Cálculo especifico

The EOC Code of Practice on Equal pay suggests that there are oppor- tunities for discrimination on all aspects of pay:

■ On the basic rate, women can be on lower grades because the jobs in which they predominate have not been evaluated fairly.

■ Women may not have been represented properly on the job evaluation committee or the factors chosen in the scheme may favour men (supervision, strength required and tech- nical skills).

■ They may also be appointed at lower starting points on the pay scale.

■ They may also move more slowly to the top of the scale if movement depends on achieving competencies or perform- ance. This may be because of the unfair rating system which is skewed against women.

■ On performance pay, women may have targets which are too demanding compared to men or the assessments made by managers (still mainly men) may be unfair towards women.

■ Women may have reduced access to benefits, such as allowances and company cars because of the way their jobs are graded or because decisions are taken in a discriminatory way by management.

When an organisation sets up pay systems or evaluates existing ones, it is important that these potential problems are open to investigation and rectification. A transparent and accessible appeal system is also essential to help women put their case before having to turn to legal redress.

Age discrimination

The changing demography, explained in Chapter 1, will result in the over-45s dominating the workforce in the twenty-first century. By 2021, 46% of the workforce will be over 45 and, taking Europe as a whole, the number of people aged 50–64 will have increased by 20% in two decades. Despite the growing importance of this section of the workforce, ageism remains entrenched in society and the workplace. Discrimination is displayed principally at recruitment when age limits are often overtly or covertly used by describing the ideal candidate in an advertisement as ‘between 25 and 35’ or using more indirect descrip- tions as ‘a recent graduate’ or ‘with 1–3 years experience’.

The new expression ‘glass precipice’ indicates that older employees may be constrained from career-development activities where employ- ers see a limited investment return from training while redundancy selection can often work against older employees, especially in non- unionised establishments where no formal selection procedure is agreed. The extent of this overt discrimination is shown by the huge reduction in economic activity rates of older men in the last 50 years, as shown in Figure 3.6. In the 1950s, over 90% of men over 55 were in paid employment but this had fallen to just over 60% by 2000.

Figure 3.6 Economic activity rates of men and women 1950–2000 (Source: OECD 2001 quoted in Duncan, 2003) 1951 1961 1971 1981 1990 2000 Men aged 55–59 95.0 97.1 95.3 89.4 81.4 74.9 Men aged 60–64 87.7 91.0 86.6 69.3 54.6 50.3

Men aged over 65 31.1 25.0 23.5 10.3 8.8 7.9

Women aged 55–59 29.1 39.2 50.9 53.4 54.8 57.6

Women aged 60–64 14.1 19.7 28.8 23.3 22.7 25.9

As with all other discrimination, it is counter-productive in that it limits the sources of available competent candidates and may result in the loss of essential skills and company operating knowledge when large numbers of older employees are encouraged or forced to leave. Having a low-activity rate puts a large burden on the state through bene- fit payments, especially invalidity benefit and public sector early retire- ment pensions. It has also been one of the causes of the early twenty-first century crisis in private pension funds, where older employ- ees have been persuaded to accept redundancy or early retirement through generous provisions paid by the funds.

In 1999, the government introduced a voluntary Code of Practice on Age Diversity in Employment. This warns employers to avoid ageist practices in advertising, cautions against asking only older applicants for medical references and baring older staff from promotion and sug- gests that age diversity in the employment context provides many bene- fits. This voluntary code did not go far enough for many activists and there have been pressures throughout Europe in recent years from such organisations as The Employers Forum on Age, for legislation to be implemented in this area. This finally arrived with the EU Equal Treatment in Employment and Occupation Directive 2000.

Legislation takes effect in October 2006 introducing the principle of equal treatment into all aspects of age. Currently, age discrimination is enshrined in law in areas of redundancy and unfair dismissal where no claims can be successful if the employee is over 65 and all employees have a fixed retirement age. These elements may need to change to meet the requirements of the EU Directive. Direct discrimination in job adverts will be outlawed as will age-related promotion decisions. It is likely that interview questions, such as ‘When do you intend to retire’ will be held to be discriminatory as will expressions like ‘we went for the younger person – they have more enthusiasm and are less of a health risk’. Having said all this, Article 6 of the Directive allows different treat- ment on the ground of age if objectively and reasonably justified, set- ting out the following examples:

■ Maximum age limits for recruitment based on training needs of the job or the need for a reasonable period before retire- ment. This will apply, presumably, for jobs such as airline pilots.

■ Protection of young workers, such as restricting their employ- ment on night work or on dangerous machinery.

■ Encouraging or rewarding loyalty by paying long service awards.

■ Allowing employment planning to ensure a workforce that is age-balanced to a reasonable degree.

There will be a continuous debate over how much difference the legislation will make, given the broad exceptions that may allow organ- isations to continue to discriminate, albeit in a less overt fashion (GMB, 2001). Legislation has the tendency to ‘creep’ and loopholes to be closed, either in the UK courts or at the European Court of Justice.

On the more positive side, there is good evidence that some employ- ers have little respect for age discrimination. On the contrary, there is the well-known case of B and Q superstores, who have specifically recruited a large proportion of older employees on the grounds that they know something about do-it-yourself and have more patience with customers (Worsely, 1996). This has been copied by most of their com- petitors who have also appreciated the cost advantages of employing older people. Sainsburys has also operated a much more age-friendly since the mid-1980s (see Case study 3.5).

Case study 3.5