Posted on 11/19/2005 10:13:08 AM PST by fanfan
A major federal department has temporarily banned the hiring of able-bodied white men in an unusual move critics say could spark a backlash against the very disadvantaged groups it is meant to help.
Managers in the Public Works department must hire only visible minorities, women, aboriginals and the disabled, except with written permission from their superiors, David Marshall, the deputy minister, ordered in an e-mail circulated yesterday.
The policy, designed to address shortfalls in the department's employment-equity goals, will last at least until the end of next March and be reviewed then, the memo said.
"As executives and managers, our role includes ensuring that the public service is representative," Mr. Marshall said in the memo. "This involves providing direction and leadership by example, and demonstrating a firm commitment to an inclusive workplace."
Pierre Teotonio, a department spokesman, said last night the order was prompted in part by a precipitous drop in the number of employees hired from the designated groups this year. The proportion of female, disabled, aboriginal and non-white new hires fell from one in eight this March to only one in 20 by September, he said. The federal benchmark just for the hiring of visible minorities is one in five.
Still, a veteran labour lawyer said yesterday he had never heard of an edict actually barring the recruitment of large numbers of people. And even a federal civil service union that strongly supports employment equity questioned the wisdom of the policy.
"I think it's creating a possible backlash against equity groups and then it's not helping these people to get into government," said Nycole Turmel, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
"It's even creating more frustration or anger from the workforce as well as from the population ... I am quite sure the people they hire will be competent and good employees, but that is not the point here. They will be seen as targets, and then people will question their hiring, and I don't think it will help them."
She also charged that many of those hired over the next few months may well be laid off once the department reaches its targets by the end of the fiscal year in March.
Ms. Turmel said a more effective strategy would be simply to encourage managers to consider members of the designated groups, and provide help to those people to find work in the federal government.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms does allow some discrimination by government to aid groups it identifies as being disadvantaged, said Robb Macpherson, a labour lawyer with the firm McCarthy Tetrault.
However, that usually means implementing equity programs that promote the hiring of qualified people from those groups. The Public Works order appears to take the idea a step further, he said. "They are in effect cutting off a significant portion of the workforce from these opportunities," Mr. Macpherson said. "It sounds like a pretty extreme measure that they're contemplating."
Federal statistics for 2003-04 show that the representation of women, aboriginal people and the disabled in the government was actually greater than in the Canadian workforce as a whole. But the percentage of visible minorities -- 7.8% -- was less than the 10.4% in the overall workforce.
Mr. Teotonio said the move was taken as part of the department's efforts under the six-year-old "Embracing Change" program, designed to bring more members of visible minorities into the federal government.
The percentage of visible minorities and the three other designated groups hired by Public Works over the past year dropped in part because there was relatively little recruitment of any kind, he said.
"All persons recruited externally must be from designated groups (persons who are visible minorities, aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and women), except for cases having received ADM/CEO written approval," the memo said.
"This measure will be in force until March 31, 2006, at which time we will re-assess our progress."
The Department of Public Works and Government Services should be abolished immediately.
"The one on the second-from-left does not look happy."
He's in charge of toilet seat designs. Shown here with one of the latest.
Brisson is also homophobic.......he hates himself.
In any sane society or enterprise, your job is to ensure efficient, timely, cost-effective delivery of necessary public services.
If this really bothers you that much, you and like minded managers should donate YOUR jobs to "visible minorities". It is called "leading by example".
From the posts on this thread either your countrymen arn't looking the right way , are blind or just choose to ignore what has happened to the USA . It's called AFFIRMATIVE ACTION Personally I like the term , reverse discrimination . When you say "When socialists get into power in the USA", what do you mean by "when"?
http://www.essaysample.com/essay/002617.html
In a statement released in 1981 by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Jack P. Hartog, who directed the project, said: Only if discrimination were nothing more than the misguided acts of a few prejudiced individuals would affirmative action plans be "reverse discrimination." Only if today's society were operating fairly toward minorities and women would measures that take race, sex, and national origin into account be "preferential treatment." Only if discrimination were securely placed in a well-distant past would affirmative action be an unneeded and drastic remedy.
What the commission failed to realize was that there are thousands of white males who are not discriminating yet are being punished because of those who do. The Northern Natural Gas Company of Omaha, Nebraska, was forced by the government to release sixty-five white male workers to make room for minority employees in 1977 (Nebraska Advisory Committee 40). Five major Omaha corporations reported that the number of white managers fell 25% in 1969 due to restrictions put on them when affirmative action was adopted (Nebraska Advisory Committee 27). You ask, "What did these white males do to bring about their termination?" The only crime that they were guilty of was being white. This hardly seems fair to punish so many innocent men for the crimes of a relative few.
http://www.essaysample.com/essay/002617.html
BTTT
Oh, "pathetic" *and* "superficial"...two great tastes that taste great together!
bump
Good one!
I have personally observed people coaching Spanish speaking people in the official test area of the Poway office of the California DMV. It was so blatant that the "coach" was pointing to the right answers. The counter staff was all hispanic and simply ignored the illegal behavior. It makes me wonder how many illiterate Spanish speakers are cruising the roads of California with licenses obtained by fraudulent behavior such at that I observed.
Well, sounds like a good policy to me. No white males allowed to work for the government, no white male taxes allowed to pay for it either.
I've pretty much seen the same thing also. It's been a long time, but I believe I also saw someone taking the test with an open book years ago.
Good luck with that one. I'm all for it though.
Do they have a problem with hiring invisible minorities?
Same thing happened to me. I put in for an office job at the place where I work. They called me at home and told me that I wasn't qualified, but I was. I went to the Personnel office the next morning to question them about it and was standing behind the door when I heard the Personnel manager tell the secretary not to set up interviews with anybody that wasn't Black. Guess I wasn't qualified after all. I had the job qualifications but not the color qualifications.
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