Success of the UK Anti-Discrimination Legislation - Case Study Example

HAS UK ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LEGISLATION SUCCEEDED IN PROVING EQUALITY FOR ALL IN THE WORK PLACE' Introduction Not only in the UK, has the issue of discrimination in the work place been a debatable one. This is due to the impact this have on the working environment in the workplace. Throughout the history of mankind, there have been many forms of discrimination against each other. Discrimination can be described as a prejudice against someone based on some assessment criterion. In this regard, individual are not given the same treatment as others based on the prejudice that is used. This makes some individual feel less equal to others. Discrimination has been practiced extensively in the work place. One may be discriminated in the workplace based on their colour or their language. Workplace discrimination has been one of the widely practiced discrimination in the UK. Discrimination takes place when a person, is treated as less equal compared to others. In this regard an individual may be treated favourable than others in the same situation based on many factors like race, origin, religion and belief, disability, age, sex, and others. Discrimination can be direct or indiscrimination. An example of direct discrimination is when job advertisement categorically cites that the job is not open for some people. The advertisement may disqualify some individuals like the disabled and put it like "no disabled applicant will be considered". This can be seen as a discrimination that takes a direct rather that a subtle form. Indirect desecration takes place when a neutral provision, a criteria or a practice gives some people an advantage over the rest based on issues like race, religion, ethnic background, sex, or disability. In most cases this discrimination is often justified based on a legitimate claim. An example of indirect discrimination in the work place can be that which requires all applicants to be tested for a particular language although that language may not be necessarily required for the job. (Office of Public Information 2007, p. 2) This paper will look at discrimination in the United Kingdom and evaluate the recently enacted discriminate the law whether it has been effective in reducing discrimination or not. Discrimination laws in the UK UK has been one of the countries in Europe which have been facing discrimination. It has been shown that women are the one who are facing the worst kind of discrimination especially in the work place. In a recent researche it was shown the 70% of the recruitment agencies in the UK were given directives that they should not recruit pregnant women or those women who were at the age of bearing children. This is based on the fact that they are likely to be out on maternity leaves for most of the time and it also means that employers will be paying for most of their benefits. The report also reviewed that disabled people were 29% less likely to be employed compared to those who did not have any disability. The axe seems to fall on mothers as the report has revealed that a partnered mother who has a child is less than 11 years is more likely to miss employment by a 45% margin than a partnered man with the same child of the same age. This has been attributed to the fact that the woman is likely to use more to her time looking after the child than working compared to the man. (Director, 2008) Based on the ethnic prejudice, the research showed that Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are likely less likely at work compared to other women of the same age in the UK. This means that these women are discriminated based on gender and also based on their religion since most of them are likely to be Muslims. Although according to the culture they are less likely to be in work, this is not expected in a place like UK which is far much developed compared to other countries and which is expected to observe human rights Despite the recognition that discrimination has been one of the thorny issues in our country, there has been less effort by the government to act not until recently when the ant-discrimination law was enacted. Discrimination has been practiced in the UK for long time. The main forms of discrimination that have been practiced in the UK have been based on gender, religion, disability and race. However, calls from the human right activities and the advancement that has been taking place on the right of the individuals has prompted the government to enact some of the laws that are mainly supposed to protect individual from discrimination at. (BBC 2007, p. 2) Laws and regulations that protect workers from discrimination and harassment in the workplace on the ground of sexual orientation and religion came to force in the UK in December 2003. They were impalemented in line with the European Union laws of 2000 which postulated for equal treatment of all the workers. Specifically the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulation of 2003 and the Employment Equality (Religion and belief) Regulations 2003 were enacted in order to protect the rights of the workers. The two regulations were put in place in order to cushion individuals against discrimination, harassment, victims, and all forms of abuse and discrimination in the workplace. (UK Government, 2003a; UK Government, 2003b) In 2000, the EU had put in place directives which established a general framework which directed for equal treatment in the workplace especially in employment. This EU accord outlawed any discrimination based on gender, religion, disability, age and vocation training. Therefore they directed amendment the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 which was enacted in 2004 and which is expected to outlaw discrimination on age by 2006. This legislation is targeted to the entire employer in Britain, Wales and Scotland. However there is a separate legislation in Northern Ireland which outlaws sexual oriented discrimination. From 2006 the act made it a crime to discriminate people based on their age. This means it is a crime to treat workers unfairly based on their age. Age discrimination has been one of the most practiced forms of discrimination where some employers have preferred to employ middle aged people who are more productive. Under this act individuals are supposed to be treated fairly based on their productivity and talents. The society has been changing rapidly and workers are growing older that therefore there is need to have a intergeneration transition that will ensure that we don't lose the values that we have build over along time in the work place. It is expected the number of people aged under 50 will fall by two percent margin by the year 2016 whereas the number of those aged 50 and 69 is expected to rise by about 17% in the same period. This means that the population of the old people is expected to rise higher which shows that they will be used more in the workplace. That is why it has become necessary to