About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


15 Indus. L.J. 219 (1986)
Rethinking Positive Action

handle is hein.journals/indlj15 and id is 231 raw text is: Rethinking Positive Action By Christopher McCrudden* Introduction PoSIVE action is now a serious item on the political agenda. Along with equal pay for work of equal value, it forms the centrepiece of many of the proposals for reform of employment discrimination law in Britain. It is difficult to find any of the major political parties or industrial interest groups which attacks it as such and most support it explicitly.i In many senses it is the ideal campaigning slogan: it is short, it has connotations of action, and it sweeps together race and gender discrimination issues in a coalition-building way. Most important of all, perhaps, it has sufficient uncertainty of meaning for many diverse interest groups, once they have put their own construction on it, to weigh-in in its support. However, if the current emphasis on protecting the rights of workers through law is to be perceived as anything more than an exercise in papering over political cracks, it is perhaps opportune to rethink more exactly what is contained under the umbrella concept of positive action. The issue of positive action is important not only for a future programme of legislative reform. It is also an issue which employers and unions are currently learning to understand and come to terms with.2 Greater understanding of the idea of discrimination has been accompa- nied by an increasing concern over what remedies are appropriate. The development of alternative means of enforcing employment discrimina- tion law requirements (due partly to pessimism about the ability of more traditional methods of legal enforcement to bring about effective change3) has required that greater consideration be given to the issue. Local authority pressure on employers with whom they do business has further heightened its political and legal profile; through equal opportunity procurement policies (sometimes termed contact com- pliance) local authorities have now developed an important incentive for employers to take positive action. '4 Encouragement by local * Fellow and Tutor in Law, Lincoln College, Oxford. Member of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights; Member of the European Commission's Expert Network on the Application of the Equality Directives. Neither organisation is in any way responsible for opinions expressed in this article. I am grateful to the editor, E. Collins, J. Knox, L. T. McCrudden, M. Rubenstein and J. O'Hara for helpful criticisms and suggestions. See, e.g., Labour Party, Labour's Charter for Women and Work (1986): TUC-Labour Party Liaison Committee, People at Work: New Rights, New Responsibility (1986); S.D.P., Policy for Women (Green Paper No. 16); S.D.P. White Paper, Urban Policy; S.D.P., The Only Way to a Fairer Britain: S.D.P. Council for Social Democracy, Citizens' Rights (Policy Document, No. 10): Liberal Party Policy Briefing, Community Relations and Race Relations (1986). 2 T.U.C., Positive Action Programme: A T.U.C. guide towards equality of opportunity for women (March 1983). 3 See, e.g., Lustgarten, Racial Inequality and the Limits of Law, (1986) 49 M.L.R. 68. 4 The most prominent being the now abolished G.L.C., see House of Commons, Employment Committee, Session 1985-86, Discrimination in Employment, Minutes of Evidence: Greater London Council, H.C. 131.