The Unequal Unemployed: Discrimination, unemployment and state policy in Northern Ireland 9781138364370, 9780429431371

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Dedication
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
2 Discrimination and the Rise of Individualism
3 Unemployment Policies in the 1990s
4 Unemployment and Fair Employment
5 The Long-term Unemployed in West Belfast
6 Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes
7 Training and Employment
8 Employers and the Long-term Unemployed
9 Equality and Full Employment
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

THE UNEQUAL UNEMPLOYED

In loving memory o f M ARY BRIDGET McCABE SHEEHAN Thank you. You are with me always. La lucha continua.

The Unequal Unemployed Discrimination, unemployment and state policy in Northern Ireland

MAURA SHEEHAN D epartm ent o f Economics The Queen's University o f Belfast

MIKE TOMLINSON D epartm ent o f Sociology and Social Policy The Queen's University o f Belfast

First published 1999 by Ashgate Publishing Reissued 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © Maura Sheehan and Mike Tomlinson 1999 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Publisher's Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact. A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 9807 4445 ISBN 13: 978-1-138-36437-0 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-429-43137-1 (ebk)

Contents

List o f Figures and Tables Acknowledgements

vi vii

1

Introduction

1

2

Discrimination and the Rise of Individualism

9

3

Unemployment Policies in the 1990s

45

4

Unemployment and Fair Employment

61

5

The Long-term Unemployed in West Belfast

86

6

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes

97

7

Training and Employment

118

8

Employers and the Long-term Unemployed

131

9

Equality and Full Employment

141

Bibliography Index

157 174

v

List o f Figures and Tables

Figure 3.1: Unemployment rates in Britain

57

Figure 5.1: Population and sample by religion

87

Figure 5.2: Duration of unemployment by religion and gender

89

Figure 5.3: Education and duration of unemployment

91

Figure 6.1: Job search and willingness to consider any job

101

Figure 6.2: Intimidation and job search

106

Figure 6.3: Replacement rates, with and without Family Credit

111

Figure 6.4: Replacement rates for men by religion

112

Figure 6.5: Claiming and earnings from work in last year

114

Figure 7.1: LTU interested in benefits-plus scheme

126

Figure 7.2: Level of weekly addition in benefits-plus scheme

126

Table 2.1: Employment equality law models

24

Table 5.1: Households and children

87

Table 5.2: Number of children and unemployment duration

89

Table 6.1: Job search methods and religion

99

Table 7.1: Additional allowances for CWP participants

122

vi

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Sharon Milner, Patrick Neeson, Mary Trainor and Seamus McGuinness for research assistance in relation to the research project on which this book is based. We are also grateful to the Department o f Economic Development Statistics Branch, the Social Security Agency for Northern Ireland, the Training and Employment Agency, the Falls Road Social Security Office, the Falls and Shankill CABx, and a number of West Belfast community groups, all of which helped with aspects of the surveys discussed in Chapters 5-8. Our thanks go to all the West Belfast employers who showed an interest in the project and agreed to be interviewed. A special mention should be made of the West Belfast Economic Forum, discussions within which have helped to clarify some o f the ideas in this book. Frances Webber, though she may not know it, has contributed hugely to this book by supporting us with hospitality, a reconstructed garden and by many late night discussions of the changing faces o f racism in Europe, always highly-informed from her own political, intellectual and legal work. Finally, we hope this book does ju stic e to the problem s of unemployed people and helps to make a difference to their situation.

Vll

1 Introduction

his is a book about unemployment and discrimination. Its particular focus is the situation in Northern Ireland where for many years there has been a particularly vociferous debate over the causes of distinct patterns of inequality between unemployed Catholics and Protestants. Are the unequal unemployed a product of discrimination, or the unintentional outcome of the ‘natural’ workings of the labour market? If discrimination is involved, what forms does it take? Are the discriminations justified or not? Politicians, human rights campaigners, civil servants and academics have thrashed out these arguments time and time again, as anti-discrimination laws are passed, reviewed and re-enacted. Such questions are not unique to Northern Ireland as this book shows. Part of our purpose is to draw parallels with other societies, notably the United States (US) and Britain. In many societies, lobbyists seeking to combat the disadvantage experienced by distinct and identifiable social groups will typically point to disproportionate levels of unemployment to make their case. Certainly in the context of the European Union where the drive for economic integration has been accompanied by a period of mass unemployment, there has been a degree o f political sensitivity over ‘social exclusion’. A term as vague as this clearly can serve many purposes and it is rarely used to refer solely to social class or simply to unemployment. In the 1980s and 1990s, it is much more likely to be used in relation to disadvantages expressed by, or resulting in, adverse labour market and class positions. With the relative decline in class consciousness and the corresponding rise in special interest groups and ‘identity politics’, the ‘socially excluded’ more likely, and confusingly, may mean for example people with disabilities, lone mothers, or ex-prisoners, rather than the economically marginalised per se. The issue of discrimination is in the forefront of any discussion o f such groupings. But while we believe that the way the issue o f discrimination has been conceptualised and responded to in Northern Ireland has many parallels elsewhere, rhetorical and ideological

1

2

The Unequal Unemployed

similarities should not be confused with unique historical factors. The nature of the political conflict and how this has interacted with the labour market and economic development, is a case in point. During the few weeks before we finalised the main body of the text, there were twelve shootings in Northern Ireland, resulting in nine deaths. Eight of the killings were carried out by loyalist groups and one by a small republican splinter group. O f the dead, two were working as doormen at bars, two were taxi drivers, two were labourers, two worked in shops and one had just started a new job after returning from the US. Most commentators were in agreement that the killings were intended to draw other armed groups, notably the IRA, into the fray with a view to derailing the peace process and political talks on the future of Northern Ireland. Whatever the political intentions of such actions, however, the social and labour market effects are probably more immediate and long lasting, if less remarked upon. As people absorbed the reports of the killings, they will also have taken in the details of biography and occupational circumstances of the victims. They will have observed that one, a Catholic man late in his working life, had worked ‘safely’ in a loyalist area for 25 years through the worst of the last three decades of conflict. Whether intended or not, the message was that such areas are no longer safe places for Catholics to work. Another victim, a Catholic taxi driver, was planning to marry a Protestant woman living in a loyalist-dominated housing estate. He had been warned not to drive in to the estate to give her lifts home. The immediate consequence o f the killing was that a dozen Catholic taxi drivers resigned, in fear, from the taxi depot to which the victim belonged. A similar point is sometimes made in discussions of why Catholics do not join Northern Ireland’s mainly Protestant security forces (the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Royal Irish Regiment of the British Army) or the Prison Service. Because members of these organisations have been repeatedly targeted by the IRA, the argument is that Catholics in particular feel intimidated and are deterred from seeking employment in securityrelated occupations. There have been thousands of violent deaths over the last thirty years in Northern Ireland (Sutton 1994). In addition to the killings, there have been tens of thousands of violent attacks on people and property which have not resulted in deaths. Notwithstanding the propensity to represent such violence as ‘mindless’ or simply ‘evil’, violent actions

Introduction

3

are correctly understood, first and foremost, as political events. Irrespective of how they are condemned morally, violent events of the kind which have saturated Northern Ireland society for so long are not only expressions of power (and, in a sense, weakness), but they also have political effects. It is these political dimensions of violence which dominate mass media and academic discussions of the Northern Ireland conflict, and it is arguments over the capacity and propensity to use violence which have dominated the peace process during the latter half o f the 1990s. Violence and its consequences need to be understood, however, in the longer term and at a deeper level. Violence, especially killings such as those described above, are also ‘labour market events’. Political violence in Northern Ireland has had a distinct impact on the economy and society (Rowthom and Wayne 1988; Sheehan, Hamilton and Munck 1997), just as its relative absence has led to great interest in the economic consequences o f peace (Michie and Sheehan 1998; Munck and Hamilton 1998; Bradley 1997; Northern Ireland Economic Council 1995c, 1995d; Coopers & Lybrand 1995; DKM Economic Consultants 1994; Tomlinson 1995a; 1994). Depending on the form it takes, violence may deter both local and transnational investment, it has skewed the labour market towards securityrelated employment and it enlarges the role o f state expenditures in the economy. Furthermore, in quite subtle ways violence contributes to, and interacts with, other labour market processes shaping the availability of and access to jobs, including discrimination. In other words, the political conflict in Northern Ireland has had an important bearing on the extent and nature of labour market inequalities. One of the earliest social consequences o f the post-1969 conflict was the rapid polarisation of residential areas by the two nominal religious groupings of Catholics and Protestants. While residential segregation has been a long-term and in a sense ‘taken-for-granted’ feature o f Northern Ireland, ‘it seems doubtful’ observes Darby, ‘that anything in the past came even close to the population movements that have taken place since 1969’ (1976: 43). The refugee crisis o f the 1969 to 1972 period contributed forcefully to what O ’Dowd (1980: 26) has referred to as ‘near apartheid’ in many areas o f social life: ‘Segregated housing, schools, churches, recreational facilities and workplaces ... [are] sharpest in urban working class areas’. Whether or not deliberate acts of discrimination on the basis of nominal religion take place, labour market inequalities, including unemployment, are inevitably structured

4

The Unequal Unemployed

by the impact o f the political conflict on patterns o f residence, coupled with the spatial history of employment development and change. Put simply, to live in a largely segregated area devoid o f places o f employment, reduces the prospects of employment. When that area is politically and socially stigmatised, unemployment becomes even more likely. If unemployed people are well-enough resourced and perceive the risk of searching for work beyond their own job-starved residential areas as sufficiently low, they are further exposed to risks of violence when travelling to and from work, workplace intimidation, and the possibility of discrimination and, in certain circumstances, even death. The alternative is to leave altogether. The inspiration for this book stems from our concern with what appears to be a recent growth in explanations o f labour market inequalities which play down, or deny altogether, the relevance o f so cially discrim in ato ry structures and processes. The rise in individualistic and conservative modes o f thought in this regard is the subject o f Chapter 2. W hile our prim ary reference point is the unequal burden of unemployment between Catholics and Protestants in N o rth ern Ireland, we believe that there are many parallels internationally, particularly in relation to ‘race’ in the US and elsewhere. The concept of the ‘unequal unemployed’ in the book’s title, therefore, is designed to draw attention to two things. Firstly, there is the problem o f the inequality of unemployment per se. With the collapse of the international Keynesian belief in full employment as the primary goal of economic policy, unemployment has not only become politically ‘acceptable’, it is increasingly explained in terms of the failings of individuals and the quality of labour supply. The new economic orthodoxy—that economic health stems from the monetary management o f inflation rather than state regulation of demand— is matched by the developm ent o f ‘active’ labour market policies which place emphasis on job search, skills acquisition and individual motivation (Grieve Smith 1997). A powerful international alliance has developed around the idea that greater levels of material inequality are necessary and must be tolerated, while there are limits to what nation-states can and should do to address unemployment. As Chapter 3 points out, if there has been a political concern about unemployment it has tended to focus on the long-term unemployed (those without work for more than a year). The second sense in which we refer to the ‘unequal unemployed’ is to

Introduction

5

recognise that unem ploym ent is disproportionately, and often predominantly, experienced by distinct social groups—black people, Muslims, Travellers/Gypsies, Catholics. The problem here, then, is to explain why some social groups persisten tly experience more unemployment than others (see Therborn 1986 for a discussion of nationally-based unequal unemployment). It used to be commonplace to regard unequal patterns of unemployment as prima facie evidence o f discriminatory labour market structures and practices. It was a small step from the observation of unequal labour market outcomes to the outlaw ing o f discrim ination, and to the establishm ent o f antidiscrim ination policies, grievance procedures and compensatory measures. It should come as no surprise that, over the last decade especially, there has been an intellectual and political backlash against measures designed to deal with discriminations of various kinds. Perspectives which saw unemployment inequalities as the product of the systematic absence of equality of opportunity, or worse, as the product of direct discriminatory practices by the ‘gatekeepers’ of employment, have been challenged by models which emphasise individual responsibility and social, cultural or biological inferiority. The result has been to sharpen the debate over the very existence o f discrim ination and to attack the ‘equal opportunities industry’, as it is disparagingly called, for its attempts at ‘social engineering’. These conservative shifts within economic ideas and social policy discourse are clearly related and often promulgated from the same source (Murray 1984,1994; Wilson 1987). While some conservative thinkers have brought ‘race’ and ‘class’ together using the concept of an ‘underclass’, it is in fact rare to find labour market and anti-discrimination policies brought together in the analysis of the problem of unemployment. More generally, economists and others engaged in debates around the causes and cures of unemployment pay little attention to the issue of discrimination. Their primary focus is on thefact of unemployment, not on the differential social impact of unemployment. The preoccupation with the extension and operation of market principles, and the deregulation of labour markets, have not only pushed anti-discrimination policies lower down the agenda but have also contributed substantively to the widening of social inequalities between specific groups. There remains a distinct lack of empirically informed analysis as to how labour market policies and anti-discrimination measures interact in particular localities.

6

The Unequal Unemployed

The research which we report on in this book gives a unique insight into the workings of one of the most economically marginalised local labour markets in Northern Ireland. The book presents evidence from three major pieces of research carried out in West Belfast in 1996 as part o f a review of anti-discrimination policies. The history of such policies, and the place o f the unemployed within them, is covered in Chapter 4. West Belfast is an area best known for its political rather than economic character. It is typically seen as a Catholic area and a ‘republican heartland’—the President of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, is currently the MP for the area—but it also consists of a ‘loyalist heartland’ centred on the Protestant Shankill Road. Less well-known is the fact that Adams’ Westminster constituency contains one-tenth of all Northern Ireland’s unemployment, a figure which has remained remarkably stable throughout the ups and downs of unemployment trends over the last 30 years. The greater West and North Belfast areas contain nearly one-fifth of the total unem ploym ent in N orthern Ireland, some o f it very long-term unemployment. Yet the apparently similar economic condition of Catholics and Protestants sits alongside polar opposite political allegiances regarding Northern Ireland’s relationship to Britain—Irish separatism and Ulster unionism. The first research exercise which we carried out was a survey of long­ term unemployed claimants, the key findings of which are covered in Chapter 5. The survey included men and women drawn from Catholic and Protestant backgrounds who had been unemployed for more than a year and were living in West Belfast. As it transpired, many of these had never had paid employment. The survey asked questions about work histories, job search strategies and the experience of government schemes. We were also interested in ‘informal’ economic activity, so the survey included questions on working while claiming social security benefits. Those who had had some experience of paid work were able to report on workplace intimidation and how this had affected their attitudes to job search, particular employers and occupations. In Chapter 6, both gender- and religion-based differences in work histories and experiences of education and training are explored. Chapter 7 then uses the survey data to evaluate how long-term unemployed people view government sponsored training and employment schemes. Particular attention is paid to an experimental scheme unique to Northern Ireland, the Community Work Programme (CWP). This programme was the subject of our second research exercise which involved a preliminary

Introduction

1

evaluation o f the West Belfast pilot scheme. We discussed the scheme with those who devised it, those who were running it and groups of participants. Our third piece of research involved talking to major employers about unemployment and the unemployed. The aim here was to gather some basic data about types of employment and rates of pay. Anticipating policy initiatives in both Ireland and Britain, we were concerned to explore views on minimum wage regulation. But the main focus of the interviews was to look at attitudes to both existing and potential anti-discrimination measures, to unemployed applicants and to a range of possible measures to encourage recruitment of the unemployed and ‘never employed’. We report on the employer interviews in Chapter 8. Some of our findings and recommendations were taken up by Northern Ireland’s Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights (SACHR), the body given responsibility by John M ajor’s government to review the legal provisions ‘preventing discrimination on the grounds o f religious belief or political opinion’—otherwise known as ‘fair employment’ law. SACHR’s review o f the 1976 and 1989 Fair Employment Acts involved a wide range of consultations and commissioned research. The review’s conclusions (SACHR 1997), which contain a note from a ‘dissenting member’ of the Commission, were published in June 1997, shortly after the election o f the Blair’s New Labour government. In March 1998, the government published a White Paper setting out its response to SACHR’s recom m endations and calling for further consultation on a number of specific points. A few weeks after that, the ‘Belfast Agreement’ was concluded between the Irish and British governm ents and most o f the political parties w ithin N orthern Ireland. The Agreement clearly represents a defining moment in Anglo-Irish relations and in Northern Ireland’s history, and it is important for this book because substantial sections of the Agreement concern ‘equality issues’. In our concluding Chapter 9 we examine what the Agreement says about economic and social justice, and assess the prospects of the policies on employment equality set out in the White Paper. It should be clear that we do so from a standpoint of being against unemployment and of believing that work and income are unfairly distributed on several grounds, including between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. A greater measure o f economic equality is unlikely to be

8

The Unequal Unemployed

achieved in the absence of political equality and emancipation, which in turn require changes in the political relationships between Britain and Ireland, north and south.

2 Discrimination and the Rise o f Individualism Introduction his chapter begins by tracing the emergence of the concept of discrimination from the ending of slavery through to the twentieth century. It examines early ‘scientific’ explanations for racial and gender inequalities and how these came to be challenged by various conceptualisations of discrimination and equality of opportunity. The chapter then tackles the history of anti-discrimination policies and looks at the arguments surrounding different forms of affirmative action. Finally, we focus on the resurgence of individualism over the last two decades and the political ‘backlash’ against anti-discrimination policies and institutions.

T

From slavery to citizenship Policies and practices designed to address unjustifiable labour market discriminations are o f relatively recent origin. While struggles for emancipation and equality are centuries old with respect to gender, ‘race’ and other social distinctions, the first authoritative international statement of principle regarding improper discrimination appeared in the United Nations Charter (1945) and subsequently the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). The latter makes liberal use o f the term ‘discrimination’. Article 7 defines everyone, by virtue of a common humanity, as being entitled to equality before the law and to ‘equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination’ (Brownlie 1981: 23). Article 23 not only contains the celebrated ‘right to work’ principle but also states: ‘Everyone, without discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work’. The commonly occurring discriminations which the General Assembly was referring to are listed in Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction o f any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis o f the political,

9

10

The Unequal Unemployed jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-goveming or under any other limitation o f sovereignty. (Brownlie 1981: 22)

Although what we might call a ‘discrimination policy paradigm’ only became strong internationally from the 1960s onwards, the term discrimination began to be used within debates about rights and equality from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Banton (1994:6) traces the first recorded use of the word to a speech by US President Andrew Johnson in 1866, the same year the Ku Klux Klan was formed. A year earlier, the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution had been ratified by twentyseven of the then thirty-six states. It declared that ‘neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime..., shall exist within the US, or any place subject to their jurisdiction’. The abolition of slavery was backed up by a number of measures to address the conditions of ex­ slaves, including the Freedmen’s Bureau Act and Civil Rights Act of 1866. Both pieces of legislation employed ‘race conscious’ language in seeking to provide both targeted services for black people and similar rights as whites (e.g. to sue, to give evidence in court, to own property and to make contracts). President Johnson attempted to veto both bills using the argument that singling out African-Americans for assistance meant treating them more favourably than whites: the Constitution should be based on a ‘colour­ blind’ concept of equality. Johnson also objected to the Civil Rights Bill’s restriction on the rights of individual states to promulgate ‘black codes’, similar to the pre-Thirteenth Amendment slave codes. Although Johnson’s veto was overridden, the conservatism of his position had an impact on the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment which was designed to give constitutional backing for the 1866 Acts. One drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment forbade states from making legal classifications based on ‘colour’ and ‘race’, but this was rejected in favour of a concept of citizenship based on birth and naturalisation, and the notion of an undifferentiated equality before the law. The Amendment defined citizenship in terms of the US (and a person’s local state), with the US acting as the guardian of that citizenship: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities o f citizens o f the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person o f life, liberty, or property, without due process o f law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection o f the laws.