put in place a law that requires people to be treated fairly in the work places and ensure that all people of all ages will need to be treated fairly in mater of training and promotion. This is expected to give a fair intergeneration transition. (Office of Public Information 2007, p. 2-8) There has also been a sex orientation law that has been put in place the specifically target individuals who would discriminate others based on their sex. Sex and gender harassment has been common in the workplace. Under the Sex discrimination law that was enacted in 1975, employer has been barred from discriminating people based on their sex. This ensures that men and women are given the same kind of treatment in the workplace. The Equal Pay act of 1970 also enforced the need to give the same pay to males and female doing the same kind of job. The current act has been put in place to ensure that individual is treated as equal on recruitment and reassignment of duties and also in payment. (Metropolitan Police Authority, 2001, p. 2) The disability act has been put in place specifically targeting the discrimination issues of the disabled people. The act covers areas like application forms, interview arrangement, proficiency test, job offers and other areas where disabled people have been disadvantaged. The religion and belief act has been enacted specifically target those employers who fail to treat their employees like others based on their religion. In this regard the act emphasise the importance of observing of the religious worship days and the need to ensure that all the employees are given their rights of beliefs. The above legislations were put in place after a long struggle by the trade unions which called for enactment of laws that supported the directive the by EU on equal employment. The trade unions have been on the front campaign for end of discrimination in the UK. Since the laws were enacted there have been many opponents who have been arguing that the laws are not comprehensive enough to cover the needs of all the citizens and hence need to be revised. There are also supporters of the law who argue that they have played a key role in ensuring that there is less discrimination in the workplace. (Jacob 2005, p. 45) However despite the opponents that has been issued on the laws, they have been crucial in target the specific areas where discrimination has been practiced. They may not have achieved the full intention of the law makers but they have helped to reduce the incidence of discrimination in the work places. The laws have been able to address some key issues that has have remained contentious in the workplace especially on the issue of employment of the disabled people. Before the law as enacted, there was massive discrimination of the disabled people in the workplace on the bases of that they could not perform some of the duties. But since the law was enacted, there have been marked improvement on the employment and treatment of the disabled people in the workplace. However, the laws have massively failed to reach the initial target of the law makers despite the long and consultative efforts that have been applied in coming up with them. It has been shown that these laws are applicable depending on the place where one is and depending on whom one is dealing with. In this regard there has been a discussion on the legality of discrimination and it has been argued that discrimination is declared legal depending on whom you are and where it happens to you. This means that the law has been enforced on individual bases and only comes late where it already has made an impact on the life of the individual. This shows that the laws have failed to cause the preventive measures of the act but rather have centred on the punitive measures which comes after the act has been performed. Thus in a way there is a weakness in the way the act targets the employers since it does not put in place measures which can be used of avoid the discrimination of those seeking employment or those working in a company. For example the law does not put in place open guidelines which could be used for advertise for jobs but rather it target the way in which there should be no discrimination in the recruitment. In this regard an employer can carry out personal recruitment in which he is going to recruit the only person the he wants since the whole process is under this mandate. In this sense the law only target government recruitment which is guided by labour acts and which must be announced to the public before they are carried out. Therefore the laws should be amended in order to make them more responsive to the need to prevent discrimination rather than concentrating on after the action measures. It has been found that powerful individuals will always find a way out of the whole process and hence they are likely not to be punished under the act even after practicing discrimination. This is based on the fact that there are loopholes in the law and in the enforcement of the act. There are still many loopholes which have been used by the employers and lack of comprehensive enforcement of the law means that there are more practices of discrimination in the workplace. As per the statistics we reviewed in the introduction it is evident that there are many forms of equalities in the work place especially when it came to gender issues. Many women are still discriminated not only in the workplace but also in the public service sector there is still low representation of women in the workplace and in other leadership roles which has been attributed to failure by the act to address some of these issues fully. In senior employment in the UK, it has been observed that there are few women and ethnic minorities compared to other groups. This shows that though the law has been put in place, there are no enough mechanisms which can be used to enforce it to the employers. There has also been a lot of breaches of the disability discriminating legislation based on the fact that more a more disabled people are not able to access employment compared to others. (Dunt 2007) The government has also recognized the inefficiencies of the law and therefore has come up with Equality and Human Right Commission (EHRC) which has been given the mandate to over see the implementation of the laws. The commission brings together all the laws and ensures that they are obeyed accordingly. In this regard the body is supposed to act as the watchdog which is supposed to oversee the enforcement of all the laws on equality in the UK. However, even before the body sets down on its work, it has been criticised on the ground that is does not have a strong legal mandate which can assist it deal with the problem that it is facing. The common has been given the mandate of bringing together all the ant-discrimination commissions to work as one forceful body that can enforce all the laws. The common will also offer employees, the public sectors and individual practical advice on matter of discriminating. The argument of the criticizes of