To fight against any sort of discrimination, could and should all workers be treated equally?

Résumé du document

Over the last few years, the issue of discrimination has become central in our society and has extended to a whole lot of areas, among which are sex, race, disability, religion and age, and the issues that were not addressed a few years ago, such as physical appearance or change of sex. Discrimination i.e. treating an employee less favourably than others because of his or her sex, race etc. is not permitted, says the law. To fight it then, the obvious answer would be to treat all workers equally. The issue of the feasibility of this is thus central, as well as that, later on, of 'recommendability'. Finally, how efficient equal treatment is in fighting discrimination will be examined.

Extraits

[...] To fight against any sort of discrimination, could and should all workers be treated equally? Over the last few years, the issue of discrimination has become central in our society and was extended to a whole lot of areas, among which sex, race, disability, religion and age, and to issue that were not addressed a few years ago, such as physical appearance or change of sex. Discrimination i.e. treating an employee less favourably than others because of his or her sex, race etc. [...]

[...] If mentalities do not evolve, things will be difficult to change. How, beyond changing the law, can mentalities be changed or made to evolve? The integration of French handicapped workers is relatively successful; quotas worked because of the economic sanctions attached. Will it be necessary to establish economic sanctions for other kinds of discrimination? Bibliographie indicative Les discriminations de Eric Pélisson (Broché - 9 novembre 2007) Sage Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination de Victoria M. Esses, Miles Hewstone, John F. [...]

[...] Yet measures have been implemented to try and treat workers as equally as possible. Some companies use workshops to recruit staff, so all candidates are treated on equal grounds, regardless of their colour, sex or age. Anonymous CVs are also a step in that direction. Positive discrimination, meaning the practice of setting specific criteria for certain groups, though debatable, is aimed at ensuring traditionally disadvantaged groups of people are given opportunities they wouldn't have had otherwise. Countries have passed numerous Acts to set an official barrier to discrimination; examples include the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act in the UK. [...]

[...] But the other brutal truth is that discrimination still does exist, only more subtle. Minorities may be more visible, they are still underrepresented in the workplace, especially in senior positions : in France, a Black or North-African executive has only 17% chance of being given a positive response to their application to an executive position, while for an unqualified position the percentage rises to 47%. The so- called “glass ceiling” still exists. Promotion is possible, but only up to some level: 70% North-African executives hold a Master's, while only 40% of their White colleagues do, as if they had to do more to deserve their position. [...]

[...] Employers enjoy freedom to choose their own staff and to build a workforce that suits their own need. If employers feel pressured to take on people on the mere ground of their being from an ethnic minority or being disabled, this is not an ideal situation. This is not the only perverse effect anti-discriminatory measures have had, sometimes even backfiring on those same people they aimed at helping. The main side effect is that of suspicion against people seen as benefiting from those measures. [...]