Equality Bill could protect vegans

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I take it that - buffets aside - you don't feel you have been dicriminated against because you are vegetarian James and if that's the case, I'm glad. Of course, if an employer refused to employ you because of your views on meat eating, or wouldn't allow you to carry out a particular role, or didn't promote you, or paid you less, or sacked you, or any other employment discrimination we can think of, it would be great to know that there might be some legal protection you could fall back on. Wouldn't it?
I'm pleased Gavin Bates suggested we get back to a debate about the story rather than just railing against the current Government. I remain interested to hear responses to my earlier post in which I asked "what's wrong with legislation that prevents discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief?
What would you put in its place - nothing, or something (and if so what)?
And what about other anti-discrimination legislation - what do you want to see and not see?"

I'm a vegetarian (a strict one at that), and I just don't see how I can be discriminated against.

About the only issue I can think of is that still (even today) many corporate buffets insist on putting the meat and vegetarian sandwiches on the same plate or platter.

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No more than me Mark and I do hope you're right but I fear there's nothing short term about the problems this bunch of traitors are importing and I don't think Britain and British, great or otherwise is part of their plans for our future. Any notion of a national identity is contrary to their globalist agenda hence their attempts to destroy the national pride of virtually every country in the developed world. I am passionately British and patriotic through and through but I have to be careful as there are those would label me a racist for expressing such sentiments.

Most of us still are!

It is not perfect, but then again nothing is. However, I am still proud of Britain and proud to be British.

There may be short term problems and elements that some people may not agree with, but Britain will still be Great long after any crises, politicians (of whatever persuasion) and scandals have long since passed.

Daniel, the make up of this government that got us into the current sticky wicket isn't quite how you describe it. In fact it more closely resembles the make up of boards of management that brown and harman want to force upon us. When our Government was made up, predominantly, by the old boy, old school tie brigade and clever men from Fenland and upper Thames Poly Britain had Great in front of it and we were proud of our country.

Of course carnivores will be protected, Peter: The legislation should be symmetrical. :-)
Of more general concern, there appears to be an assumption with some posters that the 'employment market' is a neutral environment and that employers will always make economically rational choices. I may indeed entertain the possibility that I'm wrong, but isnt it the 'old boy, old school tie brigade and all those dreadfully clever men from Fenland and Upper Thames poly that got us into the current sticky wicket? And the previous one, and the previous..., er have I made the point yet? Self recruitment merely reinforces prejudice and since the collapse of the empire (always fancied a veranda in Kenya!) we have no where but the City and the Commons to hide our idiots and rogues. My only plea is that any new generation of female managers isnt the pastiche of the worst examples of the Harvard and Chicago schools that emerged in the 90's, playing a harder game than their male counterparts, in order to survive.

Please have a look at the quotations below from our unelected PM and his PC lackey Ms Harm man. I hope it stops the nieve arguments regarding the motivation for the introduction of these revised regulations. You say it's just positive action today but I here think that Gordon Clown says that if positive action doesn't deliver the result they want then positive discrimination is next. They have an agenda that some here just wont acknowledge.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:

"A new principle in the governance code on diversity would build on the provisions in the equality bill, which allow employers to take positive action when recruiting to balance their workforce.
"But if we do not see a dramatic change in the composition of company boards in the future, we will need to consider taking more serious action to ensure companies recruit from the diverse pool of exceptional talent we have in the UK.”

Harriet Harman, Minister Women and Equalities, said:

"Too many British boardrooms are still no-go areas for women. Women are important consumers and employees. We’ll never get a proper meritocracy or truly family-friendly workplaces from male dominated boards.
"Businesses that run on the basis of an old boy network and do not draw on the talents of all the population will not be the ones that flourish and prosper in the 21st Century."

On fitting in...if the most important criteria is whether the others at work will like me/agree with my views etc, why bother with competence based interviews, CVs etc - just put me in a group discussion with the team and if they like me then I'm in; if not then I won't get the job.

On history...whilst the picture is still not at all rosy, I suspect most disability organisations would say that employment prospects for disabled people have got better since the DDA was introduced and that previously, despite lots of moralistic statements, few employers were actually prepared to do anything to improve employment opportunities for disabled people, including making reasonable adjustments for staff who became disabled.

On the reasons why people don't get jobs...even with legislation, there still seems to be pretty good evidence that decisions are not always made on ability but also (and sometimes exclusively) on grounds of someone's identity. I'm sure you will have read about the "mystery shopper" work done recently which indicates that applicants with names which sounded as if they might be from ethnic minority groups were hugely less likely to be sifted for interview, despite having identical qualifications to "white sounding" applicants.

On the current Government and discrimination...a significant amount of our equality legislation was passed well before the current Government came to power - Equal Pay Act 1970, Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Race Relations Act 1976, Disability discrimination Act 1995. Tribunals have been ruling on discrimination cases for many years - it's got nothing to do with the current Government, although they have sought to wide legislation so that other minority groups are protected.

On whether people see difference as the reason for them not getting jobs...an interesting point. Do we regard something as wrong before the authorities tell us it is ie "I'd never thought about the fact that I might not be getting jobs because I'm black until they introduced the RRA". In my view, possible and i don't discount a minority of people playing the race, sex, sexual orientation etc card whent they don't get what they want. But perhaps an alternative view is that people have always known that they've not been treated fairly (not just on the basis of ability) but could never do anything about it until the law ws passed.

On the Equality Bill...the vast majority of the Bill is intended to bring the various bits of equality legislation together, to form a coherent single piece of legislation, which should make things bit easier for employers to follow. there's some new stuff, of course, but not huge amounts and I reognise that some of the new stuff - for example the socio-economic equality provisions - which is controversial. As you indicate, the Bill makes provision for the current positive action to go a step further, so that, where there are two equally qualified candidates, an employer may, if they choose, select the person from the under-represented group. the key things about this is, first, that the employer can take this action but is not obliged to do so and, second, that they can only take this action where the candidates are equally qualified. In other words, it offers a tie-break. What we will continue not to be able to do is to pick less qualified people just because we want to get our numbers of women, ethnic minorities etc up, as was the practice in the US with their "affirmative action" programmes.

I agree David fitting in is an essential component of successful team working. For me that’s a given. Why would anyone want to recruit someone into a team where they wouldn’t fit? I think the selection criteria is very simple in that the most likely person to fit into a team is the one judged to be the most capable of doing the job and contributing to the team’s objectives.

Just out of interest, why would anybody actually want a job where they didn't fit in? I'm sure Nigel could tell us at length the stress and mental anguish that would result from the paranoia of a person so out of kilter with their colleagues that they didn't fit in.
David you say that history proves that employers will continue to discriminate where there is no legislation.
I’m intriged. What do you mean by that? I’m not sure what this statement is based on. Certainly throughout our entire history employers have advertised jobs and hopeful people have applied for them with some successful and some not. Did you mean that those unsuccessful have always failed because of discrimination? If so on what grounds? Would it be that they were discriminated against because their education, skills, knowledge and experience were judged not to be quite as good a fit to those required for the job as the successful applicants were? If so I think you’re right although I’ve never thought of it in this way. I thinks that’s because until recently, within the lifetime of this current Government, I don’t think I ever heard the word discrimination used in this context.
So what’s changed? For centuries people have applied for jobs with varying degrees of success but they didn’t automatically sue the company that didn’t want them, claiming to have been in some way disadvantaged.
Could it be that it isn’t the selection criteria that employers use that has changed but that we now have many job applicants that can see something different in themselves to the other applicants and in particular the successful one and are claiming that difference is what cost them the job.
In answer to your question David there isn’t anything wrong with legislating against discrimination. In fact anti-discrimination legislation has been in place in Great Britain for a good number of years now and has been successfully used to defend people discriminated against on many occasions. I agree whole-heartedly with the existence and use of this legislation where appropriate. However I cannot say the same for the Employment Equality Regulations currently being forced through parliament by Ms Harperson. I would question the necessity for them and have serious doubts about the motive behind their introduction. They will replace a lot of the existing legislation and have been written in a way that enables, nay legitimises and encourages positive discrimination in favour of those individuals who currently claim to be the victims. The end result is likely that in their quest for a fair, multicultural, enriched and diverse world these morons currently in charge will replace a lot of perceived injustices with a lot of real discrimination.

