possibility of organisational inequality in connection with diversity. The diversity element was connected by these studies to personal attributes of an employee. Diversity was placed in the classical meritocratic organizational discourse which attributed diversity as a meritorious element. Diversity in this context is another quality of the employee. In the classical meritocratic organizational discourse, an employee is counted meritorious once he or she is able to grasp an opportunity by using these traits (Liff & Wajcman 1996). This would mean that if one takes the advantage of class, race, gender etc, it is not counted as organisational inequality but will add to the merit of the employee. This in turn limits the scope of identifying inequalities within the organisational framework. The differences here are negated as this theory considers everybody to have equal opportunities and the limitation of one in terms of class, race or gender is the advantage of another. Having considered everyone as equal in terms of opportunities, this theory has no scope to deal with the issue of organisational inequality. Another set of theories consider the bases of inequality as demographic characteristics (Patrizia & Janssense ,2004). This school of thought engages the idea that these demographic characteristics are “constitutive of human beings’ essences” (Moorhead & Griffin, 1995). This would mean that these characteristics are unchangeable and no interventions are possible (De los Reyes, 2000). This automatically limits the scope of discussion over inequality and management of diversity. The dynamics of power which either creates or controls inequality does not come under the purview of these set of theories. There are another group of theories which acknowledges the power dynamics. They consider that there are power factors which are unequal. However, these theories in a larger perspective are similar to the set of theories discussed in the previous paragraphs taking into account the fact, both the set of theories relate diversity with personal traits. The power inequalities which is acknowledged in the later case, is related with traits like attitude, personality and behaviour (Milliken & Martins 1996).The theories discussed earlier totally deny the existence of power imbalance. An instrumental approach to diversity is taken in the later case. Policies in Practice The relevance of Equality Action in organisations has been realised by management researchers. In the European context, a much observed scenario is that organisations and managers push the need of equal opportunities as an organisational policy. This has been seen and presented as in the interest of business. Equality action became a largely discussed policy by the early 1990s Dickens (1999). The norms of Equality Action were initially based on the values of social justice and morality in alignment with the legislations against discrimination. However, this approach underwent a change as later Equality Action became based more on “pragmatic business self-interest”. It has been observed that shift countered the dimensions of social justice and morality. The egalitarian values which were associated with equity action were lost and those were replaced by business oriented modalities. Many policies both intrinsic and extrinsic followed, which empowered the employees in terms of equality were initially based on the persuasion on economic imperatives. Cockburn (1989) has researched on the causes of the business orientation of Equal Opportunities policies and concluded that these policies catalysed labour market segmentation. However, in the European context, these efforts were carried out by individual organisations. These were carried out as voluntary efforts based and designed according to individual cases. This was a privatised approach and lacked integration among organisations. Leaving the business advantage that these equality actions brought forth, their social benefits were insecure and minimal (Colling and Dickens, 1998). Another major limitation pointed out in these organisation based equality policy is that its scope is either limited to the same organisation or to its close periphery. The benefits and the equality implications do not percolate into the larger social surroundings. In cases where the equality objective didn’t meet the business objective organisations dint take up Equality Action. This was a major disadvantage for the employees. However, the free market policies by the Conservative governments promoted the business case approach as it was complimentary to the liberalised economy (Forbes, 1996). However, certain legal regulations were brought in by the British government during this period, favouring employees. In this period, this policy remained to be the only option towards equality in employment. The change in the political scenario with the Labour Party coming into power in 1997, brought in much changes in the policy. A policy which was driven more by legal regulations was introduced. This policy included regulations both in social and legal aspects.  The Legal and Social Regulation of Equality, Diversity and Anti-Discrimination in Europe The most important legal framework which is involved in equality action in UK stresses on anti-discriminative approaches based on sex and ethnic origin (Liff, 1997). The major objective of the legal regulations in terms of equality action is that the only criteria of discrimination in employment must be job performance. Presently, the laws in UK prohibit discrimination against employees on the bases of gender, race, national origin, ethnicity, colour, and disability (Baker, 2002). Interestingly it was reported that in the United Kingdom, there are no rules which restrict discrimination on the basis of religion. However, in Northern Ireland, there is a separate rule which restricts religious discrimination. It has been observed that the employment discrimination rules in UK lack a legalistic approach (Liff, 1997). The approach is more or less informal in nature and does not impose legal implications on discriminative actions. This informal nature of the rules has been criticized by the employment law community in the UK. This has prompted the alignment of UK labor laws more towards the US laws as the later is more of a legal nature. The approachability and processing speed has been improved due to this. There has been external pressure on the UK to ensure equality in employment. This became more relevant as UK entered the EC ‘Social Chapter’ which evolved out of the Treaty of Amsterdam. This demanded UK to take specific measures to address discrimination against races in employment and discrimination based on “religion, age, disability, ethnicity, and sexual orientation (Baker, 2002). This urged the government to adopt legislations with specific objective of regulating discrimination by the year 2003. The Employment Directive requires that the UK introduce new prohibitions relating to age, religion, and sexual orientation. UK has employment discrimination agencies which include Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) for sex discrimination and the Commission on Racial Equality (CRE) for race discrimination. These agencies are responsible for conducting research connected to these issues and formulate policies and regulations. The litigations on employment discrimination are registered with the employment tribunals. Earlier till 1971, these tribunals were called industrial tribunals. These tribunals dealt with small cases of payments and entitlements. The tribunals were later reconstituted with a chairman with a legal background and industry experts. However, these tribunals later received complaints about its complex procedures and legalities. Later in 1998, the name of the tribunal was changed to employment tribunals with a streamlined system. Though these systems existed, the segmentation of labor market could not be completely checked. This must be read together with the fact that UK’s investigative agencies deals only with the formulation of policies and regulations. It does not support an individual employee to sort out the legal and procedural concerns associated with cases of employment discrimination (Aston & Tackey, 2006). This basically creates an unleveled ground in cases of discrimination. This must be read together with the fact that an individual employee is too small a player to move a legal process against the employer who would be a corporate giant. Here the employer has all the resources including money and knowledge source to deal with the litigation. The employee on the other side does not have these resources. Though the legal framework and the policies aim to protect the rights of the employees, the minimal involvement of the investigation agencies in the individual cases from the employee perspective makes the policy of the government lenient towards the industry. Thus the legal and policy framework in UK does not completely nullify the possibilities of segmentation of labor market. Conclusion The segmentation of labor market in Europe had been influenced by a number of socio-cultural elements. The general bases of discrimination in employment have been race, class, gender religion, sexuality etc. Policies which were formulated in Europe to prevent discrimination has had varied approaches through time. Initially these policies were promoted as business oriented and were envisaged to bring forth economic benefits to the employer. This was specific case centric approach and didn’t have a holistic framework. Legal validity of these policies was limited and didn’t impose regulations on discrimination. However, later these policies gave way to stringent legal frameworks, resultantly disintegrating labor market segments. The experience from the European labor market suggests that diversity in workforce pose the risk segmentation of the labor market. 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