Você está na página 1de 8

EEO Challenges for the New Zealand Public Sector.

Dr Judy McGregor, EEO Commissioner


Human Rights Commission, 5 September 2003.
Tena koutou katoa
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present this EEO seminar to the
Leadership Development Centre. I am truly sorry my sister in arms, Trudie
McNaughton cannot be present.
Recently a major company, Westpac, did an almost unheard of thing in
banking which has developed a wee bit of a reputation for customer
indifference. It asked its stakeholders what they thought was important. In
particular the bank was interested in views about corporate social
responsibility issues. The bank said its external stakeholders included
customers, suppliers, shareholders, the community and the environment.
There were twelve issues identified for people to rank. How many do you think
were EEO-related? The answer is in that six of the twelve corporate social
responsibility issues impacted on equality directly or indirectly. For example:

Ensuring we operate with integrity and high ethical standards

Ensuring our suppliers and business partners operate with high, social
and environmental standards

Providing banking access and services for diverse groups eg. ethnic
minorities, migrants, lower socio-economic groups, the elderly, rural
communities

Providing banking access for the disabled

Giving support to community groups through both time and money eg.
Assisting with financial literacy, sponsorship of causes, volunteering
activity

Being a good employer eg. promoting equal employment and workforce


diversity, rewarding work fairly, providing good working conditions.

I presume the bank is undertaking this engagement partly to gather


information and partly as PR exercise. Nonetheless it allows the opportunity
for a stocktake of stakeholder expectations. Similarly we are a group of EEO
stakeholders, both professionally and personally. I hope we can today in an
interactive way stocktake the position and prospects of workplace equality in
public service departments. Why should we rethink in this way?
1.

Complacency

The first challenge in thinking about EEO is the challenge posed by


complacency about equal employment opportunities because we assume the
job is done. New Zealand is unique. Womens power in New Zealand has high
visibility. New Zealand has its first elected female Prime Minister Helen Clark
(who followed the first female Prime Minister Jenny Shipley), a female
Attorney General, Margaret Wilson, a female Chief Justice, Sian Elias, and a
female Governor General Dame Silvia Cartwright. In addition women lead two
telcos, Telecoms Theresa Gattung and Rosemary Howard of TelstraClear, a
bank, Ann Sherry of Westpac, and at last New Zealand has its first female
university vice-chancellor, Professor Judith Kinnear of Massey University.
The feminisation of the countrys top constitutional and some business
positions points to womens progress in status and influence. Ironically,
though, it has also introduced by stealth a creeping complacency about equal
employment opportunities generally. These are the sort of magazine
illustrations (Employment Today, p.16) which, while wonderful, have indirectly
served to reduce public interest in, and policy attention to, the continuing
structural inequality of the sexes and of other minority groups. Equal
employment opportunity needs to clamber back on the economic, social and
political agenda but in doing so it needs to accommodate the current realities
of work.
2.

Need for new thinking and a new vocabulary

For EEO to revive itself there needs to be new thinking about the issues and
the solutions. A modern public discussion is required about what
responsibilities employers and workers have individually, and together, and
what values they hold. What leadership the public service should provide as a
direct expression of the value of equality is the issue before us today. Some of
the wider questions that New Zealand society must wrestle with that could
help this rethink are:

what does EEO mean in a globalised, knowledge economy?

how do public service employers in a tight labour market attract, retain and
promote diverse workers?

How do we face the work-rich, work-poor differential and will it worsen?

why do people with disabilities still lag so far behind other EEO groups?

and why, after all the publicity given to the subject does the Human Rights
Commission still believe there are still significant racial, sexual harassment
and bullying incidents in some workplaces?

Internationally there is a sea-change in thinking about EEO issues. A recent


ILO Report, Time for equality at Work (2003) states that a common trend is a
shift from laws that prohibit discrimination to laws that provide for a positive
duty to prevent discrimination and promote equality. The concept of a
positive duty will, I believe, eventually gain currency, as an extension of the
2

