Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T14:42:25.187Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ethnic Minorities and Equal Treatment: The Impact of Gender, Equal Opportunities Policies and Trade Unions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Mike Noon  and
Kim Hoque
Mike Noon*
Affiliation:
Business School, De Montfort University, Leicester
Kim Hoque*
Affiliation:
School of Management, University of Bath
*
e-mail [email protected]
e-mail [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The article examines whether ethnic minority employees report poorer treatment at work than white employees, and evaluates the impact of three key features — gender differences, formal equal opportunities policies and trade union recognition. The analysis reveals that ethnic minority men and women receive poorer treatment than their white counterparts. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that ethnic minority women receive poorer treatment than ethnic minority men. Equal opportunities policies are effective in ensuring equal treatment, but the presence of a recognised trade union is not. White men and women in unionised workplaces enjoy better treatment than their white counterparts in non-union workplaces, but the same is not true for ethnic minorities. By contrast, there is very little evidence of unequal treatment in non-union workplaces.

Type
Research Article
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 176 , April 2001 , pp. 105 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

∗

We would like to thank Andy Charlwood, Jay Dahya, Gill Dix, John Forth, Ed Heery, Stephen Machin, Neil Millward and Keith Whitfield for their helpful comments and suggestions. We also acknowledge the Department of Trade and Industry, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Advisory, Conciliatory and Arbitration Service and the Policy Studies Institute as the originators of the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey data, and the Data Archive at the University of Essex as the distributor of the data. None of these organisations bears any responsibility for our analysis and interpretation of the data.

References

Brown, C. (1984), Black and White Britain, London, Heinemann.Google Scholar
Brown, C. and Gay, P. (1985), Racial Discrimination: 17 Years after the Act, London, Policy Studies Institute.Google Scholar
Cockburn, C. (1989), ‘Equal opportunities: the short and long agenda’, Industrial Relations Journal, 20 (3), pp. 213–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colling, T. and Dickens, L. (1989), Equality Bargaining - Why Not? London, HMSO.Google Scholar
Colling, T. and Dickens, L. (1998), ‘Selling the case for gender equality: deregulation and equality bargaining in Britain’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 36 (3), pp. 389–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daniel, W. W. (1968), Racial Discrimination in England, Harmondsworth, Penguin.Google Scholar
Department of Trade and Industry (1999), Workplace Employee Relations Survey: Cross-Section, 1998 [computer file], 4th ed.Colchester, The Data Archive [distributor], 22nd December, SN, 3955.Google Scholar
Dickens, L. (1994), ‘Wasted resources? Equal opportunities in employment’, in Sisson, K. (ed.), Personnel Management (2nd edn), Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 253–296.Google Scholar
Dickens, L. (2000), ‘Still wasting resources? Equality in Employment’, in Bach, S. and Sisson, K. (eds), Personnel Management (3rd edn), Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 137–169.Google Scholar
EOC (1988), Local Authority Equal Opportunities Policies, Manchester, Equal Opportunities Commission.Google Scholar
Grint, K. (1991), The Sociology of Work, Cambridge, Polity.Google Scholar
Heath, A. and McMahon, D. (1997), ‘Education and occupational attainments: the impact of ethnic origins’, in Karn, V. (ed.), Ethnicity in the 1991 Census (Vol. 4), London, The Stationary Office.Google Scholar
Hoque, K. and Noon, M. (1999), ‘Racial discrimination in speculative applications: new optimism six years on?’, Human Resource Management Journal, 9 (3), pp. 71–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Industrial Relations Services (IRS) (1996), ‘What about the workers? Employment policy statements in 100 top annual reports’, IRS Employment Trends, 619 (November), pp. 6–12.Google Scholar
Jenkins, R. (1986), Racism and Recruitment, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, R. (1987), ‘Equal opportunities in the private sector: the limits of voluntarism’, in Jenkins, R. and Solomos, J. (eds), Racism and Equal Opportunity Policies in the 1980s, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp.110–124.Google Scholar
Jenkins, R. and Solomos, J. (eds) (1987), Racism and Equal Opportunity Policies in the 1980s, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jewson, N. and Mason, D. (1986), ‘The theory and practice of equal opportunity policies: liberal and radical approaches’, Sociological Review, 34 (2), pp. 307–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jewson, N., Mason, D., Lambkin, C. and Taylor, F. (1992), Ethnic Monitoring Policy and Practice: A Study of Employers’ Experiences, Research Paper No.89, London, Department of Employment.Google Scholar
Jewson, N., Mason, D., Waters, S. and Harvey, J. (1990), Ethnic Minorities and Employment Practice: A Study of Six Employers, Research Paper No. 76, Sheffield, Employment Department.Google Scholar
Jones, T. (1993), Britain's Ethnic Minorities, London, Policy Studies Institute.Google Scholar
Liff, S. and Dale, K. (1994), ‘Formal opportunity, informal barriers: black women managers within a local authority’, Work, Employment and Society, 8 (2), pp. 177–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liff, S. and Wajcman, J. (1996), ‘“Sameness” and “difference” revisited: which way forward for equal opportunity initiatives?’, Journal of Management Studies, 33 (1), pp. 79–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCrudden, C., Smith, D. J. and Brown, C. (1991), Racial Justice at Work. London, Policy Studies Institute.Google Scholar
Modood, T., Berthoud, R., Lakey, J., Nazroo, J., Smith, P., Virdee, S. and Beishon, S. (1997), Ethnic Minorities in Britain, London, Policy Studies Institute.Google Scholar
Monks, J. (1998), ‘Trade unions, enterprise and the future’, in Sparrow, P. and Marchington, M. (eds), Human Resource Management: the New Agenda, London, FT/Pitman, pp. 171–179.Google Scholar
Noon, M. (1993), ‘Racial discrimination in speculative application: evidence from the UK's top 100 firms’, Human Resource Management Journal, 3 (4), pp. 35–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ram, M. (1992), ‘Coping with racism: Asian employers in the inner city’, Work, Employment and Society, 6 (4), pp. 601–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, D. J. (1977), Racial Disadvantage in Britain, Harmondsworth, Penguin.Google Scholar
Storey, J, and Bacon, N. (1994), ‘The new agenda and human resource management: a roundtable discussion with John Edmonds’, Human Resource Management Journal, 4 (1), pp. 63–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
TUC (1999), Address by Sir Herman Ouseley (CRE), sourced from website http://www/tuc.org.uk.Google Scholar
TUC (2000), Newsletter, March.Google Scholar
Virdee, S. and Grint, K. (1994), ‘Black self-organization in trade unions’, Sociological Review, 42 (2), pp. 202–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, J. and Liff, S. (1988), ‘Play the white man: the social construction of fairness and competition in equal opportunity policies’, Sociological Review, 36 (3), pp. 532–551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrench, J. (1987), ‘Unequal comrades: trade unions, equal opportunities and racism’, in Jenkins, R. and Solomos, J. (eds), Racism and Equal Opportunity Policies in the 1980s, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar