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...positive and the priority given to combating racial discrimination in the workplace is closely analysed here. Attractive to employers, it can be a means of evading hard choices about equality and justice at work.
Keywords: BME, discrimination, employment, equal opportunities, positive action, racism
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Over recent years, the language of diversity management has been increasingly replacing that of equal opportunities in the sphere of employment in the UK, and further afield in Europe too. (1) Diversity management differs from previous employment equity approaches directed at under-represented minority ethnic groups, such as anti-discrimination, equal opportunity and affirmative action approaches, because of its primary emphasis on business benefits, organisational efficiency and market performance. Activists for anti-racism and anti-discrimination at the workplace have long been working to get equality issues taken seriously as integral parts of an organisation's routine activities. Surely now they must welcome the fact that, with the spread of diversity management, major business corporations are voluntarily mainstreaming policies for the fair and equal inclusion of black, immigrant and ethnic minority workers on the grounds of business self-interest, instead of needing to be persuaded to do so for moral reasons or for fear of anti-discrimination law?
However, not everyone is convinced that the spread of diversity management is a positive development in the fight against discrimination in employment. At the 1997 TUC Black Workers Conference, a motion was passed deploring and opposing the trend. Recently, two separate pieces of academic research independently confirmed the strong resistance of British union officials and equality activists to diversity management in Britain. Interviews with trade union officials responsible for equality issues (2) revealed dominant attitudes ranging from scepticism to outright hostility, with diversity management being described as 'a cover-up', 'window dressing' and a 'softer term' which detracted from the equality agenda.
What is diversity management?
Diversity management stresses the necessity of recognising cultural differences between groups of employees, and making practical allowances for such differences in organisational policies. The idea is that encouraging a culturally diverse workplace where differences are valued enables people to work to their full potential in a more creative and productive work environment. An advantage of diversity management is said to be its more positive approach, compared to the negative one of simply avoiding transgressions of anti-discrimination laws. It is said to avoid some of the 'backlash' problems associated with affirmative action as, unlike previous equality strategies, diversity management is not seen as a policy solely directed towards the interests of excluded or under-represented minorities. Rather, it is seen as an inclusive policy, one which therefore encompasses the interests of all employees, including white males. (3)
In the US and Canada, a diversity management policy is relatively normal business practice, at least among the bigger corporations. Among the various Fortune lists of company performance in America, there is now one called 'Best for minorities'. Of the top fifty on this list, Fortune states 'Each of these companies takes extraordinary care to recruit and retain a diverse workforce--even, in some cases, at the cost of throwing over the old culture and constructing a new, more inclusive one in its place.' (4) Diversity management consultants predict that Europe will follow the US and Canadian trend. Common external forces--globalisation, continuing post-industrial migration, demographic shifts, the decline of manufacturing and the growth of the service sector--mean that European firms, too, will increasingly need to turn to diversity management techniques in order to survive. One indication of a growing European interest was a conference, held in Amsterdam in January 2004, called 'Legitimising diversity as a business tool'. Here, senior speakers from major household-name companies from the IT sector, oil, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, finance, telecommunications and vehicle manufacturing all described how their diversity policies have produced market and business benefits. (5)
So why is it that equal opportunity activists hesitate to embrace this apparent 'opportunistic coincidence of organisational needs of business and moral principles of inclusiveness'? (6) To help understand this reluctance, I discuss below key examples of critiques made of diversity management from various quarters. These critiques can be grouped according to five main themes: diversity management is a 'soft option'; it...
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