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Any possible resistance and subversive action from the Production Manager and his followers will, therefore, be difficult to control. One of the priorities at Manuflex is a revised system of recruitment and selection, in order to redress the overall balance across the workforce spectrum; but this will hardly remain immune to discrimination inspite of formalisation (Jewson & Mason, 1986b). At present vacancies for manual jobs are usually filled through recommend- ations by existing staff or by placing a notice on the gates of the works. External recruitment for vacancies in general would be an advisable measure and directives should be followed such as those issued by ACAS (1981), CRE (1983) and EOC (1985). However, line managers prefer informal sources of recruitment which enable autonomy and unaccountability over the choice of successful applicant, and the stereotyped ideal recruit is white, male, aged 30-40, and married, i.e. with wife, children and a mortgage (Collinson, 1987).
Drawing from experience of other companies, the Warwick working team will thus be able to anticipate that directives can be misused and their intention subverted as it has often happened with IPM's recommendations on job description and person specification (Collinson et al., 1990: 96-108); and, furthermore, the legal definition of 'justifiability' is sufficiently vague for the legislation to be ineffective and the workforce can be manipulated into becoming management's accomplice in discrimination (ibid: 70-71). This is achieved often through the accepted culture discourse; and there are signs of
it being active in Manuflex, where for example, the Asian female unskilled production tasks are known as "light", euphemistically pointing out that they are not macho enough for the members of the brotherhood (Cockburn, 1983 and 1985).
Some guidelines are in themselves not socially and politically neutral enough to avoid ambiguity and encourage covert discrimination. In Roger's 'Seven Point Plan' (Rodger, 1970) the headings 'circumstances' and 'acceptability' can be used as a cloak for discrimination (Sisson: 1994:189). Application forms, either multi-purpose as advised by Edwards (1983:64) or not so, may become a tool of discriminatory bias within their highly structured framework. Letters of applications and CVs are seen as being of little relevance for manual jobs (Duxfield, 1983:246-7) but of great relevance for other posts (Knollys, 1983:236-8), and they are open to discriminatory misuse by the employer (McIntosh and Smith, 1974), which can be aggravated where graphology is also used (PM, March 1985).
Another point of concern will be inappropriate use of screening tests, more so cognitive and psychometric; but discerning techniques of selection are advocated by Rodger (1970; 1971; 1983) whilst Kline (1993) is particularly concerned with 'reliability' and 'validity' as sound measures of selection.
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However, Scholarios et al. (1993) value them as prediction of future performance, an aspect which may be appealing to the Production Manager, interested in corporate values and acceptability. Low validity interviewing is yet another point of concern, where the single interviewer tends to be the practice with manual workers (Mackay and Torrington, 1986:38-40) whilst for non-manual workers the line manager and a personnel specialist are involved but the latter takes a purely advisory role (Collinson et al., 1990). The final decision tends to be made by one individual - white, middle-aged and male - which provides ground for abuse (Wanous, 1980; Honey, 1984; and Collinson et al., 1990).
Not just for manual and clerical staff, but also for managerial positions, external recruitment would be beneficial. At the top end of the ladder, the Production Manager, Works Manager and Sales Manager have all worked their way up from the shopfloor, although recent managerial vacancies such as the Finance manager and the female Assistant Personnel Manager have been filled through outside recruitment. This lady is a graduate with IPM qualifications, and as such more qualified than her boss. A double opening exists in this case inasmuch as it appears to reflect an acknowledged need to professionalise the personnel function. Both personnel role and female status may be elevated.
On the other hand, the initiative to seek in the external labour market an academically qualified female Assistant Personnel Manager may also be linked with the expressed enthusiasm for EO, i.e. both as a means of improving the company's image. Whatever the main motivator, this step in on its face value in harmony with an identifiable general trend towards a more positive appreciation of gender and race differences (Bacchi, 1990; Chambers & Horton, 1990; Firth-Cozens & West, 1991; Brown, 1992; Anthias & Yuval-Davis, 1992; McDowell & Pringle, 1992; Parkyn & Wooly, 1994) and the actual valuing of diversity as an asset in the management of human resources (Copeland, 1988; NEDO, 1990; Hansard, 1990), at a time when the situation looks bleak for those employers who fail to change their ways and are slow to look to non-traditional methods of recruitment (Curnow, 1989), as a proactive recruitment strategy is required from employers in an increasingly competitive market-place (Torrington and Hall, 1991). Thus the lack of credibility held by the EO recommended suitability criterium will have a better change when presented from a managerial angle as in Prime Minister John Major's business-led Opportunity 2000 campaign (Liff, 1995).
Finally, assistance in breaking barriers is also unlikely to come from unions, where once more the white brotherhood controls the situation (Cockburn,
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1983). Management at Manuflex is not unionised but unions are recognised. On the production side AEEU has 100% membership of skilled craft workers, almost exclusively white male; and the TGWU has high membership among the rest. The almost exclusively white female clerical staff is feebly represented by GMG which has a recognition agreement on behalf of non-management office staff but only 5% membership. Full-time officers from the unions are rarely involved in the company. Union/management relations are discribed as goos. Many of the current production side white male shop stewards have been in post for many years and the convenor strated work as an apprentice with the company 35 years ago.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, so that limits of EO policies and practice can be objectively identified, one must bear in mind what EO is expected to achieve, i.e. to find a 'fair chance' to disadvantaged groups. Also what initiatives take place within an organisation depends upon how EO is viewed by the members within the organisation, particularly those in a managerial position.
Problems of implementation tend to present a pattern of occurrence which can easily remain concealed underneath an otherwise apparently sound framework of EO measures. If, on one hand, formalised implementation of EO policies offers a structure within which unfair discrimination can be avoided, on the other, formalisation can be used as a channel for more subtle discrimination. Management may treat the rules as just a 'formality' and therefore adhere only in a nominal way and thus subvert the principle.
Particularly at the higher levels of the organisation, traditional structures and career paths may escape any genuine attempts to implement EO, whilst unfair discrimination can remain in recruitment and selection. Proclaimed measures taken to compensate for disadvantaged groups can be reverted against their own interests. The patriarchal structure of conceptualisations continues to control at all levels of the organisation; and management may manipulate employees into becoming their own accomplices.
Pervading and undermining the formal EO measures, polarisation of interests remains. Crucial is the power struggle between line managers and personnel managers, the former hierarchically elevated as providers and the latter downgraded in a perceived feminine welfare and administrative role. Thus corporate values remain anchored in outside values, which points to the key factor being the predominating culture both inside the organisation and in society in general.
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By accepting that there are 'limits' in the implementation of EO policies and practice, we are allowing ourselves to being absorbed into that culture and manipulated within the same. Management proclaimed strategies around diversity will become little more than a skilfull means of eluding the issue through avoiding a genuine effort towards EO practice whilst safely keeping a façade of adhesion to EO principles and policies.
Conceptualisations within a culture remain at the apex of a process in which formalised EO policies and practices meet with resistance and with subversive manipulation in a patriarchal attempt to tighten up managerial
authority and prerogative, with a resulting intensified polarisation of interests and stances. Certainly the best opening for a solution lies in reversing the process, by promoting consciousness of alternative forms of employment and relationships by all means possible, at both organisational level and social level in general.
This effort will have to be concurrent with strategies around diversity, so that the latter can find a more favourable environment. It will be a two-way process in which highlighting diversity as an asset can interact positively with an evolving culture in which conceptualisations gradually change in such a way as to lead to a reduction in polarised interests and consequently to a reduction in management subversion, with a resulting effect of sounder formalised EO policies and practice where diversity will have an accepted and valued role to play.
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ISABEL COOK
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