Discrimination and the Rise o f Individualism

11

This was a limited conception of citizenship rights, however. Section 2 o f the Fourteenth Amendment set out to ensure that the number o f representatives in Congress was proportional to ‘the whole number of persons in each State’ but with two important exclusions. The first was that ‘Indians not taxed’ were to be excluded from the count. Secondly, the count of eligible voters could be proportionately reduced in a state where ‘the right to vote... is denied to any of the male inhabitants’. It remained ‘constitutional’ to deny the vote to women (until 1920), to black men and to native Americans. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified by most states in 1870 (but not until 1962 by California and 1976 by Kentucky), made it unconstitutional to deny the right to vote on grounds of race, colour and ‘previous condition of servitude’, but many southern states found ways round this (such as the use of ‘literacy tests’ to disqualify black voters). In today’s language, black people were progressively disenfranchised by means of ‘indirect discrimination’ rather than by ‘direct discrimination’ which was illegal under the Constitution. And to prevent any organised political response, the denial of political rights was reinforced through white violence against black people. Whatever the intentions of the Constitution builders of the post-Civil War reconstruction years, the Supreme Court did much to legitimise the denial of basic rights, institutionalised segregation, and racism during the closing decades of the nineteenth century. For instance, the Court ruled that there was no constitutional imperative for the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The latter sought to prevent hotels, bars, transport companies, theatres and so on from excluding and/or segregating black people, but the Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment did not give Congress the power to regulate such ‘private conduct’. Thus attempts to frame ‘race conscious’ legal responses to remedy discrimination and racism foundered, while the courts, for the most part, upheld the right of local authorities and businesses to operate ‘race conscious’ policies against the business, political and social interests of black people. African-Americans and other ethnic groups (e.g. Chinese) may have felt that the way to make progress was through colour­ blind notions of equality, and the use of civil rights and constitutional law (Moreno 1997: 11), but after the 1875 Act was declared unconstitutional in 1883, the field was wide open for states to practice discrimination and segregation with a new sense of vigour. So-called Jim Crow 1laws proliferated from 1887 when Florida became the first state to legislate for segregation. Once again the Supreme Court was able to supply a constitutional interpretation to accommodate this. In

12

The Unequal Unemployed

1896, the Court ruled that a law requiring separate seating for different ‘races’ could not be regarded as violating the Constitution’s provisions on ‘equal rights’. Separate seating was acceptable as long as the provision of seating was roughly equal—the ‘separate, but equal’ doctrine which survived until the 1950s and the challenges of the civil rights movement. As segregation became further institutionalised and the black vote reduced by more than half, violent intimidation and killings carried out by white supremacists became routine features of the 1890s. Around 3,000 lynchings took place between 1890 and 1915 when the Ku Klux Klan launched a revival. The Klan’s membership increased massively as Jews and Catholics were added to its list of demons. In the absence of a written constitution, black people in Britain had few legal avenues to pursue their political and economic interests following the ending of the slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself (formerly abolished in the British Empire in 1833). The continuing economic and political subordination of black peoples throughout the British Empire, and within Britain itself, rested on the successful renewal of racism as a systematic, god-given and even ‘scientific’ set of ideas. Such racism was not confined to Black people but extended to other ‘subject peoples’, particularly the Irish (see Curtis 1984). Up until the 1870s, the British authorities (and British law) were not particularly concerned about people from other countries living in Britain— ‘aliens’: Entry and settlement were unrestricted; refugees were welcomed, and the ius soli rule ensured that children o f any origin bom in the country were fully assimilated. (Dummett andN icol 1990: 86)

There were two exceptions to this, however, which particularly affected women and British and Irish people who had been naturalised as Americans. After the War of Independence and for most of the nineteenth century, Britain regarded Irish people living in America as British subjects. This caused an occasional political crisis such as when a group of Irish people protesting against British policy in Ireland were arrested at the Canadian border and convicted (in Canada) of treason and sedition. After American protests, Britain agreed to accept that these people were naturalised US citizens, enshrining the principle in the Naturalisation Act of 1870. Thereafter, anyone ‘naturalising’ in a non-British territory would cease to be a British subject of the Crown. More seriously, the 1870 Act withdrew British subjecthood from women who married (non-British) men from other

Discrimination and the Rise o f Individualism

13

countries. In those cases where the country did not automatically confer the husband’s nationality on to the wife, such British women became stateless. As colonial expansion and competition intensified in the ‘scramble for Africa’ towards the close of the nineteenth century, racism became more pronounced. Imperial rivalry within Europe ensured that racism was not confined to people of colour but extended to Britain’s European competitors. Thus British racism involved a hierarchy of inferiority and superiority which, in the words of one British Army officer, meant that the British regarded themselves as ‘uniquely endowed by the Creator with qualities and attributes lacking in other lesser human beings—be they European, African or Asian’ (cited in Fryer 1984: 183). By the turn o f the century, there was a good deal of ‘anti-alien’ agitation which provided the political momentum behind the 1905 Aliens Act. Much of this was focused on European migrants, rather than on African, Asian or Chinese people, with Jewish settlers from eastern Europe becoming a particular target. For political reasons, the Irish and Germans came under special scrutiny. Unlike in the US where the migrations of African-Americans from south to north and west, and the immigration of large numbers o f Europeans, presented considerable labour market competition, racist tension over jobs in Britain remained at a relatively low level. Nevertheless, communities of British subjects from Africa, Asia and elsewhere were to be found in the large British ports, and there were many reports of sailors and other workers being rejected for jobs, or being pushed out of work by white people refusing to work alongside them. Immediately after the First World War, a number of ‘race riots’ took place at British ports including Tyneside, Liverpool and Cardiff. Such unrest, Fryer (1984: 312) points out ‘could not but stimulate the growth of black consciousness in Britain’s colonies’, hastening the growth of anti-colonialism. Discrimination against black people became more institutionalised during the interwar period. There is evidence of a formalised ‘colour bar’ against apprentices in London as far back as 1731 (ibid: 74), but it was not until the formation of the League of Coloured Peoples in the 1930s that the colour bar as such was addressed practically and, to a lesser extent, politically. With the expansion of immigrant labour in postwar Britain, the colour bar became much more widespread and visible, until ‘no blacks (or Irish) need apply’ notices were eventually outlawed in the Race Relations Act of 1968.

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The Unequal Unemployed

The anti-colonial struggle in Ireland generated its own special cocktail of economic and political alliances, and with it a particular form of racism based on the idea of the superiority of those who had colonised and settled in Ireland, and who had strong landed, commercial, business and employment interests linked to Britain and empire. As Clayton (1996: 12) shows, ‘settler racism’ is typically different from ‘metropolitan racism’, largely because ‘settlers’ and ‘natives’ live alongside one another and because settlers, who are generally in a minority, need to develop more vehement and institutionalised forms of racism to sustain their dominant position. Such racism is endemic in the colonial situation, argues Clayton, and it is generally accompanied by various types of coercive and economic domination, reflecting both the insecurity of the settler’s minority position and their uneasy and often distant relationship to the ‘mother country’. She also makes the point that ‘it is generally the less-privileged settlers who are the most overtly racist’ (ibid: 13). Irish history is littered with examples of the military suppression of emancipatory movements, particularly from the end of the eighteen century onwards. Inspired by the French revolution, the United Irish Society, led mostly by middle class Protestant radicals, sought to mobilise Catholics and Protestants towards a republican uprising with the goals of breaking the connection with England and getting rid of the ‘penal laws’. Amongst other things, these prevented Catholics from holding state office, from voting, from joining the armed forces and, most important of all, from buying land. By 1780, Catholic land ownership had fallen to under five per cent. Thus the ‘settler/native’ divide became institutionalised along religious lines, with the Orange Order (formed in 1795) defending the political and economic interests of less well-off Protestants by professing allegiance to the English Crown and tradition. The basic pattern of IrishCatholic separatism and Protestant unionism was set. When industrialisation occurred in Ireland, it was concentrated in the settler and Protestantdominated north east. Resistance to the movement for Irish independence was led by a business and political class whose interests and identification lay with the British empire. With the partition of Ireland in 1921 Protestants went from being a minority within Ireland to being a majority in Northern Ireland. As Lee (1989) points out, the border was drawn in such a way that Catholics in the North—who, against their will, remained tied to the union with Britain—became a larger minority within Northern Ireland than the Protestant minority within the whole of pre-partitioned Ireland. Yet it was the will of this Protestant minority which became the cornerstone of British

Discrimination and the Rise o f Individualism

15

policy. The Protestant bloc within the newly established Northern Ireland was never entirely secure, however. There was always the threat that Catholics would grow strong numerically, politically and economically, eventually breaking the remnants of the union and reuniting north and south. In such circumstances anti-Catholic discrimination was not only ‘logical’, it was a matter of constitutional survival—especially in a period of active British de-colonisation in other parts of the world. The ineffectual Section 5 of the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, which prohibited the Northern Ireland parliament from passing laws which would discriminate along religious lines, was tacit recognition o f this. It did not outlaw discriminatory administration or the discriminatory application o f law (Birrell and Mûrie 1980: 7). Explaining racial and gender inequalities The ease with which the equality provisions of the US Constitution were bent towards the goals of racism owed much to the way the resources of the social sciences lent support to legal doctrines. In a nutshell, there was a strong current of thought providing a ‘scientific’ basis to ideas of racial inferiority. ‘Equality’ was all very well in constitutional theory, but, the argument ran, science was amassing increasing evidence as to why black and other peoples were prone to crime and likely to occupy a lowly socioeconomic position. For centuries ‘scientific’ explanations, often rooted in a combination of visible and assumed biological and behavioural characteristics, were used to both explain and justify the inequalities that existed between men and women, and between ethnic and national groupings. ‘Virtually every scientist and intellectual in nineteenth-century Britain’, Fryer (1984: 169) maintains, ‘took it for granted that only people with white skin were capable of thinking and governing’. ‘Scientific evidence’ has been employed widely during the twentieth century in the service o f political objectives of governments, in some cases with devastating effects (see Proctor 1988; and Walters 1995 for detailed discussions). While women have been subject to a certain amount of scientific scrutiny along the same lines, the supposed superiority of men was generally taken for granted. Analysing the history of scientific racism in the US, Newby and Newby observe that: [djuring slavery it was the purpose o f science to prove and explain that people o f African descent were subhuman and because o f that it was appropriate for

16

The Unequal Unemployed them to be chattels. It was necessary for science to legitimise slavery as an institution. This nation could not have had more than 250 years o f slavery without a hegemonic notion that slavery was justified, that it was morally right, that it was legitimate... an important linchpin in that legitimisation was the science o f the day. The cloak of science and apparent systematic analysis played a key role in confirming what White America already knew to be true— the inferiority o f people who were not White. (1995: 14)

The end of slavery in the US and the spread of European colonialism in Africa presented new challenges for those who sought to explain and justify racial inequality. There was also a movement within the US to restrict European immigration. The eugenics movement which ‘tested’ and ‘proved’ that blacks, and to a lesser extent certain European immigrants such as the Irish and Polish, were less than ‘normal’, gained considerable momentum in the early 1900s. The primary purpose of the eugenics movement was to control the reproductive activities of those deemed to be less than ‘normal’ but the same ideas were used to argue against immigration. The head of the Committee on Sterilization argued that ‘social character, from murder to prostitution, was associated with intelligence and the nature of one’s germplasm’ (cited in Kerrier 1976: 346). The social and economic difficulties faced by blacks were blamed on their African heredity which resulted in ‘a race lacking in industry, energy, and foresight’ (Tillinghast 1902). Similarly, across the Atlantic the eugenicists were pioneering statistical techniques in their quest to demonstrate that social standing, or class position, was directly related to a measurable ‘mental ability’ and genetic make up. Indeed, it was Francis Gabon, the pioneer of the statistical techniques of regression and correlation who first coined the term ‘eugenics’ (MacKenzie 1979:41). While the genetic racial view was widely held during the first quarter of the twentieth century, and continued with work on the genetic basis of social problems in the postwar period (see Holman 1978: 54-66), eventually the ‘culture of poverty’ thesis became the main explanation for economic and social inequality, especially that faced by black people (Cherry 1997). The ‘cultural’ explanation for poverty is particularly associated with anthropologist Oscar Lewis’ studies of Mexican and Puerto Rican families (Lewis 1959; 1968) in which he argued that particular attitudes and behaviours not only prevented people from raising their living standards but also condemned the next generation as well. Poverty as a culture was transmitted to children who learned to imitate their parents’ unmotivated, irresponsible and often promiscuous behaviour.

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Many of Lewis’ key ideas can be found in earlier work. Prominent social scientists such as Booker T. Washington, Edward A. Ross, Louis Wirth and Gunner Myrdal all subscribed, in varying degrees, to the culture of poverty thesis. For example, in his influential American Dilemma, Myrdal argued that: American Negro culture is not something independent o f general American culture. It is a distorted development, or a pathological condition, o f the general Am erican culture...[Its] characteristic traits are m ainly forms o f social pathologies which, for the most part are created by caste pressures. (1944: 928-9)

Myrdal noted ‘the low standards of efficiency, reliability, ambition, and morals displayed by the average Negro’ (1944: 208). Such ‘laziness’ amongst American blacks was attributed to the ‘paternalistic attitude of upper-class white employers, which tended to diminish the Negroes’ formal responsibility’ (1944: 595). Myrdal claimed that the Negro youth ‘is not expected to make good in the same way as white youth’ which contributed to low expectations amongst the black community (1944: 643). Myrdal also flagged social ‘disorganisation’ caused by the urbanisation process as another significant contributory factor in the economic and social difficulties faced by blacks.2 According to Cherry: M yrdal’s cumulative process claimed that racism and poverty reinforced dysfunctional behaviour within the black population. These black attitudes and actions would only reinforce racism and institutional barriers which would perpetuate racial economic inequality. Myrdal hoped that government policies could reverse the process by providing role models and rising aspirations which could undermine the dysfunctional culture in which many poor blacks were mired. (1997: 33)

Although some of his writing appeared to ‘blame the victim’ in terms o f ‘culture’ and behaviour, Myrdal popularised a particular form of argument about discrimination. Part of his study commented on the extent to which black people were in receipt of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), a programme established by the 193 5 Social Security Act. Myrdal reasoned that the need for welfare benefits to support children in families with no male breadwinner was clearly greater amongst black people than whites, because they had higher rates of divorce, separation and illegitimacy. Yet black people represented a disproportionately low percentage of recipients. He argued that ‘discrimination was particularly pronounced in

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The Unequal Unemployed

Georgia, where, in 1940,38 per cent of all children under 15 were Negroes, whereas the proportion of Negroes among those accepted for aid to dependent children during 1937-1940 was 11 to 12percent’(Myrdal 1944: 359). Such primafacie statistical evidence of discrimination was only available because the US Department of Health Education and Welfare was collecting ‘racialised’ statistics (see Ohri 1988), what nowadays would be called ‘ethnic monitoring’. One explanation for the discriminatory pattern lay in the racism of local officials who had considerable administrative discretion. Such local autonomy is often viewed as a hangover from the English Poor Law, but Piven and Cloward (1974: 130) argue that it needs to be seen as a highly flexible tool of labour discipline, enabling officials to adjust benefit eligibility rules so as to mesh with local labour requirements. They cite Bell’s (1965) study of AFDC which shows how Southern states were quick to introduce a special rule whereby ‘employable mothers’ could be refused help. Essentially, this was a device to prevent black women claiming welfare benefits so that they would be available for seasonal agricultural work. During the 1960s, it appeared as if an emphasis on behavioural traits would no longer provide the foundations for theories of poverty and inequality. More structuralist analyses such as Galbraith’s Affluent Society (1958) and Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962), combined with the forceful arguments presented by leaders of civil rights, black power, women’s rights and other social movements in many western countries, significantly shifted social science paradigms. Their arguments also influenced the types of anti-discrimination and anti-poverty measures that were regarded as politically necessary and morally justifiable. The thesis of structural poverty developed by authors such as Harrington and Galbraith, helped to link racism, discrimination and economic disadvantage. The large numbers of poor people who live within what is predominantly an affluent society, consist of identifiable social groups, including ethnic minorities, for whom the benefits of economic growth are minimal. Whatever these people try to do, they face structural constraints, reinforced by the negative behaviours o f the econom ically more privileged—including discrimination. The recognition that ‘market forces’ and economic growth alone could not be relied upon to eliminate or reduce, significantly, poverty and inequality—let alone urban revolt—contributed to the introduction of more interventionist anti-poverty policies. This was especially so in the US under the ‘War on Poverty’ initiative. The 1960s also saw the introduction of legislation that outlawed direct and indirect

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discrimination and the implementation of policies of affirmative action in many western countries. Conceptualisations of discrimination Fundamental to the debate around the need for, and appropriateness of, anti-discrimination legislation and policies, is how the labour market is viewed, how discrimination is defined, and how discrimination is understood to be reproduced, or eliminated, over time. It is clear that economists and sociologists approach this discussion from rather different angles. The most widely accepted definition of discrimination used by economists is that of Arrow (1973) following Becker (1957). The fact that groups of workers have observable differences in wage rates— ‘be they skilled or unskilled, black or white, male or female’ (ibid: 3)— suggests to the economist that these groups must differ according to some characteristic valued by the market, such as productivity, Arrow argues. ‘The notion of discrimination’, however, ‘involves the additional concept that personal characteristics of the worker unrelated to productivity are also valued on the market’ (our emphasis) (ibid). This definition allows for both demand and supply side considerations. Thus, for example being a white male may accrue positive value in the market place, resulting in such a worker being paid a wage rate that exceeds his ‘marginal revenue product’ (a proxy for productivity). Arrow makes it clear that it is quite possible to explain ‘racial differences in income’ in terms of differences in productivity caused by ‘educational quantity and quality, family size and socioeconomic status, and household headed by women,... culturally varying attitudes toward work and future-orientation...’ (ibid: 5) but discrimination concerns some other value placed on gender or race by workers and/or employers. The standard neoclassical text book model of discrimination, derived from Becker (1957), focuses on the ‘tastes’ or prejudices of individuals in the context of a person’s utility function. Such ‘taste-based’ models of discrimination begin with the assumption that the utility of some or all the relevant agents (i.e., employers, employees or customers) is affected by association with members of other identifiable groups (Becker 1957,1968; Arrow 1971). An employer who has a ‘distaste’ for hiring blacks, will employ such workers only if he/she can compensate the ‘disadvantage’ derived from doing so by increasing profits.3 One way of doing this is by lowering the wages of the black workers relative to the white, satisfying ‘taste’ and ‘profit’ simultaneously. Such discrimination is only really

