Race Discrimination and Management of Ethnic Diversity and Migration at Work: Volume 6

In this chapter, we examine the notion of ethnic diversity with a view to explore Europe-wide differences in defining and managing ethnic diversity and equality. When compared to gender diversity, ethnic diversity does not enjoy similar level of success in Europe. Our analyses show that this is due to the fact that ethnicity and ethnic categories are national. In fact, there are different levels of discussion on ethnicity, where the debate is limited due to historical, cultural and legal differences.

French Republican Model and ‘laïcité, the French version of secularism’, are supposed to protect the citizens, at work or elsewhere, against any form of discrimination and France has a long history of immigration. Ethnical and racial discriminations at work are nevertheless observable towards visible minorities today. People from North African ascendance as well as those from French overseas territories ¹ ’ origins are heavily penalized in the job market. Neither direct and indirect laws nor the ‘voluntary initiatives’ introduced by companies seem able to solve this problem at a time when massive unemployment and terrorist Islamic attacks on the French soil are creating a situation of crisis.

This chapter is partially based on an unpublished Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) background report, titled ‘OECD Research Project on Diversity in the Workplace: Country Report Germany’, which was written by the authors of this chapter. While the OECD country report illustrates how diversity policies and related diversity instruments targeting various diversity dimensions have developed in Germany over recent decades, this chapter focuses solely on the management of ethnic diversity and its related policies. Diversity policies are broadly understood as any policy that seeks to increase the representation of disadvantaged social groups such as migrants and ethnic minorities, women, disabled persons, older workers and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, intersex and queer/questioning (LGBTIQ) in the workplace, both in the public and in the private sector. The central idea of this chapter is to provide an overview of which policies and instruments have been implemented for migrants and ethnic minorities at the workplace and to evaluate their success or failure where possible. In doing so, this chapter also discusses obstacles, success factors and challenges for policy implementation for the past and for the future.

This chapter explores the issue of ethnic diversity and race discrimination among elementary school teachers in Ireland. It examines both the historical precedents of this discrimination and uses the current experiences of Immigrant Internationally Educated Teachers (IIETs) living in Ireland to explore the phenomenon contemporaneously. The chapter begins by delineating the historical context of immigration in Ireland and more recent population data. It then explores the relevant legislative provisions to address employment and race discrimination in the Irish context. Owing to the deep-seated and historical origins of the current race discrimination, a particular focus is placed on delineating the evolution of the selection and recruitment of elementary teachers in Ireland imbued with the right to teach in elementary schools. Drawing on data ascertained through semi-structured interviews with a range of IIETs, positioned within the aforementioned analyses of relevant historical documents, the chapter then moves to explore some experiences of IIETs seeking to work in the Irish elementary school system. The chapter analyses these data through a Bourdieuian lens, paying particular attention to ways in which power has been, and continues to be, exercised by the State in regulating access to prestigeful mainstream teaching positions. The chapter proceeds to root these analyses within Kitching’s work on ‘race moves’, arguing that immigrant teachers have been racialized as other on the basis of an absence of proficiency in the Irish language.

Owing to its colonial past, Britain has a long history of regulating race relations at international and national levels. In this chapter, we focus on race discrimination in the United Kingdom, exploring its historical roots, the politics of discrimination as reflected in public debates on ethnic diversity in the United Kingdom and regulatory frameworks that operate in the country. First, we explicate the historical context of immigration which shapes the meaning and practices of race discrimination at work and in life in the United Kingdom. We then describe the contemporary debates and the key actors in the field of race discrimination at work. The legal context is presented with key turning points which have led to the enactment of laws and the emergence of the particular way race equality and ethnic diversity are managed in the United Kingdom. We also demonstrate the intricate contradictions with regard to legal progress and setbacks with introduction of countervailing measures that undermine equality laws. We present a country case study which illustrates the complexities of race discrimination in a specific sector of work, that is, the technology-enabled private hire car services and change of ethnic composition in the hire care services in the United Kingdom. The chapter summary is presented at the end and it provides also a discussion of possible ways to combat race discrimination at work in the United Kingdom.

One in every five of the almost 17 million inhabitants in the Netherlands is a first- or second-generation migrant. The largest immigrant groups with a non-Western background are Turks Moroccans, Surinamese and Antilleans. Their labour market position is precarious, as is indicated by higher levels of unemployment, larger dependency on temporary (rather than fixed) contracts and lower job levels. Substantial part of the migrants perceives that their weaker position is due to discrimination. Statistical analyses and field experiments show discrimination in hiring and indicate that part of the differential position of migrant workers in the Dutch labour market may be attributed to discrimination as well. At the work floor, migrants experience more discrimination than native Dutch, mostly in the form of hurtful jokes. Research that focuses on more discrimination grounds shows that ethnic background is not the only, nor the most important ground of perceived discrimination. Age and disability are also major grounds of perceived discrimination. Discrimination is a heavily debated topic that polarizes political debate and public opinion. It has shown to have mobilizing powers in politics. The high levels of public attention for the topic not only spurs citizens’ initiatives and governmental policies for combating it but may also facilitate recognition of discriminatory practices resulting in relatively high levels of perceived discrimination within a European context.

