Equality and inequality in work and employment

Citation

Conley, H. (2007), "Equality and inequality in work and employment", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 26 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/eoi.2007.03026faa.001

Equality and inequality in work and employment

About the Guest EditorHazel Conley is based at British Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. Hazel Conley is membership secretary for the British Universities Industrial Relations Association, UK.

Equality and inequality in work and employment

This special issue of Equal Opportunities International was motivated by the 56th annual conference of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA) held at National University of Ireland, Galway in June 2006. The Association has for a number of years included a stream dedicated to equality and diversity at work. In 2006, the stream "Equality and Inequality in Work and Employment" attracted 15 papers, second only in popularity to the traditional favourite of trade unions and employee representation. The popularity of the stream, and the 2006 conference in general, may have been related to location of the conference in beautiful Galway and the renowned hospitality of the Irish. However, notwithstanding these aesthetic motivations, the growth of equality as a topic of importance within the study of industrial relations reflects a number of social and structural shifts in relation to work since BUIRA was founded in 1950.

Many of the explanations for these shifts are now well rehearsed such as the decline of manufacturing, the growth of the service sector and with it the concomitant rise in "secondary sector" jobs dominated by those groups of workers susceptible to labour market segmentation and segregation. Alongside these shifts, at about the same time that the BUIRA conference was held in the Republic of Ireland for the first time, the early 1970s saw equality in work and employment in the UK become enveloped in legislation. This is an aspect which has grown apace since then both in terms of the quantity and complexity of the legislation. In addition, trade unions, the focus of much of the study in industrial relations, have themselves become equality conscious, increasingly dropping their traditionally voluntarist guard by using the equality legislation to strengthen their collective bargaining position and develop their membership amongst previously neglected sectors of the workforce. In short, equality has become a fertile research area for industrial relations academics as evidenced, not least, at the annual BUIRA conferences.

However, in the spirit of equal opportunities, the call for papers did not exclude those that could not travel to Galway and two of the six papers included in this special issue were not presented at the 2006 conference. Despite this there is a remarkable continuity between the debates that are presented. The centrality and limitations of the law in relation to equality at work is a key theme. Related to this is the political sensitivity of equality in the workplace for governments who are both legislators and key employers of disadvantaged groups of workers. All of the papers identify the still problematic progress towards equality but most also report successes and good practice. Most of the authors also report on the importance of trade unionism on equality of outcome for workers.

The first two articles in the special issue highlight the close relationship between equality legislation and collective bargaining in Australia and the UK, respectively. In the first article Glenda Strachan, John Burgess and Lindy Henderson trace the history of anti-discrimination legislation for women workers in Australia, which has gone through a cycle of recognition of direct discrimination through to affirmative action programs and back to a situation of deregulation and reduced safeguards for women workers. The article examines policy approaches to equal pay, anti-discrimination and equal employment opportunity in relation to academic debates on equal opportunities, the "business case", work-life balance and managing diversity. The authors argue that these approaches, particularly managing diversity, have shaped the legislation and employers implementation of the legislation to the detriment of equality outcomes. In developing this argument, the authors explore the relationship between the legislation and the industrial relations system in Australia. They argue that, because responsibility for equality is dispersed between legislation and industrial relations, organisations are provided with the ability to choose between a range of options (of’which the status quo is an accepted and likely response), which leads to variable equality outcomes for women workers.

In his article, David Rowbottom provides a detailed examination of recent case law developments in relation to equal pay for women public sector workers in the UK. Rowbottom provides an analysis of tensions between collective bargaining and litigation recently brought to a head by the interventions of "no-win, no-fee" solicitors. These developments raise the interesting question of how far trade unions can move away from voluntarism. The law, as always, is proving a double-edged and unpredictable sword for trade unions. Rowbottom questions whether, given these developments and the equal pay legislation in its current format, the courts can resolve gender pay inequality in the UK. He further examines proposals to regain stability put forward by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). He concludes that stronger enforcement measures than those proposed by the EOC are necessary. He argues that pay inequalities are embedded in complex pay structures, which cannot be deconstructed by the courts and that one solution may be to extend the powers of the Central Arbitrations Committee to act as an intermediary.