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The Unequal Unemployed

available to an employer under circumstances of imperfect competition, for example where an employer is in a ‘buyer’s market’ and does not have to compete with other employers in the local labour market. The main im plication o f the ‘taste’-based model o f employer discrimination is that the profit motive and the presence of competition for labour combine to reduce discrimination as a factor in employee recruitment. Discriminating employers face going out of business because o f higher (white) labour costs than nondiscriminating employers. To compete, discriminators must give up their ‘taste’ for white workers. In Arrow’s words, ‘discrimination is costly to the entrepreneur and acts as a tax on him’ {ibid: 9). Another implication is that discrimination is more possible and likely in conditions of high unemployment, though neither Arrow nor Becker modelled this directly in their early work (Reder 1973: 39). So the neoclassical model of employer discrimination implies that market forces will eliminate discrimination in the long run because there is a price to pay for engaging in discrimination.4 Certainly, political opponents of discrimination have shown their ‘distaste’ by seeking to damage the economic interests of discriminators. The ‘Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work’ campaigns which began in Chicago in the late 1920s are a good example. But this type of organised collective political protest does not really fit the neoclassicists concept of individual expression o f ‘taste’! Discrimination can only flourish in the presence o f ‘imperfect competition’ such as monopoly product markets or monopsonistic labour markets. The policy implication of the model is that legislation should do no more than ensure that labour markets are competitive, for example, by prohibiting employers or unions from colluding, either positively or negatively, to reserve jobs for selected groups. The neoclassical model of labour markets further implies that any changes in the external environment which raise the costs of labour will result in an increase in unemployment. On these grounds, neoclassicists are opposed to any interference in labour markets which increase costs. This would include, for example, costly health and safety measures as well as the requirements of anti-discrimination laws which often raise the ‘transactions costs’ of hiring workers {e.g. the need to advertise posts and conduct professional selection). In the arguments about discrimination, therefore, the neoclassical economists would appear to have three main concerns. One is to defend the integrity of the ‘free market’ which, as their model ‘proves’, operates to eradicate discrimination. The second concern is to minimise or deny the

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existence of discrimination. As England puts it, when neoclassical economists respond to persistent evidence of job and wage differentials by race and sex: ...some deny that any significant amount o f market discrimination exists... [while others] point to the possibility o f supply-side explanations that hinge upon group differences in preferences or human capital that have gone unmeasured in the past. (1994: 67)

The third argument is that attempts by the local or national state to interfere with the ‘freedom to discriminate’ must be opposed. Fair employment law, in Milton Freidman’s words: ...clearly involves interference with the freedom of individuals to enter into voluntary contracts with one another. It subjects any such contract to approval or disapproval by the state. Thus it is directly an interference with freedom o f the kind that we would object to in most other contexts. (1962: 111)

In direct contrast, sociologists often readily accept that labour market differentials by sex, religion or ‘race’ constitute ‘discriminatory’ patterns and are evidence of discriminatory practices. Collinson eta l( 1990) interpret Becker’s human-capital explanation for gender differentiation in the labour market as meaning that ‘sex-discriminatory practices’ are rational: [cjentral to this perspective is the assumption that women will ‘choose’ to develop less human capital (in terms o f academic qualifications, employment [etc]...) than men because of their role in the domestic division o f labour. Since the conventional sexual division of labour, with the male as the breadwinner and the female as the housekeeper, is assumed to be consistent with maximising economic utilities and since women are deemed to be less productive in em ploym ent as a result o f accum ulating less hum an capital, then sex discrimination is seen to be economically rational. (Collinson et al 1990: 9)

As we have seen, however, the economist typically views such ‘choices’ as the essence of freedom rather than as an unjustifiable ‘discrimination’ requiring state intervention. It is this question of moral judgement which lies at the heart of Banton’s conceptualisation of discrimination. In the sociological textbook on the subject, Banton defines discrimination as ‘the differential treatment of persons supposed to belong to a particular class of persons’ (1994: 1). He goes on to say that once this ‘purely objective definition of discrimination’ is set, it is then necessary to ‘consider whether or not the difference is morally justified or lawful’ (ibid). There will often be disagreement about

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The Unequal Unemployed

moral justification and this is often reflected politically in the fact that the legislation relating to discrimination is constantly changing. Sociologically speaking, then: ...discrimination is a general feature o f social life. The family, ethnic groups and state are all based on discrimination. Discrimination is an individual action, but since, by definition members o f the same class are treated similarly, it is simultaneously a social pattern o f aggregate behaviour. Since it is social, discrim ination at one point in time has consequences for behaviour on subsequent occasions. Patterns o f inequality established in one generation are easily transmitted to subsequent generations because people grow up regarding them as right and natural. (Banton 1994: 6)

The recognition that the effects of discrimination go beyond the individual, may have inter-generational effects, and may indeed be a feature o f particular societies, has provided an analytical rationale for antidiscrimination legislation and equal opportunities policies. As Jenkins points out, in popular usage the word discrimination has acquired a pejorative meaning: ‘[discrimination has come to mean unfair discrimination’ (Jenkins 1988: 311) and that meaning has come to be reflected in the range of strategies—including legal and administrative—which exist to ameliorate patterns of disadvantage. Equality of opportunity Inequalities that exist between groups reflect, in part, differences in opportunities which do not necessarily result from ethnic, gender (or other specific) discriminations. The concept of equality o f opportunity has been used widely over the past 50 years in sociology and social policy, and more recently in law. It has featured especially in discussions of class inequalities, and the cause, reproduction and fairness of those inequalities within capitalist societies (Goldthorpe 1987). A central assumption within such societies is that free market economies are very unequal in class terms but they are ‘fair’ because everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed; and ‘socialist’ societies failed because the attempt to impose material equality crushed the spirit and opportunity of the most able to maximise their economic productivity. There is disagreement over what ‘equality of opportunity’ actually means in practice and the concept itself has acquired a powerful ideological function, not simply in relation to class inequalities, but also within debates around anti-discrimination policies. The problem arises, in part, from the

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different conclusions which analysts draw from measures o f inequality such as labour market outcomes. On the one hand there is the argument that unequal outcomes between, for example, men and women, or black and white workers, are explained by (justifiable) class position or personal preferences. On the other hand, gender and ethnic inequalities may be related to sexism, racism, a number of forms of discrimination or the structure of opportunities which shape labour market competition. Likewise, the objectives of those involved in anti-discrimination politics vary from trying to secure a fair share of the cake for an identifiable group to the more limited goal of ensuring that everyone is under the conventional umbrella of individual equal opportunity. This tension between what is often referred to as ‘group rights’ and individual rights is central to the dynamics o f ‘equal opportunity’ policies in most jurisdictions. In their discussion of Catholic/Protestant inequalities in Northern Ireland, Smith and Chambers agree that equality of opportunity is an ideological rather than ‘process-related’ concept. It does not necessarily mean the absence of discrimination, or that there is equal treatment. They write: ...equality o f condition cannot be the test o f equality of opportunity, because the purpose o f adopting an ideal o f equal opportunity is to avoid the conclusion that equality must be imposed regardless o f people’s abilities and preferences. The ideal [definition of equal opportunities] is that opportunities should be equal for people with similar abilities and who make similar choices. (Smith and Chambers 1991: 60)

The practical task of policy then becomes to ensure that ‘opportunities should be equal for people with similar abilities and who make similar choices’ (ibid). Equality of opportunity may therefore involve removing arbitrary barriers and compensating for compensatable deficiencies for both individuals and groups (Williams 1969). Equality and anti-discrimination policy paradigms Although many equal opportunity bills were debated by the US Congress and Senate in the early postwar period, it was not until 1964, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, that it became politically possible to secure a new federally-based anti-discrimination policy. This was a model piece of legislation in the sense that the law itself and debates around its intentions and effects have provided the foundations for modem anti-discrimination policy in many societies.

24

The Unequal Unemployed Table 2.1: Employment equality law models R

e a c t iv e

P

r o a c t iv e

: R

e s u l t s

-d

r iv e n

Anti-Direct Discrimination

Equal Pay Positive Indirect Discrimination

Anti-Indirect Discrimination

Positive Direct Discrimination (e.g. preferential treatment)

Fitzpatrick et al (1996) provide a useful matrix of anti-discrimination and equality policies in Table 2.1 (above). They point out that: The starting point for most equality law regimes... is a reactive one, namely the eradication of direct discrimination. More sophisticated reactive regimes... make the quantum leap into the realm of indirect discrimination, whereby apparently neutral measures having disproportionate effect on a group may also be prohibited... [But] equal pay legislation is qualitatively different in that it is results-orientated, requiring equality o f outcome rather than merely the removal o f discrimination which caused the inequality. These three elements make up the initial basis of the traditional model o f employment equality law but nearly every regime also has some element o f discretion to pursue substan tiv e as w ell as form al equality through m easures d irected at disadvantaged groups. (1996: 152)

Title VII of the pioneering US Civil Rights Act, which Burstein (1985: 37) describes as ‘essentially long-delayed New Deal legislation’, prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion and national origin in relation to public accommodations, public facilities, public education, and federally assisted programmes, as well as in employment. Sex was tagged on, originally as an opposition amendment designed to confuse the debate, but the ploy backfired (Moreno 1997: 213). The ‘American dilemma’—the contradiction between the constitutional claims of liberty, equality and ju stice, and the actual experience o f inequality and w idespread discrimination—had at last been addressed at national level. Within the social sciences, the sociological model of discrimination and the interest in poverty were ascendant. At the heart of the 1964 Act was an individualistic belief in equality of opportunity: the equal right of individuals to compete to become materially unequal. This was fully in keeping with Myrdal’s view that there is nothing wrong with economic inequality as such:

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The mere fact that the Negro people are poorer than other population groups does not per se constitute a social problem. (Myrdal 1944: 214)

But direct acts of discrimination against black people, and now women, were wrong the legislators agreed, and had to be outlawed. Further, antidiscrimination policy required an agency to investigate discrimination and to enforce policy—the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). At this point, the consensus over what comes within the orbit of ‘equal opportunities’ breaks down. Civil rights activists were disappointed in the new Act. In particular they attacked the lack of any provisions to deal with the effects of past discrimination and the long history of the economic exploitation of black people. It was unclear whether, and what kind of, ‘affirmative action’ to address the past would be permitted under the Act. There were criticisms also of the weakness of the EEOC compared to other national and local bodies: Many believed that the NLRB (National Labour Relations Board) would be a more effective forum to combat discrimination in employment... Title VII might be most useful in the South, but in the North the NLRB and state FEPCs (Fair Employment Commissions) which were stronger on paper than Title VII, would be more effective. (Moreno 1997: 227)

In the years immediately following the passing of the Civil Rights Act the EEOC fought hard to change Title VII from simply meaning that individuals had the right to complain about discrimination and seek restitution. It pushed for group-based ‘affirmative action’. This term was used in section 706 of the 1964 Act itself as follows: If the court finds that the respondent has engaged in or is intentionally engaging in an unlawful employment practice charged in the complaint, the court may enjoin the respondent from engaging in such unlawful employment practice and order such affirmative action as may be appropriate, which may include, but is not limited to reinstatement or hiring o f employees, with or without back pay or any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate.

Given the years of relative full employment during and since the Second World War, black disadvantage was mainly structured within the world of work rather than by exclusion from employment, i.e. unemployment. Hence the EEOC focused on segregated workforces and issues of promotion, as well as pressurising contractors working for the local or national state to

26

The Unequal Unemployed

hire appropriate numbers of under- or non-represented groups. In so doing, it developed a range of guidelines and procedures of affirmative action which went well beyond ‘passive nondiscrimination’ and, instead, reflected ‘active nondiscrimination’, ‘restitutional nondiscrimination’ and even ‘reverse discrimination’ (see Young 1986: 10). Following the Griggs case in the Supreme Court (1971) and amendments to the Civil Rights Act in 1972, indirect discrimination was outlawed. As Edwards states, indirect discrimination covers: Any practice that affects one group detrimentally more than another, even if apparently neutral (in proactive and intent), is indirectly discriminatory. Such a practice may however be ‘justified’ or ‘acceptable’ if it is necessary for the purposes o f an enterprise. (Edwards 1995: 41)

Although indirect discrimination has been recognised as ‘probably the most common and most damaging constraint to equal opportunity’ {ibid: 39), there has been considerable theoretical and litigious controversy over what types of employment practices are ‘justifiable’, ‘acceptable’ or ‘necessary’ to business. The most common examples of indirect discrimination include word-of-mouth recruitment; the use of subjective criteria and judgements at job interviews, such as whether the applicant will ‘fit in’ (see Jenkins 1986); the use of personal contacts and informal channels for recruitment; age requirements which will have a differential impact because of the differing age structures of minority and majority groups; the use of restricted catchment areas which may exclude areas of relative concentration of minorities; restricting job advertisements to sources that are less likely to be seen by minorities; the use o f ‘standing lists’ that are used when vacancies arise; and height requirements. In the Griggs case, for example, a power company permitted black employees to work only in the labour department which was in the open air. Some white employees, who were better paid, also worked outside but in the separate coal handling department. In 1955, the company introduced a formal educational qualification (high school diploma) for entry to the better paid jobs inside the plant. After the 1964 Act the company allowed black workers with diplomas to transfer to the inside jobs. This was resented by the white coal handlers who persuaded the company to introduce two intelligence tests which had to be passed before transfer could take place. One of the issues in the case, therefore, was whether these new tests had a ‘disparate impact’ on the black workers, i.e. did they constitute indirect discrimination?

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In a ruling which surprised many observers at the time, the Supreme Court decided that the intelligence tests were not a ‘business necessity’ because the company was unable to show how they were relevant to specific jobs. The EEOC’s argument that employment tests had to be demonstrably related to the vacancy in question, was ruled to be well within the antidiscriminatory intentions of Title VII. The importance of this case according to Moreno (1997: 278) was that ‘discrimination was now defined in a completely new w ay’. Equal employment opportunity law had become a ‘sociological-jurisprudential creation’ whereby Congress provided a general legal framework which was subsequently fleshed out by judges and administrators ‘using the ideas of social science’: The new definition o f discrimination rested on several premises. One was that fair employment was defined in terms o f results, measured by statistics o f minority group employment. This was related to the idea that motive or intent to discriminate was irrelevant... Finally, the burden of proof in discrimination cases was shifted to the defendant once the disparate impact claim was made. (Moreno 1997: 278)

As we have indicated, many countries have followed the US in outlawing direct and indirect discrimination. With decolonisation and the relative decline of the economy, British policy responses to ‘race relations’ were characterised initially by restricting immigration through a series of Immigration Acts. The latter were ‘inextricably linked’ to the antidiscrimination initiatives (see Solomos 1993: 81). The focus on measures controlling (and then halting) the numbers of ‘new commonwealth’ immigrants to Britain sent out a strong message that the problems of overt discrimination, violence and hostility faced by black Britons were not caused by the racism of white people but by the very presence of black people. Such messages were explicitly reproduced by shadow cabinet member, Enoch Powell, who later became a Unionist MP in Northern Ireland. In 1968 Powell made an anti-immigration speech in which he said, ‘As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood”’— a prediction of largescale violent racial conflict (Foot 1969; see also Ritchie 1978). In a sense, then, the Immigration Acts were a ‘surrender to racism’ (Fryer 1984: 381) but there was also the issue of the labour market to consider (Castles and Kosack 1981). In a relatively buoyant postwar full employment economy, labour shortages in particular sectors began to show up by the mid-1950s.

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The Unequal Unemployed

The legacy of the British Empire became important for how those labour shortages were met: ...it was much easier for Commonwealth citizens to come to Britain to sell their labour power than for, say, southern Europeans who were legally aliens and were obliged to obtain a work permit. (Phizacklea and Miles 1980: 14)

The first attempt to outlaw discrimination in Britain was the 1965 Race Relations Act which forbade discrimination on grounds of race, colour, ethnic or national origin in ‘places of public resort’—bars, hotels restaurants and the like. The Act also established a Race Relations Board which had responsibility for investigating and conciliating com plaints o f discrimination. Given the restrictive nature of the legislation—it made no mention o f employment or housing— most of the small number o f complaints which came the Board fell outside its remit (Field 1971: 126; Runnymede Trust 1980: 39). Three years later, discrimination in employment, housing and in the provision of services was outlawed. The 1968 Act continued with the investigative and conciliatory functions of the Board and in addition established the Community Relations Commission which was given the limited strategic role of promoting good ‘community relations’. It was this Act, minus discrimination in the provision of services, which served as the model for Northern Ireland’s first Fair Employment Act of 1976. Indirect discrimination was first outlawed in Britain in relation to sex discrimination under the 1975 Act. It was quickly followed by the 1976 Race Relations Act, under which the Board and Commission were replaced by the Commission for Racial Equality. The latter has strategic as well as complainant-support functions. Although Britain enacted equal pay provisions in 1970, 1975 and 1984, it was recently ranked 14th in a European league table of ‘woman-friendly ’ equality policies (Gardiner and Leijenaar 1997). In Northern Ireland indirect discrimination became illegal under the 1989 Fair Employment Act. Notwithstanding this legislative activity, there is no legal requirement under British law for companies to adopt an equal opportunity policy, ‘though ordinary prudence or routine practice might cause many institutions to take some precautions to avoid breaches of the law’ (Bindman 1981: 319; see also Smith 1977: 152). Where differences really emerge from the American experience is in relation to affirmative action, or ‘positive action’ as it is called in Britain. Bergmann defines affirmative action as ‘planning and acting to end the absence of certain kinds of people—those who belong to groups that have

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been subordinated or left out—from certain jobs and schools’ (1996: 7). The need for affirmative action arises from social attitudes, she argues: In fact, that w idespread assum ption o f w om en’s basic inferiority and unsuitability for many roles is the reason women are most often excluded from those roles in the absence of a conscious effort to include them— in the absence o f affirmative action. That assumption makes affirmative action indispensable if change is to occur. (Bergmann 1996: 5)

There are potentially numerous affirmative action procedures and practices which can be undertaken. Edwards (1995:44-46) classifies them comprehensively as follows. Firstly, there are outreach activities designed to make minority group members more aware of possibilities (e.g. job vacancies) that are available. Secondly, training can be used to qualify more minority group members for more positions (and promotions). This is the only form of affirmative action for which specific provision is made in the British 1976 Race Relations Act. Thirdly, ‘natural selection procedures’ can be used to counter subjective judgements at job interviews or culturally biased selection tests. Measures can also be taken to identify discriminatory selection procedures and to encourage employers to replace these procedures with more ‘professional’ and formalised ones. Fourthly, affirmative action policies may include goals and timetables, usually based on some assumption about the size the minority workforce ‘ought’ to be, and a time frame for achieving the target. Edwards’ fifth type of affirmative action involves local or national government contractors agreeing to equal opportunities’ objectives such as employing a set proportion o f under­ represented groups, or people living in a certain locality. According to Edwards, local labour contracts are: ...less controversial, legally unproblematic and altogether more anodyne way o f achieving the same end as contract compliance... This need not, o f course, be done in pursuit o f increasing minority representation (it may be a deprived area with high unemployment rates) but where there is a large m inority population in the area, it may be used as a proxy for increasing their representation. (1995: 45)

Edwards includes minority business promotion as his sixth form of affirmative action. This really amounts to targeted economic development of minority businesses, through advice, preferential loans and contract ‘setasides’ by local governments, whereby a certain amount of the value of contracts are awarded to minority businesses. The setting-aside of loans

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The Unequal Unemployed

and contracts by government would probably not be legal under the 1976 Race Relations Act and has, since 1989, become more legally constrained in the US. Finally, Edwards refers to targeted need-meeting: such practices must be directed solely at the needs which minority groups have as a result of past discrimination, or which are particular to the group. From this list we can see that there are two main types of affirmative action. Firstly there are measures which focus primarily on bringing individuals from under-represented groups to job interviews and then ensuring ‘fair-play’ is done, i.e. they deal with the professionalisation of recruitment. In contrast, the other measures involve the more proactive use of public expenditure (including contracts) to target under-represented groups. The ‘goals and timetables’ measure lies between the two. The difference between goals and quotas has been debated for decades. Goldman argues that, ‘[qjuotas are fixed, numerical limits. Goals, on the other hand, are numerical target aims which a contractor tries to achieve’ (1979:210). Quotas have been a part ofBritish law since the 1944 Disabled Persons (Employment) Act which required employers to have at least three per cent of the workforce as registered disabled persons. The key difference between quotas and goals is whether the end result is required or a matter of voluntary/advisory action. Bergmann reveals the politics behind the argument: The heart o f an affirmative action plan is numerical hiring goals, based on an assessment o f the availability o f qualified minority people and women for each kind o f job. If progress is to be made towards those goals, some break with past practices is generally required. Those implementing the plan inevitably have to pay attention to the race and sex o f appointees and exert pressure or bypass those who have previously controlled the selection process. It is this aspect o f affirmative action that draws the accusation that affirmative action is the same as a quota system...Those who say affirmative action means quotas are talking about those goals and the pressure to fill them. (1996: 12)

Despite the fact that ‘preferential treatment’ and the use of quotas, is illegal in both the US and Britain (with the exception of the old disability legislation), almost all forms of affirmative action are viewed by opponents o f anti-discrimination laws as a green light for employers to engage in preferential treatment or reverse discrimination in their hiring and promotion decisions. It is arguments such as these which have been central to the backlash against equal opportunities measures discussed below.

