Law commentary: discrimination in union influenced employment recruitment

• Published date: 01 June 1986
• Author: Bruce Spencer,Andy Khan
• Date: 01 June 1986
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2338.1986.tb00534.x

Industrial Relations Journal

ISSN

0019-8692

$3.00

Law commentary: discrimination

in

union influenced employment

recruitment

Andv Khan and Bruce SDencer

This article examines union influenced employers’ recruitment practices

in the light of

a

recent Court of Appeal case. It argues that unions need

to acknowledge traditional practices can, even unintentionally, be racist

and sexist and that in order to defend union influence, those practices

must change.

Despite the existence of the Sex Dis-

crimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations

Act 1976, widespread discrimination in both

fields persists particularly in employment.

The recent Department of Employment

study on non white unemployment rates

showed that even after allowing for other

factors, such as age distribution and quali-

fications, the unemployment rate for non

white males was roughly double that of

white males[l]. Another study of job appli-

cants, interviews and appointments showed

that white candidates were four times more

likely to get a job than similarly qualified

black candidates[2]. Similarly the

HMSO

report on ’Women and Employment’

although a descriptive survey, illustrated

how deep are the underlying factors behind

discrimination; ’the vast proportion of dom-

estic and caring work.. .is done by

women, is unpaid, and affects women’s

*

Andy Khan is Lecturer

in

Labour Law at the Uni-

versity

of

Leeds and Professor Designate, Athabasca

University, Canada. Bruce Spencer is Lecturer in

Industrial Relations, Department

of

Adult and Con-

tinuing Education, University

of

Leeds.

Discrimination

in

ability or willingness to compete as workers

on equal terms with men’.[3]

The role played by trade unions in rein-

forcing discrimination has been highlighted

in a recent case which went to the Court of

Appeal. In

Commission for Racial Equality

z,

Westminster City Council

union members and

lay officials pressurised the employer to con-

tinue racially discriminatory recruitment

practices[4]. This case and the general wide-

spread union attempts to influence

employers recruitment also has implications

for women workers (these practices are

prominent in male dominated industries

with recruitment via an unemployed list of

existing members or father-son recruitment,

examples in the docks and printing indus-

tries excluding both women and blacks[5])

however the main focus of this discussion

is on racial discrimination[b].

In the above case the Tribunal were asking

whether motive is relevant for the estab-

lishment of discrimination? But the case also

raises the question of the degree to which

some

union

practices,

no

matter how unin-

tentionally, can be seen as a direct con-

tradiction of union

policies

on race and of

general union aims and objectives.

union influenced employment recruitment

171