Employers ignore anti-discrimination law due to ìfears and misconceptionsî of equality rights

ìPolitical correctness gone madî or ìtoo much red tapeî are views expressed by employers on anti-discrimination legislation. The myths and misconceptions that have built up around equality rights has led to many employers resisting any discussion of the equal rights agenda, and many employees believing that they have more rights than they do. This is the conclusion of an article published in Equal Opportunities Review, based on a recent Acas discussion paper.

The discussion paper published by Acas (Back to basics: Acasís experience of equality and diversity in the workplace) highlights not just what goes wrong in relation to equality in the workplace, but why things go wrong in the first place. Sarah Podro, an Acas senior policy adviser and author of the discussion paper, writes in Equal Opportunities Review: ìIt is well recognised that both employers and employees find discrimination legislation a difficult area of employment law. It is an area surrounded by fear and misconceptions. Furthermore, employers believe that equal rights will have a negative impact on their bottom line, particularly in relation to equal pay, maternity rights and reasonable adjustments to accommodate disabled employees.î

Sue Johnstone, editor of Equal Opportunities Review, said:

ìAcas is in a unique position. Its impartiality means that its frontline staff ñ conciliators, advisers and helpline staff ñ hear frank and honest views from all sides of the employment relationship. The findings of this research demonstrate that although diversity is high on the agenda of many organisations and awareness of equality issues has heightened in the past 10 years, there are still many small employers, and line managers in multi-site organisations, who are avoiding the issues wherever possible. It is very worrying when we hear examples such as the chemist shop that asked a young woman job applicant to take a pregnancy test before offering her a job.î

The areas of most concern identified in the paper are:

negative attitudes to disability as employers struggle to understand the issues and the complexity of the law;
pregnancy discrimination (one of the most commonly raised topics on the helpline) where employers have a basic understanding of womenís rights to maternity leave, but lack knowledge of the detail; there is also a growing body of anecdotal evidence that employers are unwilling to recruit women of childbearing age; despite widespread publicity (or perhaps because of it) Acas is receiving many calls about the new Age Regulations, with many employers under the misconception that they apply only to discrimination against older workers; and some employers believe that migrant workers do not have the same rights as indigenous workers, to the extent that they pay them way below the minimum wage and pay no holiday pay.

Line manager training
A major issue arising from the findings is that as equality and other traditional HR functions are devolved within an organisation, line managers are inadequately prepared for this new role. As one Acas adviser put it: ìThey get training on product knowledge but not how to manage staff, never mind equality and diversity.î