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Returning to the legal position in Britain, positive action is allowed under the 1976 Race Relations Act and under the 1986 amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act. Employers and training organisations are permitted to take positive steps to encourage the participation of members of groups which are under-represented in the general workforce—or particular sectors o f the workforce. A recruitment drive, for example, can emphasise that applications from members of a particular community are ‘especially welcome’. Also permissible is the provision of training opportunities, or access to training facilities, which help to prepare or equip for work, members of a particular group. Employers may also provide training for work opportunities for employees of a particular group. Perhaps the most important difference in affirmative action measures as between the US and Britain is that in the US employers who have government contracts are required to implement an affirmative action programme where there is an ‘underutilisation of minorities’. Consistent with the voluntarist approach to labour market contracts and agreements in Britain, companies undertake affirmative action voluntarily, if at all. Government contracts simply include a standard clause that contractors must comply with Race Relations law. There are some ‘contract compliance’ provisions in Northern Ireland, under the 1989 Fair Employment Act (discussed in Chapter 4), but these are by way of sanctions rather than incentives to good practice. Companies in the US that have contracts from the government are required to supply an annual report on their equal opportunity policy goals which must include a detailed monitoring return. In Britain, the setting o f goals is voluntary under the 1984 code o f practice and has been found to be quite rare (Edwards 1995).5 Companies and public sector organisations in Britain that do use affirmative action measures do so for political or ideological reasons, for service-provision reasons (i.e., the providers o f services ought to reflect in their ethnic/gender m ake-up, the com position o f the communities they serve), and to a lesser extent, the ‘good for business’ argument. Before it was abolished, the Greater London Council set up a Contract Compliance Unit (in 1983) which worked to encourage contractors to adopt and implement equal opportunities policies. Other local authorities, such as Sheffield and the West Midlands, did the same but the Conservative central government of the 1980s was generally hostile to such initiatives (Ohri and Faruqi 1988).

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Individualism and the backlash The 1979 election of the Thatcher administration in Britain and Reagan’s entry to the White House in 1981 marked a profound change in both the political and ideological climate for anti-discrimination policies. Both political figures launched an attack on the idea o f ‘equality’ and ‘poverty’ (Boyson 1971) and embarked on ambitious programmes of tax cuts for the highest earners and welfare cuts for the lowest. In economic policy, the management of inflation took precedence over full employment and radically deflationary measures generated high rates of unemployment on both sides of the Atlantic (see Chapter 2). Keynes was out and the old gurus of the free market (Hayek 1948) and the minimal state were in, with a modernising polish from a number of influential ‘new Right’ think tanks (see Schotter 1985). Reagan’s male acolytes, wearing Adam Smith neckties (Galbraith 1992), went about their business of creating a ‘culture of contentment’ and enlarging a ‘functional underclass’ (ibid). Above all, the freedom of the individual was lauded over the claims of social justice (see Nozick 1974 and Rawls 1972). Such was Thatcher’s enthusiasm for the concept that she proclaimed there was no such thing as society—only individuals and families. Affirmative action became an immediate target. The number of permanent posts within the EEOC was cut by more than ten per cent between 1980 and 1983, and the general policy of deregulation posed all kinds of threats to the enforcement of equal opportunities’ policies (Plant and Thompson 1986: 154). Reagan had the opportunity to replace a number of Supreme Court judges and civil rights and enforcement commissioners. The new chair of the Civil Rights Commission was on record as stating that affirmative action was ‘a bankrupt policy because it often leads to an emphasis on statistical parity rather than equal opportunity’ (cited in Preston 1986: 166). Above all, presidential authority was used to attack affirmative action to such an extent that by 1983 the EEOC acknowledged there was a widespread belief that the Administration had reduced enforcement of equal opportunity laws—civil rights was on the back burner (Plant and Thompson 1986: 162). In Britain, where local rather than central government was the site of ‘radical’ equal opportunities policies (Mason 1990: 51), the attempt to emasculate local government and transform it from provider to enabler of services had a similar effect. Towards the end of the 1970s, some local authorities had begun to develop innovative policies, in response to both

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political pressure from black communities and to Section 71 of the 1976 Race Relations Act which places a specific onus on local authorities (and other public bodies) to promote equality of opportunity and good race relations (Ouseley 1990:134). These initiatives became more important in the wake of the urban riots of 1981 (see for example Scarman Report 1981). Gordon traces the discrediting of local authority equal opportunities policies to Thatcher’s second term of office (from 1983). The attack on municipal race equality policies, he argues, united the two main tendencies within the British new Right: The economic liberals primarily concerned with the freeing o f market forces deplored the local state interventions in social and commercial life and saw in municipal anti-racism disincentives to free enterprise and a waste o f ratepayers’ money. For their part the social authoritarians seeking the re-establishment o f traditional Conservative values saw in municipal anti-racism nothing less than attempts by the far left to subvert British culture and values and to constrain individual freedom. (Gordon 1990a: 176)

The political backlash had been signalled in an election poster depicting a suited young man with the caption ‘Labour says he’s black. Tories say he’s British’. As Gilroy (1987: 59) points out, this was an appeal both to a ‘colour-blind’ equality of citizenship and to British nationalism: At this point the slightly too large suit worn by the young man, with its unfashionable cut and connotations of a job interview... conveys what is being asked o f the black readers as the price of admission to the colour-blind form o f citizenship promised by the text. Blacks are being invited to forsake all that marks them out as culturally distinct before real Britishness can be guaranteed.

It was an appeal which carried the implication that ‘racial’ disadvantage and racism would no longer be recognised by central government. In the text of the election poster equal opportunity was reduced to a ‘mood’. By 1986, the chairman of the Conservative Party was attacking the Inner London Education Authority for ‘driving children to truancy’ by teaching ‘anti-sexist, anti-racist, gay, lesbian and CND [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] rubbish’ (Gordon 1990a: 183). Two years later, the 1988 Local Government Act was passed forbidding local authorities from taking account of ‘non-commercial’matters when engaging contractors, effectively limiting the use of equal opportunities and local labour clauses in any contracting arrangements (contract compliance). Public bodies could no longer use their purchasing power to pursue the social policy goal of achieving more representative workforces (Solomos and Ball 1990: 216).

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Another aspect of the backlash was the government’s apparent indifference to racist violence (Gordon 1990b). The number of reported ‘racial incidents’ (any incident coming to the attention o f the police involving racial motivation) in London doubled between 1982 and 1989, and nearly doubled again between 1988 and 1991 (Witte 1996: 66-74). This led eventually to a som ew hat am bivalent debate over the criminalisation of ‘racial motivation’, but state responses have been weak and double-edged (Witte 1996: 202). By the 1990s, anti-racist struggles had become focused around the police and criminal justice system as the hard edge of institutionalised racism. Academic contributions to the backlash mirror, and in some cases have directly influenced, the political developments just outlined. Two themes stand out: the attack on the welfare state and the opposition to affirmative action, coupled with the denial that racism (or sexism) and discrimination are significant problems. In both respects, the new individualists divert attention away from structures and the agency of the powerful and instead ‘blame the victim’ (see Ryan 1971). It was in the area of women’s rights that the backlash was most forceful, initially. Faludi provides the following chronology: The most recent round o f backlash first surfaced in the late ’70s, on the fringes, among the evangelical right. By the early ’80s, the fundamentalist ideology had shouldered its way into the White House. By the mid-’80s, as resistance to w om en’s rights acquired political and social acceptability, it passed into the popular culture. And in every case, the timing coincided with signs that women were believed to be on the verge of breakthrough. (Faludi 1991: xix).

Around the same time, the philosopher Roger Scruton was redefining the meaning of conservatism in such a way as to view inequalities of gender and ‘race’, and antipathy between peoples as quite literally ‘natural’. For instance, this is how he deals with racism: W hile it is a long-standing principle o f British law that the fomentation o f hatred (and hence o f racial hatred) is a serious criminal offence, it is not clear that illiberal sentiments have to be forms of hatred... On the contrary, they are sentiments which seem to arise inevitably from social consciousness: they involve natural prejudice (our emphasis), and a desire for the company o f one’s kind. (Scruton 1980: 68)

Sociology comes in for particular blame as having legitimated all kinds of ‘artificial degrees’ such as Women’s Studies and Black Studies, ‘wherever

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sociology has been victorious in its aim to represent itself as Queen (or perhaps Lord Protector) of the Humanities’ (Scruton 1980: 150). The work of Charles Murray is probably the most influential and wellknown, particularly regarding the welfare state, but also with respect to his more recent claims that there is a genetic basis to black disadvantage. Murray’s attacks on the ‘underclass’ were predated by the rise of the ‘new gradgrinds’. ‘By the early eighties’, writes Harrington (1985: 79), ‘the statistical abolition of poverty had turned into an academic cottage industry in the United States’. In Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980, Murray argues that the intellectual analysis of structural poverty provided ‘a respectable rationale for accepting that it was not the fault of the poor that they were poor’ (1984: 39). Murray goes on to attack welfare state provisions for the unemployed for creating a culture of dependency. Similarly, antidiscrimination provisions encourage a misplaced sense of equality and undermine the dignity of black people to stand up for themselves—the receipt of help stimulates feelings of inferiority (see Pinker 1971 for a theoretical discussion of this point). Murray’s main policy recommendation is to eliminate completely central state welfare and income-support for all working-aged persons. Similar recommendations are made for Britain in The Emerging British Underclass (Murray 1990). Murray believes that the removal of the welfare state would be effective because: It would leave the working-aged person with no recourse whatsoever except the job market, family members, friends, and public or private locally funded services. It is the Alexandrian solution: cut the knot and there is no way to untie it. (1984: 228)

His ‘solution’ then is to withdraw the central state involvement in ‘social engineering’, ‘giving poor communities (and affluent communities too) a massive dose of self-government, with vastly greater responsibility for the operation of the institutions that affect their lives’ (1990: 34). As we have said, the welfare state is not the only focus of the backlash literature. Affirmative action measures are a special point of contention. There are six main arguments against affirmative action which can be identified in the backlash literature (see Hermstein and Murray 1994; Conway 1992; McElroy 1992; Jenks 1985; Lynch 1991; Sowell 1990; and Murray 1984 for detailed discussions).

36

The Unequal Unemployed 1. Affirmative action policies have led to discrimination against white males. 2. Dual standards are commonly used for screening blacks and whites/ men and women for jobs and promotions. 3. Affirmative action measures have benefited primarily those members of the affected group who are already more fortunate (i.e. the middle class). 4. Affirmative action has led to feelings of self-doubt among blacks and women. 5. Affirmative action policies reinforce racial and gender hostilities and stereotypes— i.e. they have increased racial and gender polarisation. 6. Although affirmative action measures were intended to be temporary, they have, in practice, become permanent and have expanded in scope to cover more groups or wider realms for the same groups, or both.

A common theme found in this literature is the assertion that affirmative action means, in practice, the use of ‘quotas’ and ‘preferential treatment’. We have already pointed out that this claim has no legal basis in either Britain or the US and that there are, at least in theory, significant differences between these terms. Equal opportunities policies may result in the adoption of ‘goals and timetables’ to achieve a representative workforce, and may give rise to a recruitment culture in which preference is given to individuals from the under-represented group, particularly if a company is under political pressure (Edwards 1995). Setting aside the point that backlash academics rarely show any concern about past forms of preferential treatment towards white men, it is clear that their work is based on an assumed rather than proven reality, the main evidence being from individual white men claiming to be victims o f ‘reverse discrimination’. For example, Lynch presents the following narrow definition of affirmative action: [However] in organisational practice, goals and timetables have often become quotas used to rapidly boost the percentage o f minorities or women and to exclude better-qualified whites, especially white males...Throughout this book, therefore, I use the term ‘affirmative action’ to refer to a system o f racial-andethnic preferences or ‘quotas’ that have been the real-world results o f ‘goals and timetables’. (Lynch 1991:4)

Part of the academic debate, therefore, has shifted to assessing rival claims about the impact of anti-discrimination and affirmative action

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measures. If there was considerable ‘reverse discrimination’ taking place, labour market differences between men and women/blacks and whites should be considerably reduced over the past 30 years. One contribution to this debate was Wilson’s controversial book, The Declining Significance o f Race. Wilson argued that the changing economic conditions of postwar America, coupled with anti-discrimination measures and the unionisation of black workers, had brought about a very substantial improvement in the fortunes of black labour and the creation of a black middle class: The most dramatic changes in black mobility... occurred during the decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Whereas 16.4 percent o f black males were employed in middle-class occupations in 1950, 24 percent held such jobs in 1960 and 35.3 percent in 1970. (Wilson 1980: 129)

Although in this and a later book ( 1987) he drew attention to a widening class inequality within the black population and was clearly concerned with the worsening position of the ‘black underclass’, Wilson argued that the anti-discrimination paradigm was exhausted—he chooses class over race (1980: 167-182). But the problems could not be left to Murray-style non-interventionism: ...the problems of the ghetto underclass can be most meaningfully addressed by a comprehensive program that combines employment policies with social welfare policies and that features universal as opposed to race- or group-specific strategies. (Wilson 1987: 163)

A similar conclusion is reached by Smith in his study of unemployment and racial minorities: Unemployment increases racial inequality, but it increases other kinds of inequality more, and there is little, if any, evidence that Asians and West Indians see their unemployment as a direct consequence of racial discrimination or prejudice... There are no conceivable policies that would reduce the rate of unemployment among the minorities specifically, as opposed to reducing the overall rate, and except in very limited fields there are no conceivable policies that would alleviate the effects of unemployment on the minorities specifically, as opposed to improving the lot of the unemployed in general. (Smith 1981: 149)

A different view, and one which brings gender into the picture, comes from Bergmann who provides a detailed analysis of labour market indicators including wages, employment segregation and unemployment (1996: 3761). Bergmann finds that there have been modest reductions in wage gaps

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between groups in the US labour market since 1967. Black men’s wages (for those who worked full-time and corrected for inflation) were 69 per cent of white men’s in 1967. By 1976 their wages had risen to 79 per cent o f white men’s. Since then, they have been losing rather than gaining ground. White women gained no ground on white men until the early 1980s; they have been gaining in the years since. In 1995 the wages of white women were 73 per cent of white men’s compared to 61 per cent in 1967. Black women have made gains throughout the period, but recently their gains have not matched those of white women. In 1995, black women’s wages were 63 per cent of white men’s. (For a European survey of gender exclusion, see Perrons 1998.) These wage gaps may reflect differences between workers in education, experience, and other factors such as residence in low-wage regions, but after ‘controlling’ for these factors, Bergmann estimates that: ...the true penalties o f discrimination suffered by average full-time black and female workers...[amount to] about $3,000 a year for black men and $5,000 for black and white women. These estimates, though only approximate, suffice for our purpose, which is to decide whether discrimination effectively ended some time in the past. The evidence on earnings... suggests that discrimination is still very much alive. (Bergmann 1996: 41)

The evidence on job segregation shows that there are still high degrees of segregation by race and gender in US labour markets (TomaskovicDevey 1993; Bergmann 1996) and that it makes sense to view employment inequality both in terms of processes which reproduce class position and in terms of combating racial discrimination and hostility. As Rhodes and Braham drily put it in their discussion of unemployment: ...there is a case for looking again at the way that ‘positive inaction’ may amount to acquiescence in the maintenance or advance o f discriminatory practices. (1981: 392-3)

Ten years later, McCrudden et al s major review of the effectiveness of British anti-discrimination policies concluded: While further research is needed, the present findings... clearly show that there is scope for further action to provide racial justice at work through legal enforcement and related policies... At the same time, the scope for achieving individual justice, for articulating standards, and for achieving group justice, is limited by the form of the existing legislation. (1991: 286)

In terms of unemployment differentials between whites and blacks an

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interesting pattern emerges between countries.6 In both the US and Britain the unemployment rate amongst black men is double the rate for white men (Bergmann 1996; Shire 1997). Young black people are especially likely to be unemployed in Britain where only one-fifth of 16 and 17 year olds have jobs compared to one-half in the case of whites. In the US and Britain, black males aged 18 to 19 suffer unemployment rates above 30 per cent (Bergmann 1996; Shire 1997). Bergmann highlights: ...the results o f a recent research project reveal the extent o f discrimination against young black men in hiring and give an insight into the connection between that discrimination and their high rate o f unemployment...The Urban Institute assembled pairs o f young men to serve as ‘testers’. In each pair, one tester was black, the other white. Entry-level openings were chosen at random from the newspaper; and a pair of testers was assigned to apply for each opening. The researchers made the pair of testers as similar as possible, except for race... The Institute researchers found that the young white men were offered jobs 45 per cent more often than the young black men. (Bergmann 1996: 51)

In addition to the familiar evidence about institutionalised discrimination, Shire argues that negative employer attitudes are being further reinforced by the requirements of Asylum and Immigration legislation which make employers responsible for checking the immigration status of employees and applicants (1997: 34) (see also Fekete 1997; Webber 1997). As we have seen, the backlash literature focuses on the ‘dependency mentality’ created by the welfare state’s ‘distortion’ of economic and social incentive mechanisms and the ‘injustice’ generated by group-based antidiscrimination measures. It argues that the lives of ‘millions of persons’ would be improved if these measures were eliminated. In other words, it is suggested that with the exception of middle-class ethnic minorities who have benefited from affirmative action measures, the majority of individuals within the affected groups have actually been harmed by these measures. The way forward, it is argued, lies in abandoning the ‘dogma’ of racial/ gender victimisation and embracing the ‘colour-blind’ free market. While these arguments are similar to those of supply-side monetarist economists, there is a second strand of the backlash literature that returns to ‘scientific’ explanations of social and economic inequality. Hermstein and Murray’s best-selling The Bell Curve (1994) has received most attention out of this body of literature. The main argument of the book is constructed as follows:

40

The Unequal Unemployed 1. IQ tests are a valuable measure general intelligence— ‘g’ (as in Brand 1996); 2. black people have IQ scores that average 10 to 15 points lower than those for European Americans; 3. a large proportion of differences in mean IQ between blacks and whites is due to a genetic component; 4. social programmes can do little to improve IQs, because heredity is so strong in determining social position; and 5. biologically inferior populations are incapable of benefiting from social programmes.

