Now -read the book!

Here is a link to my memoirs which, if you are a glutton for punishment, you can purchase online at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history.
Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name. (William Morris - A Dream of John Ball)

Thursday, March 03, 2011

Unequal cuts

Cuts don't fall evenly - and one institutional consequence of social progress over the past generation are the Equality Impact Assessments which now accompany proposals for redundancies and service cuts.



Working with an employer which applies the right test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher's_exact_test) to data illustrating the differential impact of redundancies it is possible to identify reorganisation proposals which have a (statistically significant) disproportionate impact on, for example, women workers.



The question then though is, as ever, what is to be done when this is found. Yesterday a union colleague and I were confronted with a tautological explanation of gender inequality in a redundancy situation. More women face redundancy, we were told, because we are cutting more of the jobs mostly done by women.



What then do we do with all these public sector equality duties? Can we win an argument that ploughing ahead in such circumstances is unlawful indirect discrimination? Will politicians who have committed to a cuts budget step make from discriminatory outcomes arising from that decision?



We shall see...

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

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