good employer onus, and may even feature as a recommendation from the
pay and employment equity task force that is currently examining health and
education sectors. The ILO predicts a positive duty will be more effective in
tackling the subtlest forms of discrimination, such as occupational
segregation. A positive duty could be customised for the many smaller
enterprises in New Zealand. It shifts the rights-onus forward, not backwards to
the individual complainant.
Current risks in rethinking EEO.
However, I see several risks in debating and driving forward with equality at
work.
First, there is the prevailing EEO cringe factor which could prevent New
Zealand moving off the plateau. The cringe factor comes about when we
timidly and defensively respond to those who clamour that talking or debating
EEO issues is overly politically correct. The anti PC brigade, is undergoing
resurgence. It is currently very fashionable to knock EEO as being too PC
and much harder for supporters of those not on a level playing field to answer
in the current climate. It is not exactly the fabled EEO backlash, more
targeting EEO as either an unnecessary compliance cost or an expression of
political ideology, rather than a fundamental human right.
Ive taken as my example of this, columnist Garth George in the New Zealand
Herald, in an attack on the Minister of Labour Margaret Wilson headlined,
Why socialist strivings for Utopia always come to nought.
Ms Wilsons latest venture into the realm of social engineering is to set up a
group to co-ordinate policies that promote a work-life balance for us all.
And Ill tell you now what will happen. The inter-agency steering group will
attract bureaucrats, health professionals, human Resources wonks,
academics and other self-styled experts like a magnet attracts iron filings.
They will investigate ad nauseum, hold meetings ad infinitum and pocket fat
consulting fees, all of which in the end will cost the taxpayer millions. And
when the research is done and the reports are prepared, even after any
legislation has been passed, absolutely nothing will change.
Because human nature is such that there will always be those who will work
as many hours in a day as they can stay awake, irrespective of the effect that
has on family, because their sole interest in life is money and the property and
prestige it will bring..There is no need for the state to waste money,
time and talents in trying to rectify a perceived imbalance between work and
Life.all the Govt has to do to substantially adjust the work-life balance is
to cut income and other taxes by at least 40 per cent; and to ensure that
every worker is paid a living wage for 40 hours a week.
Journalists, (and I know because for 25 years I was one) by nature of their
craft never practice work-life balance themselves. However, they provide an
echo chamber of discontent about EEO issues. This discontent masquerades

mischievously as the voice of common sense and reason, the average person
on the Island Bay bus.
Second, there is a debate about the visibility of equality. Human resource
management is vulnerable to faddish thinking, largely because it struggles for
its own disciplinary basis as a hybrid of managerialism and organisational
behaviour. For the two years I was Professor of Human Resource
Management at Massey I clung to the life-raft of communication theory to
navigate safely out of these stormy waters.
A current trend is to talk up the notion of EEO as integrated or mainstreamed
or as an ethic or value underpinning all work practices. As an ideal this is
lovely, but it assumes too rosier a picture of organisational life. Many of you
might have caught episodes of the British satire called The Office. Part of its
humour comes from knowing that it is not too dissimilar from the worst of the
reality of some workplaces . It would be neat to think the values of equality
were embedded into practice and culture. Sadly, that is not the case. Unless
equality measures have visible indicators then there will be no progress.
Organisations will not be self reflexive about things they cant see.
There is a need then, not only for new thinking about equality but for
persuasive and thick-skinned champions of EEO, for promotion and
information about relevant issues and experiences and for opportunities in
workplaces to discuss work-related issues as they intersect with equality. Are
there enough champions in the public service who talk up equality and follow
it up with good practice?
3.

So if the rhetoric about womens progress is distorting the picture


then what is the reality?

I would like to refer briefly to examples relating to women in management and


access to professional work.
To take women and management first. Much attention has rightly been paid to
lower paid workers in the pay equity debate. But this is what the figures look
like from my own benchmark studies in New Zealand of remuneration in
management by gender undertaken at Massey University prior to becoming
EEO Commissioner.
Table 1: Media remuneration packages of men and women managers (in
000s)
Junior mgmt
Middle mgmt
Senior mgmt

1993 Male
$40,000
$51,000
$80,000

2000 Male
$57,000
$77,000
$122,000

1993 Female
$36,000
$46,500
$68,000

2000 Female
$52,500
$66,000
$107,000

Women at every level of management are still substantially underpaid and,


depressingly, the differential at middle and senior management is higher. The
picture of inequality is worsened by ethnicity. According to the latest data
4

from the State Services Commission- the 2003 progress report that focuses
particularly on Mori- the biggest pay gap is in the Managers occupation
category, where Maori women are paid less than Mori men, Mori men are
paid less than non-Mori men and Mori women are paid less than non Mori
women.
Confirming my view that the media reinforce the notion that women are doing
all right, thank-you is the Dominion/Posts poster $2 million woman.
Leaving aside the morality of, and values, attached to telephone number
salaries, there is an exquisite irony here. The Dominion/Post failed to tell
readers that in 1999 when Ms Gattung was first appointed she earned a
million dollars less than her predecessor. A letter published at the time
written by a female correspondent to the Dominion said Ms Gattung,
replacing a male CEO, was considered to be worth only half his salary.
This was, she wrote, strange in a country that has been touting pay equity
for as long as I can remember, if not actually practising it. It has taken her
four years to achieve pay parity. Of course, other women dont necessarily
have Ms Gattungs leverage.
It might seem odd to be talking about access to work issues when New
Zealand has more people in paid employment than at any time in its history at
1.886 million people. But there is one global trend that is incontrovertible in
employment- the need to find, attract and retain the right employees from the
diversity that might present itself. Here are access examples at the
professional level that employers should be concerned about if they want the
best person for the job. In a civilised society like New Zealand why do newlygraduated females earn $11,000 less, at $41,000, than equivalent men at
$52,000, in commerce and business occupations, according to the latest
survey of university graduate destinations published by the New Zealand Vice
Chancellors Committee.
The figures for people with disabilities within the public service are not
encouraging. Of 40 departments, ten have not set a 2010 target figure for
overall representation. Of the 31 departments who responded, more than half,
58% of departments, report little or no progress.
4.

How to move off the plateau?