Nisbett believes that, The Bell Curve is ‘an important and ultimately dangerous book on intelligence and achievement that has far reaching implications for our society’ (1995: 110). He points out that it rapidly became important in framing popular and political debate on race and intelligence and is likely to be influential for some time to come. In particular, it has been used in the political arena to argue against public expenditure on social programmes and all forms of affirmative action measures. In relation to affirmative action, Hermstein and Murray argue that the US is a model of IQ-based meritocracy: In coming to grips with policy, a few hard truths have to be accepted. First there are no good ways to implement current job discrimination law without incurring costs in economic efficiency and fairness to both employers and employees. Second, after controlling for IQ [our emphasis], it is hard to demonstrate that the United States still suffers from a major problem o f racial discrimination in occupations and pay. (1994: 480)

Indeed, Hermstein and Murray suggest that blacks already had achieved nondiscriminatory access to professional and technical jobs by 1964 (the year of the Civil Rights Act), and nondiscriminatory access to clerical jobs by 1967.7 It is argued that blacks are unfitted by their genes for any better jobs than they had in the 1960s, and that their progress since then has been unwarranted. In the following concluding statement the authors suggest that all affirmative actions measures should be eliminated: If tomorrow all job discrimination regulations based on group proportions were rescinded, the United States would have a job market that is ethically fairer, more conducive to racial harmony, and economically more productive, than the one we have now. (1994: 505)

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Conclusion The return during the 1990s to ‘scientific’ explanations of social and economic inequality, previously associated with the period of slavery and colonial expansion, has added an extra twist to the attacks on contemporary equal opportunities policies. The various currents within the backlash literature seek to unite individualistic ideologies within conservative politics, sociology and economics, with those of experimental psychology and the biological sciences. This marshalling of ideas has had a significant influence on popular debate and has put the movements campaigning fo r social and economic justice, and against sexism, racism and other forms of social discrimination, on the defensive. The ‘political correctness’ debate is the most visible aspect of this and while at times it appears as a warfare of language and symbols, it has unquestionably impacted on more material matters. The ideas of the new Right have had an enduring influence beyond the Thatcher/Reagan years. Endemic and long-term unemployment became ‘tolerable’ so long as any anger was contained within a politically disorganised ‘underclass’. Income inequalities have widened considerably (especially in Britain) and it is now routine to question the value of statebased responses to social problems, the value o f welfare expenditures and the value of pro-active equal opportunities policies. The balance between individualism and collectivism has tilted substantially tow ards individualism. As Murray himself proclaimed shortly after the publication o f The Bell Curve, When it comes to government policy, there was in our minds just one authentic implication : return as quickly as possible to the cornerstone o f the American ideal that people are to be treated as individuals, not as members o f groups. (Murray 1995: 23) (Our emphasis)

Throughout this chapter, we have drawn attention to the central dilemma o f equal opportunities policies. Unfair discriminations not only occur at the level of individual treatment but also ‘structurally’. That is to say, disadvantage—whether from slavery, colonisation, racism or patriarchy— comes to be historically institutionalised and reproduced within the class structures of the societies we have referred to, the US, Britain and Ireland. In Jenkins’ words: In looking at the situation of black workers in Britain and Catholics in Northern Ireland, it is necessary to recognize the historical importance o f colonialism in creating the present state of affairs. (1988: 333)

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How those historical effects are played out varies from one society to another and it is the purpose of this book to shed light on a specific set of circumstances concerning the long-term unemployed in one part of Northern Ireland. In so doing we are suggesting neither that ‘class’ takes precedent over ‘race’, nor that ‘sex’ is more important than ‘class’. Rather, following bell hooks, the challenge is to understand how systems of power relationships interlock in a given society with a given history (1989: 223). Nevertheless, there are similarities in patterns of disadvantage within the three societies we have discussed. There are not only common lines of political debate but also some parallels in policy interventions. All three societies have been faced with the problem of how to address individual acts of discrimination, especially in relation to employment, with ‘race’ coming chronologically before sex. In addition, there have been pressures to ameliorate collective or group-based disadvantage, sometimes through area-based programmes or targeted affirmative action. The latter has always been controversial due to the perception that it violates the sanctity of individual rights and liberties within free market economic systems. As soon as the ‘group rights’ of a disadvantaged group, such as the unequal unemployed, are acknowledged, this is said to constitute discrimination against individual white people, Protestants or men. The ‘special treatment’ accorded to group rights is itself unfair ‘positive discrimination’, so the argument runs, for two reasons. Firstly, such programmes are an unwarranted interference with the free market which in theory tends towards perfect labour market competition which is discrimination-free. Secondly, existing class distributions are fair and meritocratic. Latterly, backlash theorists have resorted to claims of genetic difference to ‘prove’ the point. Thus any systematic patterns of inequality involving sex or ‘race’ arise either from free choice or naturally-endowed intelligence and achievement. There are also some ‘mid-range’ criticisms of affirmative action. Since affirmative action measures are group based, they may not take account of distributions within the target groups. For example, Edwards records th a t: It has long been a contention of opponents of affirmative action and preferential treatment in the United States... that insofar as the motivating force for such practices is com pensation for past harm (discrim ination), they are poor mechanisms for ensuring that the most harmed gain the most benefit. (1995: 16)

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So there is evidence to suggest that instead of benefiting the most marginalised members of the affected group, for example, the long-term unemployed or people with disabilities, affirmative action benefits the middle class members of the targeted minority (Abram 1986; Steele 1990; Carter 1991; and Belz 1991). This may be attributed to the nature of the most common forms of affirmative action measures adopted which typically focus on increasing access to the job interview room. Such policies will tend to benefit middle-class job competitors and working class job changers, not the unemployed, whether they are members o f a minority group or not. The criticism is, therefore two-edged. Conservative social policy has always favoured ‘better targeting’, but in this case the argument steers towards the withdrawal of affirmative action, certainly its more adventurous forms. On the other hand, the point can be made that a much more radical combination of policies is required to address the complexities o f disadvantage and compound discriminations. As we highlight in the following chapters, the unemployed living in high unemployment societies face a difficult enough situation without the added ingredients of sexism, racism and threatened and actual hostility. Such circumstances challenge traditional models of affirmative action which were largely developed during periods of relatively low unemployment during which long-term unemployment remained an undiscovered issue. Footnotes 1.

2. 3. 4.

5.

Jim Crow was a fictitious character featured in a popular song and dance routine from the 1830s. The Jim Crow character was based on an old, crippled black slave and was part of a minstrel show (in which white actors make up as blacks) performed by Thomas Dartmouth ‘Daddy’ Rice. After great success in the US, the show was brought to Britain in 1836. Myrdal (1944) measured social disorganisation by rates of ‘illegitimacy’. No explanation was offered for the historic and social factors that give rise to these ‘distastes’. Neoclassical economists also refer to the information-based theory of ‘statistical discrimination’. According to this model, it is profit-maximising for employers to engage in statistical discrimination if the costs of the error it creates in predicting individuals’ productivity are less than the expense of developing and administering screening instruments with greater predictive power (see Arrow 1971). This process can allow discrimination to be maintained over time. In Britain there is no official guidance on how companies should establish their goals. In contrast, in the US affirmative action goals are determined by the level of ‘underutilisation’ which in turn are a measure of the disparity between current minority

44 The Unequal Unemployed

6.

7.

representation in the workforce and their estimated ‘availability’ in the relevant workforce. Labour force availability is established by an eight-step procedure (see Edwards 1995 for a detailed discussion). Unemployment differentials between men and women are not very useful indicators of labour market inequalities, since women are so underestimated in official unemployment statistics. Hermstein and Murray’s method is to show the jobs held by black people, by occupation, as a percentage of the jobs they ‘deserved’ to hold, based on their ‘cognitive abilities’. The authors argue that blacks held 100 percent of the jobs they deserved in these two categories, in 1964 and 1967, respectively (1994: 460).

3 Unemployment Policies in the 1990s Introduction nemployment rates rose in almost every OECD member country in the 1980s. In most European countries unemployment reached levels that were unprecedented since the 1930s. The second half of the decade saw relatively fast world economic growth, with some fall in unemployment, yet unemployment rates remained persistently and exceptionally high, especially in Europe. In the first half of the 1990s the European Union unemployment rate averaged ten per cent, and while some countries, including Ireland and Britain have seen unemployment fall by more than one-third since 1994, the EU average still stood at 10.3 per cent in February 1998. Persistent long-term unemployment and the rise in rates of economic inactivity are also a key features of the economic changes over the past twenty years. This chapter examines the debate over the causes and cures of unemployment, especially long-term unemployment. The use of ‘active’ labour market policies is also examined, particularly the emphasis on compulsion within British social security and training policy. The growing influence of the US on British labour market policies is highlighted. Finally, various models of ‘welfare-to-work’ are discussed alongside renewed interest in policies designed to stimulate labour demand. Policies towards unemployment since 1979 The election of Margaret Thatcher’s first government in May 1979 heralded fundamental shifts in British economic policy. The main tenets of this shift were the promotion of ‘market forces’ and control of the money supply, and its prime objective was reducing inflation rather than attempting to sustain low unemployment. The commitment to the post-war goal of ‘fullemployment’ was formally abandoned (see Grieve Smith 1997a for a detailed discussion). Government intervention, expenditure and taxes were to be cut. Inflation was to be controlled by controlling the money supply rather than resorting to prices and income policies. A determinant link 45

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espoused by supply-side monetarist economists between inflation and money supply was assumed. That is, all that was required to reduce the soaring inflation rates experienced during the 1970s was to keep the rate of increase in money supply in check. The concept of the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) has played a central role in macro-economic policy. The NAIRU implies that at any point in time there is a unique level of unemployment at which inflation will neither accelerate or decelerate. Any attempt by government to reduce unemployment below the NAIRU level will result in an increase in the rate of inflation. The NAIRU has been criticised on both theoretical and empirical grounds. In particular, empirical evidence suggests that, in terms of the relationship between inflation and unemployment, any constant rate of inflation is consistent with any constant rate of unemployment. This implies that the concept of NAIRU is fundamentally flawed (see for example, Blanchard and Summers 1988; Manning 1992; Omerod 1994). Despite these criticisms, Ormerod comments that: The idea o f the NAIRU has been very influential, not just in academic circles, but also with financial journalists and policy-makers. It is used frequently as an argument against policies designed to reduce unemployment. (1994: 45)

The past two decades have been characterised by government distancing itself politically from responsibility for high unemployment levels. Godley accurately describes the way the new monetarist macroeconomic orthodoxy has altered priorities: ...the great traditional goals o f economic policy, with the important exception o f price stability, are disappearing from view. In particular, growth and unemployment are ceasing to be seen as objectives o f policy, but rather as natural events, like hurricanes or snow, which are news, but which the government can neither predict nor control. (1991)

Rising unemployment was regarded as a price worth paying for lower inflation. Moreover: ...unemployment has been redefined as a residual and individualised problem, for which the enterprising free-market Thatcher administration had no direct responsibility. There was, then, no [unemployment] crisis. (McLaughlin 1992b: 1)

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The policy fixation with reducing inflation and the individualisation of unemployment, also meant the abandonment of any kind of commitment to the management of labour demand. As highlighted by McLaughlin this policy shift meant: ...the adoption o f an exclusively supply-side interpretation o f the causes o f unemployment. ‘Labour market rigidities’ and ‘barriers to grow th’ were identified as trade union power, centralised forms o f collective bargaining and pay determination, high wages, generous social security benefits, employment protection legislation, high rates o f income tax and an oversized public sector. All o f these were held to produce malfunctions and distortions in the market place. (1992: 6)

Michie and Wilkinson agree that a ‘free labour market’ came to be increasingly seen as a requirement of the new economic orthodoxy: The switch in macroeconomic policy towards the belief that direct government intervention is counter-productive and that the economy can only be effectively regulated by monetary means has its microeconomic corollary with the assertion that joblessness results from impediments to the working o f the ‘invisible hand’ in the labour market (1994: 16).

The response by British governments since 1979 to labour market impediments or ‘rigidities’ had two main thrusts: widespread labour market deregulation and the use of ‘active’ labour market policies targeted on the supply side of the labour market. Underlying both of these approaches was the notion that government responsibility was limited to ensuring that individual unemployed people were suitably equipped for an increasingly competitive labour market. In the early 1980s, Conservative government ministers argued that ‘artificial’ constraints on the labour market prevented wages falling to adjust to changed market conditions. For many groups, it was argued, wages were being held above their true market level, thereby ‘pricing’ workers out of jobs. Michie and Wilkinson (1994: 17) have identified six measures which have been used to reduce wages, thereby making workers more ‘price competitive’: 1. the weakening of employment rights such as unfair dismissal protection and maternity provisions; 2. contracting out of public services, often at wages and conditions much poorer than in the public sector itself;

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The Unequal Unemployed 3. the privatisation of other government services has removed the lowpaid from the coverage of collectively negotiated agreements; 4. wage protecting conventions (such as the fair wage resolution) have been abolished; 5. the wage councils designed to set legally binding minimum wages in low-paid sectors were abolished in 1993; and 6. successive legislation has seriously impeded trade union organisation and action, and the overall ability to gain bargaining rights.

Trade union activity was affected directly by legislative curbs, but high unemployment itself reduces the probability of workers joining trade unions and reduces the bargaining power of trade unions in relation to wage settlements and general conditions of employment. As with unemployment in general, Conservative governments have explained the emergence of long-term unemployment as a problem of labour market supply (see Sexton 1989). In its submission to the European Commission’s review of competitiveness in Europe (1997), for example, the UK government argued that the upward trend in European Union (EU) unemployment from cycle to cycle and the increasing proportion of long­ term unemployed people, combined with low productivity growth, were evidence of inflexibility in, and over-regulation of, labour markets. The combination of low productivity growth and rising unemployment was labelled by m onetarist economists and government m inisters as ‘Eurosclerosis’. Proponents of the Eurosclerosis thesis use as their model the ‘sufficiently deregulated’ labour market of the US which, they argue, all EU countries should be moving towards (for a critique, see Buchele and Christiansen 1998). For example, while average unemployment in the EU was 10.9 per cent in March 1997, it was just 4.9 per cent in the US. In the EU almost half of the unemployed have been unemployed for more than a year—the equivalent figure in the US was just 11 per cent. While these statistics seem to suggest that the deregulationist argument is correct, McLaughlin warns that: ...headline unem ploym ent rates represent a particular, largely benefitdetermined, measurement o f employment and unemployment, and as such these rates have allow ed com m entators and po litician s to claim m ore for deregulationist policies than is justified. (1994: 8)

A closer examination of headline unemployment rates reveals that they

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underestimate non-employment. Male labour force participation has dropped sharply over the past decade, as many men have shifted from being ‘unemployed’ to ‘economically inactive’. Taking a closer look at the heralded deregulated US labour market reveals that it is not an especially high employment country where prime-age males are concerned. Indeed, when both unemployment and inactivity (i.e. ‘non-employment rates’) among prime-age males are taken together, the figures of the UK and US begin to converge with those of continental Europe (see Balls 1994 for further details). As McLaughlin argues: It is the pattern o f unemployment and non-employment rates which is very different across OECD countries. Non-employment rates rose during the 1980s in almost every OECD country. While in continental Europe this rise was largely reflected in unemployment statistics, elsewhere— the UK, Australia, Canada and Sweden— the rise in inactivity was at least as important as the rise in unemployment. The USA shared the same pattern earlier in the 1970s rather than the 1980s. (1994: 9)

McLaughlin concludes: Thus the more highly regulated labour markets have resulted in high rates of growth in unemployment and the more deregulated labour markets have resulted in high rates o f growth o f non-employment, (ibid.)

Despite a lack of empirical support for a determinant relation between labour market deregulation and high employment levels, statistics from the US labour market were used by successive Conservative governments to justify policies of labour market deregulation and reforms to the social security system that emphasise restrictions on benefit entitlement, conditionality of entitlement and ‘compulsion’. While a rise in the number of people classified officially as ‘economically inactive’ does reduce headline unemployment figures, there is, of course, a limit both politically and financially to the extent to which governments can reclassify people. Moreover, in the presence of some form of a social security system, there is a limit to which wages can be pushed downwards. As noted by McLaughlin: If the causes o f the U K ’s poor unemployment record in the 1980s/early 1990s had been the welfare benefits system, the trade unions, high income tax rates, public sector monopolies, and so on, then it would be reasonable to think that the energetic pursuit o f policies specifically designed to rem ove these im pedim ents w ould have resulted in at least low er and a m ore stable

50

The Unequal Unemployed unemployment level. It did not, and has not. (1992: 8)

Indeed, it has been suggested that increased flexibility may result in higher government spending as the cost of providing in-work benefits in support of families or low pay, off-sets any savings associated with increasing the stock of jobs (Bewick 1997). A study by the Cranfield University School of Management concluded: There is no convincing evidence that increased flexibility leads to increased levels o f employment... many of the advantages that flow from job creation are lost if jobs are created in a form that involves low salaries, government subsidies, limited spending power and insecurity. (1996: 23)

The deregulation of the labour market and the shift in the allocation of responsibility for unemployment from government to individuals were reflected in profound changes to the social security system. In the post­ war period of full employment, the role of social security with respect to unemployment was to provide an income as of right to the unemployed, on the basis of minimal conditions and policing. During the 1980s, however, benefits for the unemployed were attacked on a number o f levels. The agenda was vigorously laid out by Minford (1985) who argued that benefit levels were too high, creating little incentive for the unemployed to take up work. He also highlighted the growth of an ‘informal’ economy which involved such practices as ‘doing-the-double’ (earning a wage while claiming benefits as unemployed). Entitlements were cut, more resources were put into fraud detection and the value of benefits relative to wages was reduced. The job search behaviour of unemployed people came under closer administrative scrutiny than at any time in the post-war period. Rather than signing a simple declaration of work availability, by the late 1990s, claimants were obliged to complete log books detailing their job search efforts. The assumption that social security benefits are important for increasing work incentives, is based on the concept of the ‘replacement ratio’ (the ratio between the income which a person could get in work and the benefit income when out of work), which is clearly affected by both benefit levels and wages. The lower the benefits paid and/or the higher the wage rate paid, the greater the ‘incentive’ for a person to search for and take work. While the concept of the replacement ratio has had a significant influence on government policies, this influence has been both contradictory and probably self-defeating. Government policy has reduced the real level of

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benefits received by people not in paid employment. Simultaneously, for those at the lower end of the labour market where the majority of the unemployed are concentrated, deregulation has made work more and more unattractive in terms of wages paid and working conditions. Hence, expenditure on ‘in-work’ benefit subsidies has increased. Michie and Wilkinson conclude that: It is a matter o f fine judgement whether the net effect o f this policy o f making the receipt o f out-of-work income increasingly unattractive, while at the same time reducing the range o f decent jobs available within employment, has been to induce greater participation amongst the unemployed. But there can be little doubt o f the degenerative effect on economic efficiency o f employment practices and intensified exploitation. (1994: 21)

Indeed, most studies which use unemployment and benefit data from the mid-1980s onwards have found the effect of replacement ratios on return to work probabilities to be quite small (for surveys o f this literature see Blundell 1994; Dawes 1993; and Dilnot 1992). A British study by Arulampalam and Stewart (1995) which used data from actual social security benefit records (instead of the usual method of imputing estimated benefit levels) found that the effect of the replacement ratio was significant only in the first three months of an unemployment spell and is therefore likely to be irrelevant for the long-term unemployed. Another aspect of the motivational thesis is more general and focuses on assumed behavioural characteristics and attitudes of the unemployed. It is argued, for example, that in certain areas or within certain families there exists a ‘culture’ of unemployment and worklessness. This ‘culture’ amongst unemployed ‘drop-outs’ is characterised by a failing to search energetically for work, being work-shy, and ‘enjoying’ life on benefits. White provides a useful analysis of why some of the unemployed, especially those who previously had steady jobs but who have been unemployed for several years, have become thoroughly ‘demoralised’: w ithdraw al from the job market is based on experience o f unsuccessful job search, and reasonable assessment o f prospects given poor qualifications, long periods out o f work, and other disadvantages such as age or disability. In such cases, we would suggest, attitudes may have fallen into line with the experience or have been shaped to support a stance o f realistic fatalism. (1994:149)