the formation of this body argue that instead of having so many bodies coordinate the same issue, there is need to come up with one comprehensive law that addresses all the discrimination laws. This would make it easy to manage and enforce the law and reduces conflicts between the laws. In this regard it would also save the government of the operation cost as far as the enforcement of the act is concerned. The structure of the commission makes is difficult for the enforcement of the law because it has been found out that there are many centres of power in the commission. This means that every anti-discrimination commission will be acting in its own way and in its own interest. This is likely to being a problem in the coordinate of the common. Instead of having many commissions up less than one commission, all the anti-discrimination laws should be merged as one comprehensive law that can be easily enforced. This will help to make it easy to understand and easy to be enforced. It has also been shown that there is a conflict within the laws and the way in which they are being enforced to the employees. The more the employees try to enforce the laws and promote diversity in the work place, the more they are falling preys to the laws. Employer has become more energetic in promoting diversity in the workplace and the more they are falling found to the main prohibition on discrimination. For example many of the diversity strategies will include positive action measure which are designed to make workplace a more equal representative place but the scope of some of those measures in the UK antidiscrimination laws are very narrow. The aspirant targets of the employees are seen as lawful but the quarters are not and in most cases are considered as positive discrimination which is against the antidiscrimination laws. There is still lack of coherence in the way the laws are being enacted in order to ensure that they are more responsive to the needs of the people. There has been a backlog of cases in the law court with makes it difficult of the courts to quick the way they pass their judgement. This has been attributed to inferences that the courts have to make in the interpretation of the law. The issue here is that they appear like different laws but they target the same crime. This makes it difficult for judge to pass their judgement since they have to make so many inferences. There the best way that has been suggested to make it easy for the judgment of these cases is to come up with one comprehensive law that addresses all the discrimination issue. This will make it easy for the judges to pass their judgement and therefore makes the process of criminal justice fast. This would prevent the backlog of cases in the court. Arguing on the same point we expressed before of the effect of the law coming too late after the action has already happened, there it will be found out that the more the cases stay in the course pending their judgment, the more justice is delayed to the victims and hence making the law irrelevant to them. Many of those who have reviewed the effects for the act hold the same view that there is need to come up with a more comprehensive law that will make it simpler of the enforcement regime. There should be public sector bodies which will be given the mandate of tackling the issue of discrimination. Researches have shown that even after the laws were established, there has still been a problem of discriminations which means they have not been able to address all discrimination issues especially as regards the rights of women. There has still been systematic discrimination especially against women more so in the work places. Although the cases of sexual harassment have been on the decline, the laws have not achieved the initial intention of reducing sexual harassment in the work place. The last weakness of the law is that they have been able to target the legal process but they have not given specific measure that should be undertaken in order to educate the public and change their practices and perceptions of discrimination. It is recorded that there are still a number of prejudice that is being recorded against different people in the society. Researchers have found out that not many people understand the provisions of the law as they have been meant for the lawmakers and the judges. This means that even the public may not be aware of its rights since there has been effort to educate them on their rights. In this regard, there has been less participation of the public in the enforcement of the law which is one of the factors that have made the laws less effective in archiving their objectives. According to a recent research that was conducted in 2007, there are many implications that have come due to failure of the laws to meet their objectives and which are steaming directly from discrimination. The report shows that minority ethnic communities in the UK have reported "not good health" since they have been discriminated from accessing health services. The report also shows that 25% of women in the UK are still on unpaid car compared to 15% of mean offering the same care. Rhyming with the data that were released in the last century, it is still evident that more the ethnic minorities as repeat in the research care economical inactive and want to work but they cannot access employment. The study also showed that there has been increasing unemployment of the disabled people. Conclusion The disability laws were put in place in order to help the government to deal with the problem of rampant discrimination. However lack of structural support for the laws has made them difficult to carry out their mandate as expected. This has been supported by increasing rates of discrimination in the work place. Even with the enactive of the laws, there are still cases of discriminaotn that have been record. This has been attributed to weakness in the enforcement of the laws due to lack of structure. Reference BBC, 2007, Mothers face job discrimination, BBC Online, February 2007 Directory, 2008, Discrimination at work, Retrieved from http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/DiscriminationAtWork/index.htm on 25th April 2008 Dunt, I 2007, UK anti-discrimination law not working, Retrieved from http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-5617.htmlon 25th April 2008 Jacob, R. 2005, EU anti-discrimination law, Oxford University Press Metropolitans Police Authority, 2001, A brief explanation Anti-discrimination legislation, Equality and Diversity issue Office of Public Information, 2007, Fairness and Freedom: The Final Report of the equality Review UK Government, 2003a, The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulation 2003, retrieved from http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2003/20031660.htm on 25th April 2008 UK Government, 2003b, The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulation 2003, retrieved from http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2003/20031661.htm on 25th April 2008 Read More