It does sometimes seem that political correctness has gone mad! You think of something and someone will say you can claim to be discriminated because of it. I honestly can't see someone discriminating against you because you are a vegan, does that ever crop up at interview? "excuse me Mr X... do you eat meat? No! oh sorry we can't employ you then". I have interviewed dozens of people and been interviewed countless times, and never yet have eating habits been discussed.
Do we realy need more legislation?

Ernie, how very dare you want people to "fit in", next I suppose you'll actually expect to like the people you work with &, heaven forefend, vice versa!!!! Well maybe that's going a bit too far but it does amaze me how out of context your comments are sometimes taken.

It's a shame that some folk don't understand that you can "fit in" whether you are from a minority group or have some kind of disability or not. In my book it's all about personality and wanting to work together harmoniously, & part of that is not constantly looking for an opportunity to be offended by someone or something.

One thing I see wrong with my simple philosophy is it may discriminate against people who refuse to fit in.

What does "fit in" mean? Of course employers want to find people who bring team working skills to the table, where this is a required competence. But from the tone of previous postings I suspect what may be referred to is that to come and work with us you need to look and think like us. The examples quoted by some posters would clearly fail the kind of test an ET would apply when looking at whether discrimination on the grounds of belief had occurred - as I'm sure you all recognise.
The intent of the legislation is to deter empoyers from making decisions about hiring, training, promoting, posting and firing people because of their beliefs - mostly these will be religious, but sometimes not, including veganism or humanism. And we have that legislation because history proves that employers will continue to discriminate where there is no legislation.
I'd ask Ernie and others the reverse question to the one he asks Helen - what's wrong with legislation that prevents discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief?
What would you put in its place - nothing, or something (and if so what)?
And what about other anti-discrimination legislation - what do you want to see and not see?
Your views might encourage a debate about discrimination legislation in the round. Personally, I'd find that that's more interesting and stimulating than the current series of posts which, in the main, seem to poke fun at the legislation without offering viable alternatives.

Ernie, why should I have to fit in with a working team? If anything, when I join a team the team members should make an effort to fit in with me and what I beleive. It's only fair.

Obviously I'm joking, but it's this attitude that seems to be promoted by anti-discrimination legislation, it's Narcissism, simple as that.

I always thought that Vulcans were made up anyway!

I find the whole debate highly illogical.

I mean, what are the actual chances of Mr Spock wanting to leave the USS Enterprise and applying for a job somewhere that would discriminate against him......

Helen please explain to me, and anyone else interested, just what in the world is wrong with wanting to employ and work with people who fit in.

Can I be included as a meat-eater in order to have protection under the law from bullying and abusive vegans and vegetarians? I have a deeply held set of beliefs which would qualify me for inclusion in Harriet Harpersons debate-destrying legislation. Oh, being a retired land surveyor, I am also a flat-earther, and believe sports cars should be exempt from road tax on the grounds that they bring untold joy to us old-codgers. This still leaves Trekkies of all variations, train enthusiasts, aircraft spotters - particulaly those who go to Greece .... need I continue with this ridiculous diatribe?

Peter Edwards

Nigel, not yet but watch this space.

I've yet to find any discrimination legislation that prohibits fair, as well as unfair, discrimination. I've therefore reluctantly concluded that my failure to secure a lucrative neurosurgery post may in fact be due to my submitting a cycling proficiency certificate as proof of competence.

Sorry Helen but if I didn't get the job it has to be that I was discriminated against on the basis of something.

Employers won't need to consider the likelihood of prosecution if they ensure that their job is open to anyone who can do it, casting their net far wider across the recruitment pool, instead of fly fishing for the person who they think will fit in. Seems quite simple to me.