These ‘discouraged workers’ are often morally condemned for failing

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The Unequal Unemployed

to improve themselves, but it can be argued that negative attitudes to work are a rational response to continuous failure in job search activities. Any policies to reduce unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, need to take account of such rational low expectations. Moreover, surveys of the unemployed (see Chapter 5) reveal that, contrary to popular myth, the number of unemployed people with strongly negative attitudes towards work is much smaller than is commonly assumed. Skilling the unemployed It is frequently asserted that unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, is largely due to ‘human capital shortfall’. People either lack skills altogether, or their skills are inappropriate because they have been working in occupations or industries that have a high employment elasticity of demand. Government responses to unemployment throughout Europe, especially from the late 1980s onwards, have emphasised training and retraining programmes for young people and the long-term unemployed. It is estimated, for example, that more than one million people have passed through the Youth Training Scheme (later Youth Training) in Britain since its inception in 1983 (Green 1994). With the growing influence of EU social policies, both politically, financially and legally, training and employment policies are now subject to considerable debate over targets, outcomes, delivery and impact on equal opportunities. It has been argued, for example, that policies and provision on training and retraining have lagged behind need (White 1991; Jackman 1992). McLaughlin highlights that: Despite a considerable level of political rhetoric about skilling unemployed people back into jobs, and although policies and provisions in terms o f counselling and remotivating appeared to proceed in excess of need, policies and provision on training and retraining have lagged behind need... funding o f publicly funded training services for the unemployed and the young did not increase in line with rising unemployment. (1992: 10)

Moreover, the percentage o f ‘unskilled’ and low skilled workers receiving training is the lowest of all groups (McLaughlin 1992a), and since these workers are the most likely to be long-term unemployed, the present policy initiatives do not seem to target those most in need of training and retraining. Indeed, Green concludes that: ...contrary to the ideology that an education and training revolution has opened

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up wide avenues o f opportunity for the acquisition o f skills in Britain, [...] access to training remains very unequally distributed.... (1994:78)

Studies of government-supported training programmes in Britain, the US and Australia show that such schemes have several features in common (Marsden and Ryan 1991; White 1994; see Bewick 1997 for a detailed discussion). The studies find a lack of labour market relevance in ‘training’ schemes; that schemes are held in poor regard by employers and the unemployed; and that the quality of schemes vary significantly but that many are of poor quality. Importantly, notwithstanding the huge resources which have been poured into training the unemployed by national governments and the European Union, the employment effects of schemes have been moderate. Evidence from a wide body of studies indicates that a ‘market’ approach to training can discriminate against disadvantaged groups and the non-profit organisations trying to assist them. Moreover, outputrelated funding mechanisms have been found to discriminate against disadvantaged groups through a process of ‘creaming’ (i.e. hand-picking trainees with characteristics associated with a higher probability of obtaining employment upon completion of the training programme). After extensive evaluations of active labour market policies, the US Department of Labor concluded that the majority of active labour market measures: ...have still not managed to lift large numbers o f participants above poverty... even in Riverside County GAIN programme, generally considered one o f the most successful welfare-to-work efforts ever evaluated, only 23 per cent o f the participants were still employed and off AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children] at the end o f the third year after entry into the program. (1995: i)

The drive to compulsion in the social security system A central debate within the social policy literature is the principal of conditionality (or its corollary, compulsion): to what extent should the payment of social security benefits be subject to the condition that those who receive them behave in particular ways, or participate in specified activities? In recent years this debate has been discussed primarily in the context of policies targeted at reducing long-term unemployment, the socalled ‘workfare’ or welfare-to-work debate. Much of the debate is focused around the concept o f ‘reciprocal’ or ‘mutual’ obligation and in this regard it is the ideas of Lawrence Mead ( 1986; 1992), not those of Charles Murray,

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which have had a lasting influence on US, and now British, social policy. Instead of cutting welfare completely, Mead argues that the competence of those without work has to be increased by rigourously enforced requirements to work. This is really a re-vamped version of the ‘culture of poverty’ thesis, but in M ead’s hands, a very policy-oriented one (McLaughlin 1997: 86). The voluntarism of simply providing opportunities for work, or changing the discincentives of tax and benefit systems, has failed: The economic case for paternalism follows from the impacts work programmes achieve. While voluntary, service-oriented programmes realise some gains, these policies are sometimes not cost-beneficial. They cost too much for the work gains and welfare reductions they realise. It is the mandatory, workoriented form o f welfare employment programme that clearly delivers the goods. (Mead 1997: 41)

The notion of mutual obligations between state and citizen has been debated extensively in the US, where, as highlighted by Ellwood, it formed the basis of a new consensus on welfare policy a decade ago: The notion o f mutual responsibility is not controversial any more. It seems that in both the liberal and conservative policy-making communities, there is widespread acceptance o f the notion that it is legitimate to ask [unemployed] people to fulfil some obligations and that, in exchange, the government must provide some training, jobs, or other programs. (1988: 226)

Deacon notes how such views have impacted on mainstream policy debate in Britain. He quotes Prime Minister John Major’s 1993 remark: I increasingly wonder whether paying unemployment benefit, without offering or requiring any activity in return, serves unemployed people or society well.

The nub of the issue, however, is precisely whether ‘activity’ is offered or required: ‘it is the notion of compulsion which has attracted most attention and aroused most controversy’ (Deacon 1994: 53). Reviewing the US experience of workfare, Walker concludes: ...the gains for participants... are quite small but (that) the savings in welfare payments when cumulated across the population o f welfare recipients can be considerable. The justification for ‘pure’ workfare schemes is normative rather than financial. (1991: 51)

Compulsion of sorts was first applied in the UK when 16 and 17 year

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olds were no longer permitted to claim benefits under the 1986 Social Security Act. Instead they could receive a ‘training allowance’ providing they participated in training schemes. The Jobseeker’s Act (JSA), implemented in 1996, takes compulsion further. The JSA contains powers to impose benefit penalties up to the full duration and amount o f benefit. The Act requires the unemployed to enter into a contract, the Jobseeker’s Agreement, which specifies the measures that the unemployed person agrees to take in order to find work. Individuals who fail to demonstrate their continued efforts to find work, or who refuse offers of training or work, are subject to the withdrawal of benefits. It has been suggested, contrary to Mead, that workfare and other elements of compulsion within the benefit/training complex may seriously damage motivation and generate negative attitudes among the unemployed towards training providers and social security staff. Compulsion may lead to people taking up inappropriate training places, may reinforce existing scepticism about the value of schemes (among the unemployed and employers) and can lead to wastage of resources through high drop out rates (Finn 1995a, 1995c; Unemployment Unit 1994). As the House of Commons Employment Committee points out: Although it may fall short o f a formal Workfare programme, the Jobseekers Act marks the culmination o f a policy which has approached the problem o f mass unemployment as essentially one whose cause is the lack o f sufficient jobseeking skills amongst jobless individuals. [...] It seems unlikely that the Government can go much further down the path o f emphasising individual activity as a means o f tackling joblessness. (Employment Committee 1996: xxiv)

Similar schemes have been experimented with for many years in the US. In the 1980s the Republicans tried to get every state to introduce Community Work Experience Programmes (CWEP), regarded as the ‘purest’ form of workfare scheme. CWEPs are targeted on lone mothers with children (in receipt of AFDC—Aid to Families with Dependent Children) and they require participants to work for their benefit. The scheme has proved unpopular politically and is regarded as too expensive because working single parents obviously require childcare. Only around 15,000 people were on compulsory work schemes in the US by the mid-1990s (Employment Committee 1996: xvii). The closest any British schemes come to CWEP is the Project Work scheme, piloted (under section 29 o f JSA) in Hull and Medway and Maidstone from April 1996. Anyone

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who refuses a placement (or fails to attend, leaves or is asked to leave) loses their benefits and the £ 10 premium. US social policy shifted further away from notions of entitlement with the introduction of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) under the expressively-entitled 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity. This replaces AFDC and gives individual states a block grant to spend at their discretion. While local autonomy is increased, federal targets are set for work participation rates of TANF recipients. The intention is to cut federal spending by $54 billion over six years. Despite the above mentioned caveats regarding compulsion, the Labour government is using JSA benefit sanctions as part of its New Deal for the unemployed, though this appears to have been softened slightly by the intention to present the policy as one of ‘help’ rather than ‘hassle’, to use Mead’s terminology. JSA sanctions were imposed on an average of more than 3,800 unemployed people per month during the first nine months of 1997 (Hansard, written answers 13 January 1998), but this may fall with the withdrawal by the Employment Service of ‘performance targets’ for benefit sanctions ( Working Brief October 1997: 2). The New Deal is designed to bring a number of groups within the ambit of welfare-to-work, including the young unemployed, the long-term unemployed, and lone parents. Webster (1997) argues that the New Deal package is based on two flawed economic theories of unemployment: These are the ‘withering flowers’ theory associated particularly with Sir Alan Budd, Chief Economic Adviser to the Treasury, Professor Richard Layard o f the LSE, and the OECD; and the ‘replacement ratio’ theory [discussed above], associated with the latter two authors. (1997:10)

Layard’s thesis (1995 and 1997) is more sociological than economic. In essence the argument is that people lose relevant skills and the habit of work when unemployed. Very quickly, long-term unemployment emerges as a pool of ‘unemployable’ people. Policy should seek to prevent the young from sinking into unemployability and to reintegrate the long-term unemployed through a one-off programme which can permanently ‘ratchet down’ the overall rate of unemployment. Employability, it is argued, can be raised through job placement (by means of employer subsidies), work experience or training. Webster’s research on long-term unemployment using time series data for Britain since 1948 questions the existence of a significant and relatively

U nem ploym ent P o licies in the 1990s

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static pool of ‘unemployables’. Figure 3.1 shows that a given rate of unemployment (U) is always associated with approximately the same level of long-term unemployment (L), providing an allowance is made for time lag. Thus, for example, if total unemployment is 10 per cent, long-term unemployment will be somewhere between 3.5 and 4 per cent, irrespective of whether unemployment is rising or falling—there is an unchanging ‘LFigure 3.1: U nem ploym ent ra tes in B ritain (all unem ployed a n d long-term unem ployed*)

--------all unemployed

— - - long-term

U curve’. Webster’s analysis at various geographical areas, whether wards, local authorities, travel-to-work areas, or regions, found that ‘every area had more or less exactly the level of long-term unemployment which goes with its total unemployment rate’ (1997: 10). Webster’s analysis presents a direct challenge to the ‘welfare-to-work’ policy as a response to unemployment. Welfare-to-work measures: ...are generally unnecessary because long-term unemployment will fall in each area in line with total unemployment, as and when more suitable jobs become available in that area. Special training and placement policies are relevant only to those workers who have genuine employment handicaps. (1997: 11)

He has also extended this argument to lone parents by pointing out the strong association between areas of high unemployment and lone

58

The U nequal U nem ployed

parenthood. Again he makes the point that the policy focus on issues of child care, training and moving people off benefit, should be replaced by ‘the real policy challenge’ of re-building local economies devasted by the radical restructuring of the last two decades (Webster 1997: 22). One limitation of Webster’s argument is that it implies the long-term unemployed can compete more or less on equal terms with other groups in the labour market, such as women returners, young entrants, the short­ term unemployed and people attracted to an area experiencing job expansion. But if employers view long-term unemployment negatively (see Chapter 8), the long-term unemployed remain disadvantaged in the competition for new jobs. This suggests that demand alone is insufficient: demand must be targeted, a theme we return to in Chapter 9. The effectiveness of welfare-to-work-type measures has been shown to be very varied in the UK. A study by Gardiner (1997) found significant variations in employment and cost effectiveness across the 42 programmes examined. She showed that between two and 28 per cent of participants found work as a direct result of welfare-to-work and that unit costs per participant varied dramatically from £3 to over £3,000, reflecting the differences in duration and level of resources committed to the schemes. The most effective schemes were found to be Jobmatch (support for those taking part-time work) and Jobfinder’s Grant (cash lump sum paid to long­ term unemployed on entering employment). Incentives for employers—in particular, the ‘holiday’ from employers’ National Insurance contributions for taking on a long-term unemployed person—had relatively low per unit costs, but suffered from very low take-up. Evidence from both the UK and Australia suggest that employers do not react to incentives as positively as unemployed individuals. Gardiner notes that since the New Deal package is quite similar to existing welfare-to-work programmes, it will need to address the limitations of, and significant variations in, the effectiveness of existing programmes. In particular, it is important to recognise that schemes based on either job search assistance or training produced ‘additionality’ of four per cent or below. A way forward? While the evaluation of welfare-to-work-type programmes indicates that their effectiveness varies significantly, programmes which are classified as ‘intermediate labour market’ approaches appear to be having more

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consistent success at reducing long-term unemployment. The ‘Glasgow Works’ (GW) programme, targeted on those unemployed for more than a year, appears to be a successful example of this approach. According to the programme manager: Glasgow Works has pioneered an integrated approach: work, wages, training and personal development, building on the Wise Group and others— that employability increases through real work experience. (Marshall 1997: 15)

Marshall links the underlying approach of GW to findings from recent surveys of employers. The Institute for Employment survey of 800 UK employers carried out for the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), showed that employers equate the length of unemployment with low motivation and poor work attitudes (1997). Another survey, covering 200 employers in Central Scotland, found that employers generally placed a higher value on basic work discipline (reliability, punctuality and good attendance) than on vocational qualifications as such. In the light of this evidence, Marshall argues that: The best way anyone can demonstrate that they can turn up for work on time and have a positive attitude is to be doing it in their present job, and getting an employers’ reference to prove it, if necessary. It follows that the long-term unemployed need to be in work to show sceptical employers that they want to work. (1997: 15)

In other words the most valuable initiatives may be ones, like Glasgow Works, which offer paid employment in a real project doing real work with training and personal support. Significantly, GW jobs are advertised in normal ways and potential recruits are not simply referrals from the Employment Service. They must pass an interview and, having the status o f w orkers, may be dism issed. GW certainly scores w ell on ‘additionality’—over 60 per cent of all leavers went into a job, compared to 20 per cent of leavers from Glasgow’s Training for Work scheme. Although the evidence is still limited, it does appear that ‘intermediate labour market’ programmes are important in terms of over-coming employers’ prejudices about the unemployed and, especially, the long-term unemployed (see Chapter 8 for further discussion about employers’ attitudes towards the long-term unemployed). The Select Committee on Education and Employment’s report on the New Deal (1997) endorsed Work Trials for the same reasons. This scheme, which allows unemployed job seekers

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and employers to carry out a job trial before an employment contract is offered, has raised the employment rate of participants by 35 to 40 per cent. As such it appears to be the most successful country-wide labour market programme which has ever been developed in Britain (White et al 1997). The impact of such policies, however, will ultimately be constrained by the number of jobs in the economy—i.e. by the demand for labour. In the absence of employment growth, ‘intermediate labour market’ programmes and welfare-to-work measures, such as tax concessions to employers who hire the long-term unemployed, will result in a redistribution o f employment, primarily from the short-term to the long-term unemployed. Hence John Grieve Smith suggests that: The essential condition for any substantial reduction in unemployment and the restoration o f a healthier and more equitable balance of society is stronger demand for labour. We need to focus the unemployment discussion to how this can be achieved without an unacceptable rise in inflation. We have to escape from a situation where, when unemployment falls to six per cent, financial policy is tightened for fear o f ‘overheating’. (1997b: 20; see also Grieve Smith 1997a)

The recognition of the fundamental importance of the other variable in the employment equation, that is labour demand, challenges the economic orthodoxy which has dominated economic policy particularly in Britain for almost 20 years. The supply-side monetarist approach to the labour market has left in its wake millions of people who face joblessness year after year. While tens of thousands have disappeared from the official unem ploym ent statistics, unemployment has not gone away. The unemployed remain in large numbers: excluded and alienated from the social and economic system. Groups that have historically been marginalised in the labour market have had different experiences with these processes of exclusion. The rest of the book examines these experiences with particular reference to the deeply divided and segmented labour market in Northern Ireland.

4 Unemployment and Fair Employment Introduction he problem of unemployment in Northern Ireland has been the subject of considerable academic and political debate since the establishment of the state in the 1920s. During the interwar years, the issue was a threatening one politically because of the potential for the ‘loyal’ Protestant working class to turn against the newly established Unionist regime, uniting with their ‘rebellious’ Catholic counterparts in the process. Preventing such an outcome and at the same time demonstrating that the union with Britain was justified on economic grounds, became central to Unionist thinking (Michie and Sheehan 1998). Northern Ireland recorded its lowest unemployment rate during the Second World War— unemployment dropped from 28 per cent in 1938 to three per cent in 1944, partly due to the emigration of about 60,000 people (see Rolston and Tomlinson 1988). But unemployment remained a pressing issue during the ‘full employment’ years of the 1950s and 1960s and it took some time before the Unionist government’s ‘Victorian politics’ (Rowthom and Wayne 1988: 72) were able to embrace the degree of intervention required to modernise the economy. Economically, Northern Ireland contained a declining industrial base but with the postwar agreement to subsidise the extension of the British welfare state, employment in the public service sector expanded. Complaints from Catholics that they were being excluded or marginalised from these developments, as well as being denied basic political rights, gave rise to widespread complaints of discrimination. After the ‘civil rights’ reforms (see O’Dowd et al 1980) and in the post1972 period of ‘direct rule’ from Britain, the discrimination debate became particularly focused on unemployment. Unemployment and economic development remain central issues in policy debate, reflecting the fact that, proportionally, Northern Ireland has one of the largest concentrations of unemployment, and especially long-term unemployment in the UK. But much attention is also paid to the unequal distribution of unemployment between Catholics and Protestants. Despite two decades of fair employment 61

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legislation, Catholic men remain more than twice as likely to be unemployed compared to Protestant men, and Catholic women are 1.8 times more likely to be unemployed than Protestant women. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the deep political divisions within Northern Ireland, it is this latter aspect of unemployment which has generated the most heated debate. This chapter examines the evolution of fair employment legislation in Northern Ireland. We also outline the characteristics of unemployment and review the impact of the unemployment problem on fair employment policy. In particular, research and argument around differential unemployment rates is considered. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the limitations o f previous research on unemployment inequalities and long-term unemployment. The evolution of Fair Employment legislation As mentioned in Chapter 2, the Northern Ireland Parliament (at Stormont) was constitutionally prohibited by the Government of Ireland Act (1920) from passing discriminatory legislation. It is widely acknowledged, however, that the anti-discriminatory provisions of the Act were ineffective against administrative discrimination, public and private sector employment discrimination, and all forms of indirect discrimination, such as the linking of voting rights to property holdings, or the manipulation of ward boundaries to restrict voting power. Indeed, McCrudden, notes that: The lim ited statutory protection against religious discrim ination in the Government o f Ireland Act 1920 had little effect on the growth and virulence o f discrimination. On only one occasion did the Act appear to have been used to counter alleged religious discrimination. (1989: 38)

It would be wrong to assume that discrimination and workplace intimidation were practices which sprang up after partition. As the political momentum for Home Rule gathered pace from the 1880s, Catholics were regularly expelled from workplaces at moments of high tension. A few months before the Government of Ireland Act became law about 11,000 Catholic workers, including 1,000 women, were physically chased out of the Belfast shipyards, the major engineering companies, the linen mills and a large building company. Around 9,000 of them were still without work several years later (Farrell 1976: 29). In the 1890s, although Belfast comprised over 26 per cent of the population, very few Catholics (four per cent) were involved in running public services as either board members or paid officials. Only two Catholics

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worked for Belfast Corporation while none were employed by the Harbour Board, the Water Commission, and the Petty Sessions (Donaldson 1997: 120). As partition was implemented, the deployment of civil servants and other officials (such as police officers) had to be reorganised, particularly in relation to Dublin and Belfast. The new administration in Belfast went through the lists of possible transfers from Dublin and systematically excluded the Catholics. The head of one department in Dublin ‘was bluntly informed that he would only be wasting his time including Catholics in any list of officials he submitted for transfer to Belfast’ (cited in Donaldson 1997:123). By the 1930s, such exclusion appeared to be government policy, as the importance of rejecting ‘disloyal’ applicants for public service was openly emphasised by cabinet ministers. Lord Craigavon, Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister from 1921 to 1940, stated in the Stormont parliament that: The appointments made by the government are made, as far as we can possibly manage it, o f loyal men and women, (cited in Farrell 1976: 90)

Similarly, Sir Basil Brooke (Prime Minister from 1943 to 1963) urged loyalists not to employ Catholics, ‘99 per cent of whom are disloyal’: I want you to remember one point in regard to the employment o f people who are disloyal... You are disenfranchising yourselves in that way... If you don’t act properly now, before we know where we are we shall find ourselves in the minority instead of the majority, {ibid.)