This chapter reviews the historical and political context of immigration to Norway, patterns of ethnic inequality in the labour market, as well as how ethnic discrimination has been legislated, publically debated and studied in the Norwegian context. Drawing on the findings of a multimethod study of discrimination in the Norwegian labour market, combining a field experiment with employer-interviews, the chapter furthermore clarifies the extent of discrimination in ethnic minority applicants’ access to the labour market and discusses what mechanisms influence the level of ethnic discrimination ‘at work’. The field experiment reveals that young Norwegians of Pakistani heritage – the by far largest group among immigrant descendants in the country – face substantial discrimination when applying for work. However, it also demonstrates striking differences in the scope of discrimination between the public and the private sector, as well as across occupational contexts, indicating that discrimination should not be seen as mere reflections of individual bias, ethnic preferences or statistical uncertainty, but rather that such individual-level dispositions are mediated through factors at the organizational level. This conclusion has important implications for our theoretical understanding of why discrimination occurs, as well as for the further development of anti-discrimination measures.

This chapter deals with labour conditions and discrimination of migrant workers in Italy, with a particular focus on the agricultural sector in two Southern Italian areas: Northern Basilicata and Western Sicily. The first part of the chapter describes the history of migration to Italy and the most relevant transformations occurred over the last years, as well as an overview of the relevant legislation on migration and racial discrimination at work. The second part, on the basis of two ethnographic studies realized by the two authors, analyses the complex intertwinement of structural and symbolic violence in determining the conditions of exploitation and discrimination of migrant seasonal labourers in the two areas. The study focuses on three topics: piecework payment; the ghettoization and segregation of seasonal labourers; the system of informal and illegal labour intermediation called caporalato. It is argued that that the main source of symbolic violence is represented by the brokers called caporali, who are usually of the same nationality of the labourers. If, on a certain extent, migrant workers perceive their ghettoization, discrimination and exploitation as ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’, this is due to the communitarian relationships built and manipulated by the caporali. On the contrary, the State and the local administrations seem to act exclusively as a source of structural violence. The national legislation on migration, as well as the lack of public policies concerning labour intermediation, transport and accommodation for seasonal labourers, appears as the main reason of the vulnerability of migrant workers in the considered areas.

In this chapter, we investigate race discrimination and race equality policies in the workplace at two interrelated levels of analysis in Cyprus. At the macro-national level, the effectiveness and implications of the present legal system is evaluated, and the chapter discusses whether it brought about the desirable results of safeguarding a fairer and efficient legal system, eliminating any kind of discrimination at the European Union (EU) level. At the meso-organizational level, the chapter refers to the results of research presenting a number of organizational policies and practices that safeguard or hinder the inclusion of migrants at the workplace.

This chapter focuses on the case of migrant Filipina live-in domestic workers in Greece and how the frame of their work and employment in precarious, low-status/low-wage jobs and race discrimination at work, that is, the employers’ residences, affect their participation in secondary groups of solidarity and workers and their representation in them, that is, community, migrant labour associations and trade unions, during the economic crisis in Greece. According to the results of in-depth interviews Filipina migrants are entrapped in a frame of isolative and exploitative working conditions and racial discrimination at work, that is, personal services, care and domestic work. In this working context, most of the interviewed migrant Filipina live-in domestic workers appear to have developed individualistic perceptions, they act in an atomistic manner, form materialistic beliefs, are indifferent to collectivity and solidarity and are isolated from their compatriots and other workers. They have low self-perceptions and expectations for social advancement and deal with their social and labour-related problems individually, or completely resign from claiming them.

In this chapter, adopting a civil society perspective, the author is reflecting on the development of equality legislation in the European Union and its (lack of) impact on racial equality at the workplace. Presenting the development of the European Network against Racism and its organization, he highlights the thought process that led anti-racist activists to depart from a purely legal approach to discrimination and inequality to engage in a constructive conversation with public and private employers about diversity management. Since 2009, this organization has been through a long cycle of learning and exploration of the challenges of racially and ethnically diversifying a workforce and articulating business cases to that effect, while seeking to remain faithful to its founding principles of inclusion and equality. The author touches upon a variety of issues emerging from the practice of its organization: the difficulties, sometimes reluctance of HR managers to confront racism, their quest for tools, the blockings around equality data collection, the ambivalent role of trade unions as well as post-modern tensions between standardization and individualization which lie at the heart of diversity management.