First, there needs to be an acknowledgement that we have levelled out. There


have been pockets of progress, there is a dominant status quo and there are
pockets of regression. The State Services Commission usefully provides
annual progress reports. But I believe it is time to supplement these with
qualitative research and life-study work that follows people through the cycle
of employment from access to exit in the public service. We are lacking rich,
experiential data.
How do we refresh our thinking?

First, we need really up to date information about the changed nature of work,
and a willingness to embrace different workplace attitudes and rules. We
should not be seduced, necessarily, by data that convinces us that everything
in the garden of the knowledge economy is better. We need more about the
socialisation of work and its impacts not just on work/life balance but on new
family structures, communities and society, the work rich and the work poor,
the influence of later motherhood, the immediate and long term effects of
student debt, immigration influences etc. A dynamic research template would
be useful so that our perceived empirical wisdom is not watered down copy
cat version of overseas where the economy and cultures are different. While
the research attention has focussed on the future of work I personally believe
we do not know enough about in the current New Zealand reality.
Second, we need to acknowledge the basics of equality at all points of the
employment cycle-access, on the job and exit. A human rights framework,
based as it is on both individual and collective rights, allows us to consider the
right to work in an individual and modern way.
5.

Older workers

Could I ask you to write down what percentage of workers aged 50 and over
make up the staff complement of your organisation. If you dont know, take a
guess. My research shows the first surprise for industry, unions, and
organisations when they look at the demographics of staff is the bell curve
effect. Like income tax, ageing is unavoidable. Were getting older, individually
and as a working population. By 2050 those over 65 years will make up a
quarter of New Zealands population, more than doubling since 1999. At the
same time the growth rate of New Zealands working age population is
projected to decline and become negative by the year 2041 (Statistics New
Zealand, 2000). A large study of older workers in New Zealands largest
union, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union,(EPMU) indicated
that many workers were changing their minds about when they would retire
and intend now to go later.
The abolition of compulsory retirement means some people will stay on
because they want to, and others will stay on because they have to. The
dynamics of work places will change with a bulge of older workers. The critical
issues for employers will be: How do you support a life-long learning
orientation at work so that employee skills remain relevant? This will be a
major employment challenge and in facing it we will all have to confront our
own stereotypes. Employers and unions are starting to ask questions about
the appropriateness of performance management as the tool for end-of
working- life productivity problems.
The worlds largest employer of contract, casual labour, Adecco, believes the
biggest workplace challenge in global terms is retaining, attracting geezers
and geezerettes- oldies to stay on and be interested in paid employment
should the anticipated labour vacuum descend upon us. Are we prepared?
The answer is decidedly, no.

There is clear evidence of older people exercising their human rights in


relation to age. HRC pre-employment statistics show more enquiries on the
grounds of age than any other ground of potential discrimination.
New trends:

Fathers

Dads are just about to become the new research growth industry and the
EEO Trust this week launched a project aimed at gathering experiences
from fathers as snapshots. New research in United Kingdom shows that
men today are responsible for a third of all childcare in Britain. The EOC
is calling for a new debate on the role of fatherhood. The EOC study also
shows that 80% of fathers say work makes it difficult to fulfil their family
duties. There is a longer hours work ethic with one in eight putting in
excessively long hours of 60 or more a week. A study of older workers in
New Zealands biggest union, EPMU, against perceived wisdom showed a
higher proportion than anticipated working more than 40 hours a week.

The gendered labour market

Women, particularly professional women, are waiting to have kids later in


their careers. Female returners also are quite different in expectation,
levels of confidence, and aspirations. The gendered pattern of work which
is changing and poses different policy concerns is a distinctly underresearched area.

Intergenerational difference

Recently I witnessed a civilised but heated exchange between two groups


of women lawyers-those who had made it into partnerships and those in
years 1-3 of service in larger law firms. The cry from older women was the
anguish of those who had pioneered in small or big ways and expected
gratitude and the reply from younger women was that they felt they owed
no dues, had different expectations and would not necessarily prioritise
work sacrifice in the same way as their older sisters. Your fight is not our
fight.we dont want to be like you. Are there intergenerational issues
over and above the normal time effect of mellowing attitudes.Yes,
probably, but apart from womens magazine commentary do we know the
influence and effects of intergenerational work difference? I suspect those
in power and policy under-estimate such contrast. Naturally, we all see
everyone as like us. Homogeneity is the unfortunate soft under-belly of
policy makers everywhere, even when they are looking for difference.

New trends, though, should not disguise either the organisational imperatives
for EEO nor the systemic inequalities that exist inside and outside the public
service. Being better, generally, than the private sector is not good enough.
You occupy unique positions. Many of you already sustain EEO in your
organisations. It is time to step forward again to challenge complacency and

put EEO back on the social, political and economic agenda. Demand the
attention of your chief executives and senior management about modernising
thinking and action about equality.
We should remind ourselves that the benefits of eliminating discrimination in
all its forms in the workplace transcend the individual and the public service
and extend to the economy and society. While I deplore child labour, I am
reminded of the ubiquitous marketing slogan, Just Do It. We all need to just
do EEO.

Você também pode gostar