This mentality survived into the postwar period. Several Unionist politicians advocated positive discrimination in favour of ‘loyalists’ or ‘unionists’ in the 1960s, with one— a barrister—proposing that: Registers o f unemployed Loyalists should be kept by the Unionist Party and employers invited to pick employees from them. The Unionist Party should make it quite clear that the Loyalists have the first choice o f jobs. (Farrell 1976:227)

Such statements from leading Unionist politicians highlight the culture of discrimination which festered under the Stormont administration. As these quotes indicate, Unionist politicians viewed discrimination as necessary to the very survival of the state. It was, as they saw it, perfectly reasonable to deny jobs to a section of the population which refused to accept the legitimacy of the state and which contained a small minority actively engaged in subversion of the state. A contemporary re-working of

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this conceptualisation of discrimination is provided by Wilson, and is worth quoting at length: Catholics are perceived to be nationalists who are prepared to give, at best, grudging and provisional support for a Northern Ireland that is separated from the rest o f the island. Some will be strong republicans and therefore poor security risks, but it may be hard to identify them... Even apart from the security question, C atholics m ay not be thought to be so fully com m itted to perform ing conscientious work in a state o f which they disapprove. That is to say, loyalty may be regarded as a relevant consideration even in peaceful conditions, and could be thought crucially important by employers in particularly vulnerable positions when the IRA is conducting an all-out campaign. Religious affiliation, easily determined in Northern Ireland, could then be used as a crude method of security screening in order to exclude possible IRA sympathizers or persons who, though not sympathetic, might be intimidated into providing the terrorists with helpful information. (1989: 109)

Wilson became Northern Ireland’s chief economic planner as the Unionist government began to modernise the state and economy in the 1960s. This process not only involved the reorganisation o f local government, the traditional power base of unionism (Tomlinson 1980), but also meant making important decisions about investment in new towns, roads, industrial sites, housing, and education. Such matters were heavily charged with political significance and Catholic dominated areas of high unemployment—e.g. Derry and Newry—appeared to be studiously avoided as the development strategy unfolded. Two decisions in particular angered non-Unionists: the proposal for seven ‘growth centres’ including a new town based on Portadown and Lurgan, and the siting of a new university at Coleraine. Northern Ireland’s second city, Derry, was excluded from both initiatives because some local Unionists judged that economic development would inevitably make it harder to keep the city in Unionist hands. As the Cameron Commission pointed out, Londonderry County Borough contained 23,210 eligible voters in 1967. At the time, the local government franchise was restricted in such a way that about a quarter of adults had no voting rights, an exclusion which was thought to impact more heavily on Catholics than Protestants. Nevertheless, 62 per cent of the Borough’s voters were Catholic and yet Unionists had 60 per cent of council seats (Cameron Report 1969: 59), largely because of the arrangement of ward boundaries. Derry was a microcosm of the institutionalisation of discrimination on which Northern Ireland was based and without which, in Unionist minds, Northern Ireland would cease to exist. Although the postwar period in

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Northern Ireland was generally characterised by political apathy and a deceptive calm, this pattern was to end with the launch of the civil rights movement in the latter half of 1968, with Derry as a particular focus of activity. The seriousness of discrimination and depth of feeling behind the civil rights campaign came as a surprise to the British political establishment. The issue of discrimination and the general nature of the Stormont administration had been well-insulated from the Westminster parliament by a convention which prevented a ll MPs from debating Northern Ireland’s internal affairs (McCormack and O’Hara 1990). The civil rights movement was modelled on the campaigns of black Americans and adopted similar tactics of nonviolent resistance and mass mobilisation. The primary objective was simple—to end discrimination against Catholics, especially in the areas of public housing, employment and the local government franchise. The movement included Protestants and ranged in composition from the unemployed to student radicals and middle-class professionals (McCormack and O’Hara 1990: 21). The campaigners were demanding fundamental reforms within the state, rather than calling for an end to Northern Ireland’s existence as such. The Stormont administration, however, responded as if the latter was the case—with violence and repression. The visibility of police actions against civil rights marchers in the autumn of 1968 brought the British government into the picture. While it continued to express confidence in the Unionist administration’s ability to restore Taw and order’, it drew up contingency plans to take over the Stormont government and the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, publicly called for reforms (in October) (Callaghan 1973). In a rapidly deteriorating situation and some six months after Harold W ilson’s statement, the Unionist government set up the Cameron Commission to investigate the causes of ‘sporadic outbreaks of violence and civil disturbance’ (1969: 3). The Cameron report, published in September 1969, acknowledged ‘the political implications’ of employment discrimination which caused the unemployed to seek work elsewhere, and suggested that ‘any n ecessary legislative o r adm inistrative action... would be a major step towards healing the communal divisions which lie so close to the root of these disorders’ (our emphasis) (1969: 56). The report was also at pains to understand Unionist attitudes towards civil rights claims for equality: Not the least o f these fears publicly and privately expressed among Unionists and Protestants was that in course of time the Catholic element in the population

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could, in crude language, ‘out-breed’ the Protestant... Therefore, the argument runs, it is essential to ensure the maintenance o f Unionist and Protestant governmental supremacy and to take all action which may be considered necessary to that end. We recognise... the wide existence o f this fear and... that it is undoubtedly a major factor in determining the attitude of many Unionists towards the Civil Rights movement, which they tend to regard as essentially a Catholic if not a Nationalist and Republican manifestation, unjustified by genuine grievance or complaint in fact, {ibid: 65)

The report concluded, however, that Unionists who think this way ‘are seriously in error’. It’s findings were already being overtaken by events— the British Army was deployed to prop-up the Stormont administration a month before the publication of the Cameron Commission’s findings. Also in August, internment without trial was introduced to detain two dozen people for a brief period. During the summer months more than 1,800 families were forced to move house through intimidation or being burnt out by loyalist mobs. Working class Catholic areas were barricaded to keep loyalists, the RUC and British Army out, and the civil rights demands were replaced by more pressing matters—the disarming of the RUC, the disbanding of the hated Ulster Special Constabulary (an exclusively Protestant militia), the repeal of the Special Powers Act and an end to Stormont rule. Unionists countered by arguing for tougher security measures and internment was eventually reintroduced in August 1971. Seven months later, the British government suspended the Stormont parliament. With the Unionist government out of the way, the British government had a freer hand to develop counterinsurgency measures and to accelerate the pace of reform, all with an eye on restoring govemability to Northern Ireland. On the fair employment front, the conclusions of the Cameron Commission were taken up with the appointment of a working party on discrimination in the private sector in August 1972, under the chairmanship of one of the new Ministers of State at the Northern Ireland Office, William van Straubenzee. The working party’s report did not seek to establish the extent and nature of discrimination, but it did comment on the: ...general acceptance of the validity o f the basic assumption underlying our terms o f reference that religious discrimination exists to some degree as a fact o f life in employment in Northern Ireland today, (van Straubenzee Report 1973:

2)

The van Straubenzee Report not only recommended that direct discrimination be outlawed and investigated by a new agency, but also

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supported ‘affirmative action programmes’. The Report declared the fundamental aim of fair employment policy as being ‘the promotion of full equality in all aspects of employment opportunity’ {ibid: 34). Affirmative action was seen as necessary ‘to rectify such inequality of opportunity as may have arisen in the past’ {ibid: 14). Although its terms of reference concerned the private sector, the working party made an important link to the public sector: It could well be found that in order to provide full equality o f employment opportunity in the private sector, extensive affirmative action programmes must be initiated by Government and other public bodies. This might apply for example in the fields of industrial training, education, regional planning, and general economic development... The bodies concerned... clearly have a continuing responsibility to take action o f their own accord and to review requirements regularly, {ibid: 16)

This had a radical ring to it, but much was being left to political will and good intentions. Besides, the Report ‘was not the work of a group of radicals’: The core o f the Working Party was made up o f business leaders and trade unionists draw n m ainly, though not exclusively, from the P ro testan t community... It was the work o f hardheaded realists with considerable experience o f both politics and industry. (McCormack and O ’Hara 1990: 26)

The approach to affirmative action was largely voluntary and the Report came out against using the withdrawal of government grants and loans from proven discriminators or those refusing to devise affirmative action programmes. Interestingly for the purposes of this book, the working party had a number of things to say about unemployment. One of the recommended forms of affirmative action was: ...making a serious and sustained attempt to utilise the unemployed, (van Straubenzee Report 1973: 15)

Secondly, the working party was keen to establish mechanisms for monitoring the religious affiliation of the workforce and it justified this approach as follows: Records o f religious affiliation, particularly if they were to extend to the unemployed, would be extremely valuable in determining where affirmative action programmes should be initiated by Government and other public bodies.

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The Unequal Unemployed For example they would be of help... in deciding what training facilities are required, in assessing the extent to which immobility o f labour and the location o f industry contribute to inequality o f opportunity, and in identifying levels o f unemployment amongst the various sectors o f the population... For these reasons, we favour information on religious affiliations being available to the appropriate Government Departments concerned with employment, and for this to include data relating to the unemployed, (ibid: 28)

It was indicative of the paucity of statistical information on religion and the labour market that the working party explored monitoring in some detail. Prior to the availability of the 1971 census which contained a question on religion for the first time since 1911, there had been few attempts to present data on the religious composition of particular workforces (Osborne and Cormack 1991: 52). Necessarily, the available sources were somewhat ad hoc, anecdotal and impressionistic (see Barritt and Carter 1962; Campaign for Social Justice 1972; and Gallagher 1957). The van Straubenzee Report eventually resulted in the Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act of 1976 which was later followed by an Act of the same title in 1989. The 1976 Fair Employment Act The 1976 Fair Employment Act made direct discrimination on religious or political grounds by both public and private sector employers illegal. The Act also sought to promote equality of opportunity for persons seeking employment and for those already in employment. It established the Fair Employment Agency (FEA) as the regulatory body in the field of fair employment. Under the Act the FEA had no statutory duty to review or propose amendments to Fair Employment law (McCrudden 1993). In addition, it was widely acknowledged that the Agency was under-resourced {ibid.). The Act aimed to promote voluntary action by establishing a ‘Declaration of Principle and Intent’, to which employers and others were encouraged to subscribe. Those who signed the Declaration were certified as equal opportunity employers. The FEA was responsible for promoting the Declaration and for registering subscribers to it. In addition to using the voluntary approach, Section 11 of the Act gave the FEA a duty ‘to identify and keep under review patterns and trends of employment’. This included general labour market patterns as well as specific investigations (under Section 12) of employment within companies and sectors (e.g., the civil

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service, the engineering sector). It was responsible for conducting investigations to establish the existence, nature, and extent of failures to afford equality of opportunity, and to consider what action for the promotion of equality of opportunity ought to be taken. Where, following and investigation, the FEA was ‘o f the opinion’, that the body under investigation had failed to afford equality of opportunity, it had a duty to attempt to ensure that the employer took action to remedy the failure. In practice, this allowed the FEA to make recommendations to employers that they should change their policies and practices. The Act did provide an ultimate sanction. Where the employer had given written undertakings but had not complied with it, the FEA could issue directions, and it could secure a County Court order to ensure that written undertakings or directions were complied with. However, as highlighted by Smith and Chambers: In practice... these sanctions were hardly ever used; the FEA tried instead, to establish a continuing and co-operative relationship with employers under investigation. (1991: 238)

Despite significant constraints, the daunting task of tackling existing discrimination and the legacy of past discriminations was handed over to the newly established FEA, thereby alleviating the British government of direct responsibility over the matter. Moreover, unlike the 1964 Civil Rights Act in the US, the British Race Relations Act of 1976, the Equal Pay Act 1970 (fully effective from 1975) and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, all of which outlawed both direct and indirect discrimination against identified groups, the 1976 Fair Em ployment Act did not outlaw indirect discrimination. This was a major disappointment, given the van Straubenzee Report’s emphasis on affirmative action. The conservatism of the measure in this regard was summed up by Section 22 which made it unlawful to discriminate in the provision of training services, with no exceptions such as an attempt to train Catholics for an occupation in which they were grossly under-represented, or to train unemployed Catholics. The Act also appeared to incorporate the Unionist conceptualisation of discrimination by including Section 42 . This states that ‘acts done for the purpose of safeguarding national security or of protecting public safety or public order’ should not be regarded as discrimination under the Act. During the period 1976-84 the issue of fair employment slipped off the broader political agenda (McCormack and O ’Hara 1990). However, in the same period, the British government’s own statistics revealed that, in spite o f the 1976 Act, Catholic disadvantage had not been reduced substantially.

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The FEA’s second annual report (1979) devoted six pages to the discussion of the unemployment differential as revealed by 1971 Census results. The disproportionate Catholic unemployment rate (2.5 times the Protestant rate) was seen as largely ‘structural’, but this did not appear to translate into calls for strong affirmative action. In one sense this was understandable because, under the Act, the FEA did not have control over the ‘guide to good manpower policy and practice’ (Section 5). But it also was a sign of the weakness of an anti-discrimination culture that the Agency went on to commission research into work attitudes and educational attainment—as if these factors rather than the history of discrimination were central to unemployment patterns. Unemployment and the affirmative action required to deal with it was scarcely mentioned again until the findings of the 1981 census became available. Those who spoke out against the lack of effectiveness o f the fair employment legislation were branded ‘sectarian’ or ‘extreme’ by the British government. It is possible that this state of affairs would have persisted had it not been for a combination of opposition from civil and human rights activists within Northern Ireland and economic pressure from the United States (McCormack and O’Hara 1990). The link between the two groups of activists eventually developed into the MacBride Principles which were launched simultaneously in Northern Ireland and the US in 1984. The Principles, broadly modelled on the Sullivan Principles developed as a guide for US investment in South Africa, pinpointed specific action that American corporations with subsidiaries in Northern Ireland could take to ensure that they did not discriminate on the basis of religion (McCormack and O ’Hara 1990: 37). The Principles were opposed by the British government on the grounds that they were unnecessary—it was enough that the 1976 Fair Employment Act outlawed discrimination—and that they might discourage US investment in Northern Ireland. Moreover, the British government attempted continually to portray the campaign as a ‘Republican conspiracy’because of Sinn Fein’s support for the Principles. The British government has spent millions of pounds fighting MacBride Principles hearings in every state in the US which considered adopting the Principles. As recently as 1997, British consular officials were actively working against the Principles on the same grounds as in the 1980s (see Hansard, written answers 10 March 1997). The combined domestic and international efforts of advocates of fair employment, reopened the issue of discrimination in Northern Ireland and created the climate in which politicians in both parts of the island could

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pressurise the British government to initiate changes. In addition to these pressures, other developments closer to home resulted in further embarrassment for the British government. A scathing indictment of almost every facet of the 1976 Act was contained in a report by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights (SACHR) in 1987. In particular, the report highlighted the fact that the 1976 Act had not succeeded in reducing the unemployment differential between Catholics and Protestants and that the vast majority of employers interviewed for the study (85 per cent) reported that the Act had had little or no impact on personnel policies within their companies. Moreover, job discrimination was still thought to be justifiable in certain circumstances by a considerable number o f employers. The Department of Economic Development had responded to pressures for change in two ways. Firstly it issued a consultative paper (in September 1986) and secondly it revised the guide to manpower policy and practice for which it was responsible under the 1976 Act, issuing a new version in 1987. While this contained some evidence that the government was susceptible to pressure on the fair employment issue, it also sought to use a particular notion of ‘merit’to counter stronger affirmative action measures (see McCrudden 1996). The new guide said that it was: ...illegal to favour certain individuals or groups to help correct a historical imbalance in employment. Such practices simply transfer disadvantage and are not consistent with the merit principle, (cited in McCormack and O ’Hara

1990: 49) The 1989 Fair Employment Act, then, needs to be seen as the product of complex political pressures and growing evidence of the inadequacy of the original Act. Importantly, it should be recognised that the new Act was not a benevolent p ro a ctive measure as it has often been portrayed, but rather, like the reforms after the fall of Stormont, it was a reactive , damage limitation response to considerable national and international pressure (Sheehan 1995). The 1989 F a ir Em ploym ent A ct

The 1989 Act extends the outlawing of direct discrimination to encompass indirect discrimination such as the selective advertising of jobs. It requires private sector employers with more than ten employees and all public sector employers to register with the Fair Employment Commission (FEC) (a larger and more powerful version of the original FEA) and to monitor the

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religious composition of their workforces annually. Employers with more than 250 employees are required to monitor the religious composition of applicants for employment. All employers are also required to review every three years their ‘employment practices’, defined as practices ‘affecting recruitment or training for employment in the concern or training or prom otion o f employees in the concern (though not dismissal or redundancy), for the purpose of determining whether members of each community are enjoying, and are likely to continue to enjoy, fair participation’. The FEC can recommend that affirmative action be implemented where the review reveals that ‘fair participation’ is not being afforded. In addition, both government contracts and grants may be withdrawn if employers refuse to comply with their legal obligations under the Act. But the forms of affirmative action permitted under the Act are limited to targeted training, the encouragement of applications from under­ represented groups and the negotiation of redundancy schemes to protect any fair employment gains made through affirmative action (Rose and Magill 1996). Technically, the main provisions of the 1989 Act appear quite stringent. Indeed, British governments have claimed that the 1989 Act is one of the strictest anti-discrimination laws in Europe (see also Maguire 1996: 128). Nevertheless, the Act has a number o f serious limitations. Thirty per cent of the workforce are excluded from monitoring. This particularly affects the monitoring of women workers who are most likely to work part-time and in small firms. The meaning of ‘fair participation’ is of crucial importance to the Act, especially in terms of the implementation of affirmative action. However, the concept is undefined in the legislation. In addition, it is a concept which has not been used in any other UK antidiscrimination legislation which prevents interpretation of its meaning from other contexts (McCrudden 1993). The notion of discrimination used in the 1989 Act differs from that in the race and sex discrimination legislation. In the latter the antidiscrimination principle is the primary concept which underpins the regulatory scheme relating to all the legal enforcement roles of the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equal Opportunities Commissions. In the Fair Employment Act the anti-discrimination principle does not underpin the regulatory powers and duties of the Fair Employment Commission except in the context of individual complaints (McCrudden 1992). In other words, it is not the removal of discrimination but rather the concepts of fair participation (undefined), affirmative action and equality

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of opportunity which underpin the FEC’s enforcement functions. Moreover, the Act does not resolve the tension between the concepts of ‘equal treatment’ and ‘equal opportunity’ (Smith and Chambers 1991). This is because the Act’s primary focus is the ‘professionalisation’ of recruitment practices rather than actual outcomes. In other words, the Act has a minimal remit to promote equal treatment and socially just outcomes. In terms of the ‘Employment Equality Law Models’ outlined in Chapter 2 (Table 2.1), the Northern Ireland legislation fits with the ‘reactive’, rather than ‘pro­ active’ models, primarily because of the limited affirmative action measures which can be legally implemented. In the 1989 Act ‘affirmative action’ means action designed to secure fair participation in employment by members of the Protestant or Catholic community in Northern Ireland by means including: (a) the adoption of practices encouraging such participation; and (b) the modification or abandonment of practices that have or may have the effect of restricting or discouraging such participation. Edwards comments that : There is however, a deep ambiguity in the use o f affirmative action and in the legal arrangements that support it in Northern Ireland. Whilst the ‘protected’ or ‘targeted’ groups in Great Britain and the United States are relatively clearly identified as disadvantaged minorities, in Northern Ireland affirmative action is intended to be used to create a ‘fair representation’ in employment whatever the nature o f the imbalance. So that whilst there is a general presumption that the 1989 Fair Employment Act and the 1976 Act before that, are really about removing the employment disadvantages o f the Roman Catholics in the Province, the legislation requires the use of affirmative action in respect to both Roman Catholics and Protestants where they are under-represented in a particular workforce compared with the composition o f the labour draw area. (Edwards 1995: 2)

While affirmative action measures in Northern Ireland are unique in that both the majority and under-represented communities are potential target groups, the legislation is also litigiously problematic. This is because the Act requires that any action taken in furtherance of the three protected measures (training, advertising and redundancy) cannot be confined for the benefit of one community only (Committee on the Administration of Justice 1996:15). That is, affirmative action measures are greatly restricted because of the overriding requirement not to discriminate directly or indirectly against either Catholics or Protestants.