In the third article of the special issue, Helen Rainbird extends the theme of gender equality in UK public services by examining to what extent measures focussing on education and training can lift women workers off the "sticky floor" of low paid, low status work. The paper critically examines the concept of human capital given weight by two leading government sponsored reports in relation to the gender pay gap in the UK (Kingsmill, 2003; Women and Work Commission, 2006). Rainbird also critiques the framework used by Scherer (2004) to argue that flexible labour markets prevent entrapment in poorer jobs. Rainbird challenges these findings by examining the extent to which entry into low paid jobs in the public sector, the majority of which are occupied by women, is likely to hamper progression to better paid, higher status work. She uses qualitative analysis to explore the role of institutional influences, managers and supervisors in relation to training and job mobility. Her findings are that "in contrast to the apparent "permeability" of the British labour market to career progression identified in Scherer's aggregate analysis of the economyan internal labour market may replicate the negative effects of sub-optimal labour market entry found in more regulated economies". Rainbird attributes the resulting entrapment in low paid work to the absence of career structures, particularly for part-time workers, static internal labour markets and the attitudes of some supervisors and workers to job progression. In conclusion, she questions the extent to which training can alter these features of internal labour markets and whether encouraging individual mobility into better paid work rather than tackling low pay at source is the solution to the "sticky floor".

In the fourth paper, Rosemary Lucas and Shobana Nair Keegan continue the discussion on human capital, skill and reward in relation to young workers. Again the focus is on the political sensitivity of youth unemployment and legislative interventions, this time in relation to the National Minimum Wage (NMW) in the UK. They examine data in relation to two main research questions. First, they question whether the Low Pay Commission's presumption that young people are distinct and therefore need to be treated differently in relation to the NMW is justified and secondly, if this is reflected in employer practice. Their data examines job tasks, responsibilities, skills and knowledge in relation to employer wage determination for young workers between the ages of 16 and 22. Lucas and Nair Keegan find that access to work for young people is dependent on personal contacts and personal characteristics (usually related to student status) rather than human capital. Furthermore, they find that the work young people undertake is unlikely to develop their human capital. Similarly, wage setting methods for young people are determined by administrative avoidance in relation to tax and national insurance rather than paying for skills and human capital. Lucas and Nair Keegan conclude that young workers are not distinct because of their age but because of particular labour market structures and circumstances in which their skills are not recognised or fully valued by employers.

The final two papers in the special issue continue to examine the impact of UK legislation on two other disadvantaged groups of workers: lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) workers and workers with disabilities. In the fifth paper Fiona Colgan, Chris Creegan, Aidan McKearney and Tessa Wright examine the experiences of LGB workers following the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Discrimination Regulations 2003. The paper focuses on what employers have done to implement the Regulations and what the impact has been for LGB workers. Their research focuses on 16 "good practice" case study organisations. They argue that progress towards equality for LGB people is hugely dependent on the attitudes of government, which are transmitted to employers. They found that "sexual orientation was thought to more `politically sensitive' and a `potential vote loser' or more likely to `provoke a backlash' within organisations and with clients, parents and customers than other equality strands". They further found that public sector employers saw the impetus for organisational change stemming from legislation whereas private sector employers saw the "business case" as the driving force.

Despite conducting research in good practice organisations, Colgan et al. still found a substantial implementation gap between policy and practice. One measure of this was in relation to how far LGB workers could be "out" at work. From their survey of 154 LGB employees Colgan et al. found that just over half were out to everyone at work whilst 31.2 per cent were not out to clients, customers or students with the implementation widest in the private sector and narrowest in the voluntary sector organisations. For LGB employees, the extent to which homophobia was proactively tackled at work rather than relying on LGB individuals to come forward with complaints about problems was crucial. These findings raise important questions in relation to the rhetoric and logic of business case approaches. The researchers also found some ambivalence in relation to the impact of the legislation in good practice organisations where it was felt that both policy and practice were in advance of the requirements of the Sexual Orientation Regulations. However, nearly two thirds (64.7’per cent) of the LGB respondents said that the Regulations had made it more likely that they would take up a grievance about LGB discrimination if necessary.

In the sixth and final paper of the special issue, Rita Newton, Marcus Ormerod and Pam Thomas examine the impact of the workplace built environment on disability equality. The article examines how the built environment can physically impact on entering the jobs market and staying in work for people with disabilities. The article explores these issues in relation to social and medical models of disability and recent UK legislation, particularly in relation to "reasonable adjustments" that may be required to ensure that workers with disabilities can access and remain in jobs. The authors guide the reader through the physical environment often encountered by job seekers and workers with disabilities. They successfully convey the diversity of experiences and adjustments that may be required to ensure equality of opportunity to participate in the world of work. Newton et al., like Colgan et al., provide evidence of good practice in organisations. They identify that commitment to equality for workers with disabilities emerge from a number of motivations. The need to meet legislative requirements is obvious, but the closer the association to workers with disabilities and the greater the power held by those workers, the more likely that equality of outcome will be achieved.

The articles in this special issue provide an important contribution to the study of equality and diversity at work. They offer empirical evidence and theoretical analyses on some of the leading debates in the field, which they use to extend the arguments into areas that have been previously under-researched. In the best traditions of BUIRA they examine the social relations of work from a number of perspectives and levels of analysis. They confirm that equality is indeed a cornerstone of contemporary industrial relations policy, practice and research.

Hazel Conley