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As we have said, there are only three specific circumstances in which the fair employment legislation exempts affirmative action from the prohibition of direct and indirect discrimination. These include: 1. targeted advertising to attract applicants from an under-represented group for a particular employment or particular training or to consider a particular occupation. There is an equivalent provision in the race and sex discrimination legislation; and 2. special training to enhance limited skills amongst members of the under-represented community. McCrudden notes, however, that: .. .the terms o f the exemption are both more complicated and more restrictive than the similar provision in the race and sex legislation. Religion specific training is not permitted, for example, but providers o f training may provide such training only at a particular location, or confine the training to persons only o f a particular class (other than a class defined by religion or politics), even where doing so has the effect that access to the training by persons o f a particular religion is excluded or restricted. (1992: 181)

3. The third exemption is available where an employer dismisses a person in pursuance of a redundancy selection procedure followed by an employer in pursuance of affirmative action, even if it is indirectly discriminatory, provided it is an agreed procedure and that it is not directly discriminatory. This exemption has no equivalent in the race and sex discrimination legislation. (McCrudden 1992: 181) Given these exemptions under the 1989 Act, there is limited scope to implement either public or private sector initiatives to target the long-term unemployed (LTU, hereafter). If employers wanted to follow the recommendation of the van Straubenzee Report by making ‘a sustained attempt to utilise the unemployed’ they would be guilty o f indirect discrimination given that unemployment impacts disproportionately on Catholics, particularly Catholic men. So training or recruitment policies of an affirmative nature which seek consciously and systematically to create equality (legal under race and sex discrimination legislation) are illegal under the Act. Similarly, it would appear to be illegal to include social clauses in contracts, such as local labour clauses or a requirement that a certain percentage of the workforce is recruited from the pool of the LTU. (See Committee on the Administration of Justice 1996; McCrudden 1996 and Edwards 1995 for further discussion of the affirmative action legislation and debate in Northern Ireland.)

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The limitations of affirmative action measures outlined in Chapter 2, in terms of not targeting effectively the most disadvantaged members of affected groups, also apply to the 1989 Fair Employment Act. Since measures in the 1989 Act are targeted at ‘getting more Catholics and/or Protestants to the interview table’, such measures are likely to have more impact on middle-class Catholics and Protestants, rather than on disadvantaged groups, especially the LTU. Another criticism of the 1989 Act is that if discrimination is proven, enforcement mechanisms, such as the withdrawal of government grants and contracts, appear weak. This is highlighted by the provision that even when employers are disqualified from receiving grants by virtue o f prior default on their statutory obligations, exceptions will be allowed on grounds of ‘national security’, ‘public interest’ or ‘disproportionate expense’ (McCrudden 1992; Maguire 1996). Four years after the passing of the 1989 Act, the FEC began to look for ways in which the distribution of the unemployed could be brought into the assessment of ‘fair participation’. An internal document, Taking Account o f the Unemployed, advised that fair participation within a particular concern would be judged in relation to the economically active population which includes ‘those in jobs and the unemployed’. In effect, the document argued that, in the case of unskilled manual jobs, fair participation could be equated with the religious balance within the unemployed. However, it is difficult to judge the effectiveness of this policy. As Cassidy ( 1996: 56) makes clear: To date the FET has not been called upon to reach any decisions on issues o f fair participation or directly related concepts. It is not possible, therefore, to predict how the FET will construe concepts such as fair participation or under­ representation.

A particular point of controversy concerns the exceptions made for the purpose of ‘national security’, ‘public safety’or ‘public order’under Section 42 of the 1976 Act (retained under the 1989 Act): an individual’s right not to be discriminated against can be overridden by such considerations. A certificate signed by the Secretary of State is sufficient to prevent any hearing of the case by a Fair Employment Tribunal and it has been shown that there are no possibilities for judicial scrutiny of the basis of the Secretary of State’s decision— ‘one of the more ridiculous anomalies on the statute book’ (McCrudden 1991). Section 42 has attracted much criticism amongst other things because, as the FEC itself advises, it is legitimate for an employer to discriminate if he/she believes that the individual concerned

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‘supports violence’ (Smith and Chambers 1991; Committee on the Administration of Justice 1996). Up to the early 1990s, the Secretary of State had issued 39 certificates, 33 of which covered Catholic complainants. Most of the cases involved the refusal of jobs or contracts in the public sector and in 14 of the cases, Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) was the alleged discriminator (Maguire 1996). In one remarkable case which has taken 13 years to resolve through the courts, a demolition contractor (Tinnelly & Sons) had complained to the FEA of being denied work by NIE—a contract to demolish a power station. A decision was taken to award the contract to Tinnelly (in May 1985) but was reversed eight weeks later. The new contractor, a Scottish company, subsequently informed Tinnelly that the company lost the contract because the power station unions would not allow Tinnelly’s workers on to the site: ‘there was no way they were going to have IRA sympathisers working with them’ (European Court of Human Rights 1998). The FEA began an investigation and was told by NIE that the Scottish company won the contract because of their track record for handling asbestos. NIE, furthermore, went to the High Court for a ruling that the FEA had no jurisdiction over the case. The Court rejected NIE’s case in September 1987. A month later, NIE approached the Secretary of State for a Section 42 certificate and within eight days, this had been granted. In response, the FEA sought judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decision, a case which involved an attempt to order the production o f documentation surrounding the decision to issue the Section 42 certificate. Some documents were produced, but others were produced sealed or covered up because the Secretary of State had issued a ‘public interest immunity certificate’ preventing full revelation on grounds of ‘public interest’. The FEA also sought a court order for NIE to produce documents and once again the Secretary of State issued a public interest immunity certificate. Eventually the initial judicial review case over the Section 42 certificate was dismissed by the High Court. The Tinnelly case was then taken to the European Court of Human Rights where it became joined with another case involving the McElduff brothers who were prevented from taking a joinery subcontract because the Department of the Environment refused ‘security clearance’. The McElduffs had no criminal convictions, had no involvement in any political activity and were not members of a political party. They complained to the FEC in August 1990 and the case became subject to a Section 42 certificate issued in February 1992. In April 1997, the European Commission on

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Human Rights ruled that Section 42 violated Article 6 § 1 of the European Convention which states: In the determination o f his civil rights and obligations... everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing... by an independent and impartial tribunal....

This judgement was backed unanimously by the European Court (1998) which ruled: To allow Section 42 (1) to operate so as to oust automatically the jurisdiction o f the bodies set up under the 1976 and 1989 Acts would limit considerably the scheme o f protection contained in the legislation and... render private or public bodies immune from liability in respect o f complaints that they had committed acts o f unlawful discrimination.

The Section 42 cases are instructive in a political sense because they show how considerable state and political resources are put into turning issues of discrimination into issues of ‘security’. They also show a reluctance to pursue the issues surrounding discrimination with any kind of openness and reflect another popular criticism of fair employment law, namely, that it fails to set broad goals and timetables for the reduction of employment, unemployment and occupational differentials between Catholics and Protestants. It does, however, allow the FEC to set goals and timetables for individual employers. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, unlike the British race relations legislation, the Fair Employment Acts are limited to the employment field. The FEC has no powers over discrimination in the provision of services, or to regulate public bodies whose actions shape employment opportunities. Included here are the government’s most important institutions of economic development, the Industrial Development Board (IDB), the Department of the Environment, the Local Enterprise Development Unit (LEDU), and the Training and Employment Agency (T&EA). The legislation has no remit over essential aspects of economic development policy, such as investment location (which affects the geographical distribution of jobs) and infrastructural development. It therefore has no power to prevent structural discrimination. These are factors which would have an essential role to play in contributing to the achievement of economic justice and equality of outcome (Tomlinson 1992; CAJ 1996). When the 1989 Act was being debated at Westminster, the government agreed to a formal review of the legislation after five years. It did so in the wake of vigorous criticisms of the weakness of the new law, particularly

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The Unequal Unemployed

with respect to affirmative action (see McCormack and O ’Hara 1990). Initially, responsibility for the review rested with the Central Community Relations Unit (CCRU) within the Northern Ireland Office. CCRU held a consultative seminar and commissioned a number of pieces of research which appeared to restrict the scope of debate around fair employment policy. For instance, one project concerned questioning the validity of the unemployment differential as an indicator of fair employment policy (see discussion below of Gudgin and Breen 1996). Such was the political opposition to the conduct of the review that the Secretary of State transferred it to the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights (SACHR) in November 1994. SACHR proceeded to commission more than twenty research projects covering a wide range of issues, from the workings of fair employment tribunals through to job creation policies (see McVey and Hutson 1996; McLaughlin and Quirk 1996; Magill and Rose 1996). The research covered two new policies developed during the 1990s, Targeting Social Need (TSN) and Policy Appraisal and Fair Treatment (PAFT). Both these initiatives were indications of the pressures on the British government to accomplish more on the fair employment front. The findings discussed in the following chapters arise from research commissioned under SACHR’s review. SACHR’s own recommendations and the governm ent’s response are discussed in C hapter 9 and unemployment is a key theme in both. Unequal unemployment Analysis of unemployment in Northern Ireland reveals several important features. First, Northern Ireland’s overall unemployment rate has been, until very recently, persistently above the average for the 15 European Union (EU) member states and surpassed only by Spain, Finland and the Republic of Ireland. Within the United Kingdom (UK), Northern Ireland has consistently been the region with the highest rate of unemployment, although again, this appears to have changed in 1998 with the move to Labour Force Survey (LFS) regional data. The unemployment rate in Northern Ireland (based on the LFS) was 8.3 per cent for the three month period ending February 1998 compared to an average UK rate of 6.3 per cent and Merseyside’s rate of 10.1 per cent. The old ‘claimant count’ gives a rate of 7.7 per cent for Northern Ireland and 4.9 per cent for the UK as of March 1998 (Department of Economic Development 1998). Secondly, Northern Ireland has a serious problem o f long-term unemployment, as defined by one year or more without work. In 1995

Unemployment and Fair Employment

79

only Belgium, Italy and the Republic of Ireland had proportions of the unemployed who were long-term which exceeded Northern Ireland’s figure of 61 per cent. At the time the EU average was 49 per cent with the UK showing a figure of 43.5 per cent. Northern Ireland can also claim to have the worst problem of long-term unemployment, in proportionate if not volume terms, in the UK. For example, in July 1996 50 per cent of unemployed claimants had been out of work for more than a year. Only the Greater London area came close to this (at 43 per cent), while the Northern region of England, which at the time had the second highest rate of unemployment within the UK, had 38 per cent long-term unemployment, a figure close to the overall UK figure of 36 per cent (Training and Employment Agency 1997: 52). Moreover, 20 per cent of unemployed claimants in Northern Ireland have been unemployed for over five years, compared with seven per cent in the UK as a whole. In the early 1990s, this regional disparity in very long-term unemployment was even worse (see Northern Ireland Economic Council 1994). Despite a continued fall in the claimant count unemployment rate, especially from 1996 onwards, the number of very LTU (those who have been out of work for more than five years) has remained almost constant in both the UK and Northern Ireland (Convery 1997). The third important feature of unemployment in Northern Ireland is its unequal distribution between Catholics and Protestants. Catholic men remain more than twice as likely to be unemployed than their Protestant counterparts (Smith and Chambers 1991; Murphy and Armstrong 1994). The LFS gives a figure of 2.2 to one for 1993 (Committee on the Administration of Justice 1996). Catholic women are about one and a half times more likely to be unemployed compared to their Protestant counterparts (Davies et al 1995; Murphy 1995). The unemployment differentials have remained almost constant for 25 years despite the Fair Employment Acts of 1976 and 1989. While the fair employment legislation appears to have made a positive contribution to the mitigation of Catholic under-representation in employment (see SACHR 1997, for a summary of employment patterns), it seems to have had little impact on the unemployment differential. The SACHR comments that, ‘the Commission believes that legislation, notably the 1989 Act has had a positive impact on employment equality’ (1997:17). It continues: The differential impact o f unemployment on the ‘two communities’ continues to be a central issue in Northern Ireland despite considerable progress towards

80

The Unequal Unemployed employment equality since implementation o f the 1976 and 1989 Acts. The reduction o f the unemployment differential between Catholic and Protestant males is often put forward as one benchmark o f ‘success’ o f the fair employment system. The Commission believes this ignores the fact that fair employment legislation cannot deliver, and was not designed to deliver, the socioeconomic and labour market policy interventions necessary to combat unemployment. Such interventions need to tackle both the demand and supply sides of the labour market. (1997: 19)

Paralleling debates in the US over wage, occupational and unemployment differentials between whites and blacks, there has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the analysis of the differential labour market outcomes between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. A fundamental difference, however, between the two debates, is that while it is generally accepted that black Americans and other racial groups such as Hispanics, face(d) widespread indirect and direct discrimination, no such consensus has been reached regarding discrimination against Catholics (Sheehan and Tomlinson 1998). This point is also highlighted by Eversley who concludes his wide-ranging analysis of religion and employment in Northern Ireland (1989) by saying that discrimination is ‘an important component part of the total labour market situation’ (1989: 235), which needs to be tackled with greater vigour and more employment creation. Eversley argues that explanations blaming the minorities themselves were common until the Kennedy/Johnson era. Thereafter they became very largely unacceptable, at least in US national politics. He finds the Northern Ireland debate quite different: In Northern Ireland... it is still apparently considered respectable, even for members of the academic community, to absolve government and the majority community from blame for the condition of the minority population; and to infer that their troubles are of their own making. (Eversley 1991: 74)

The irony is that when systematic evidence of unequal labour market patterns by religion and gender became available in Northern Ireland from the late 1970s onwards, a great deal of money, time and effort went into trying to demonstrate that ‘discrimination’ was not the cause, or not a particularly serious cause (see Gallagher 1991). This was especially the case with the unemployment differential. Sophisticated econometric studies have been conducted which set out to ‘explain’ how much o f the unemployment differential can be attributed to factors such as age, number of children, geography or industry of employment (Compton 1991; Smith

Unem ploym ent an d F air Em ploym ent

81

and Chambers 1991; Murphy and Armstrong 1994; Gudgin and Breen 1996). With the exception of Gudgin and Breen (1996), these studies find that there is a ‘residual’ or ‘unexplained’ part o f the unemployment differential. The size of residual varies from over 60 per cent (Smith and Chambers 1991) to less than 20 per cent (Compton 1991). The interpretation o f the residual by the authors also varies significantly. Compton, for example, argues that: ...the explanation o f high Catholic unemployment and under-representation in many types o f employment lies not in discrimination but primarily in the structure, attitudes and aptitudes of the Catholic population. (1991: 75)

This attempt to explain unequal unemployment in terms of the structure and behaviour of the Catholic population itself is clearly similar to Charles Murray’s (1984 and 1990) claims about the behaviour of the ‘underclass’ in Britain and the US. In contrast, Smith and Chambers conclude that the unemployment differential shows that ‘Protestant and Catholic men have substantially unequal opportunities for employment in Northern Ireland’ (1991: 371). Gudgin and Breen (1996) suggest that four factors taken together can explain fully the unemployment differential. These are, differential labour force growth, differential migration propensities, differential ‘quit’ rates between Catholics and Protestants, and ‘structural’ factors such as location, age and qualifications. They argue that, ‘.. .the common practice of deducing from a high unemployment rate ratio that discrimination must be a cause is quite wrong’ (1996:43), and they appear to be saying that there is nothing intrinsically unfair or unjust about unequal unemployment: ...the ratio o f unemployment rates is not a valid or reliable indicator o f the degree o f fair employment in the Northern Ireland labour market. (1996: 42)

It is instructive to consider Gudgin and Breen’s conclusions in the light o f the pre-1989 review of fair employment policy during which SACHR, in opposition to the Northern Ireland Office, recommended a substantial reduction in unemployment inequalities within five years (SACHR 1987). This could only be achieved by moving beyond the outlawing of direct discrimination to include indirect discrimination and strong affirmative action as major elements of fair employment policy. We have seen, however, that the affirmative action measures which can legally be implemented under the 1989 Act are very restrictive and do not allow for policies targeted at groups such as the LTU.

82

The Unequal Unemployed

The Gudgin and Breen study undermines the case for an extension of affirmative action. Indeed, they argue in somewhat familiar terms that such a policy development would formalise discrimination against Protestants: If it is the case that there is little systematic discrimination in Northern Ireland then any Act aim ed at reducing the unem ploym ent ratio by com bating systematic discrimination is unlikely to succeed unless it was unintentionally to introduce an element of discrimination against Protestants into the labour market. (1996: 43)

This argument is replicated in a ‘dissenting note’, signed by an Ulster Unionist Party member of SACHR, which is attached to SACHR’s review of the 1989 Act. The note concludes that: The difference in increase in population growth between the Catholic and Protestant communities has been an important cause (our em phasis) o f differences in unemployment between the two communities... Unemployment differentials should not be used as a measuring mechanism in relation to fair employment... Affirmative action, though legal, may create a situation where individual Protestants may have a diminished right to a job compared with individual Catholics. (SACHR 1997: 106-7)

The politics of these conclusions are clear. As Gillespie highlights: ...those with nationalist inclinations will tend to reject such studies as Gudgin and Breen as inconsequential in accounting for unemployment differentials, those with unionist leanings will tend to accept them. (Gillespie 1996: 13)

A fundamental limitation of the Gudgin and Breen research is the assumption that the factors at the centre of model are exogenous to socioeconomic status. Their logic is that religion-based ‘behavioural’ differences in fertility, migration and ‘job-quitting’ can be used to explain unequal unemployment rather than any observed differences being seen as afunction o/labour market position and socioeconomic status (see Bradley 1997 and Sheehan and Tomlinson 1998 for technical and other criticisms of the Gudgin and Breen research). Aside from the problems associated with imputing some of the values in the model, the Gudgin and Breen approach ignores many of the policy and sociological processes (among them, well-documented past and present discriminations) which impact on labour market outcomes, especially unemployment. The SACHR argues that: ...the studies by M urphy and Arm strong and by Gudgin and Breen are inconclusive in establishing the extent to which discrimination, direct or indirect,

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83

past or present, contributes to the current unemployment rates. There are complex relationships between past patterns o f employment, unemployment and economic well-being, and contemporary patterns o f population growth, labour mobility, educational attainment and many other factors which cannot easily be captured in mathematical models. Nonetheless it is clear that very different levels o f unemployment exist and this must be addressed. (SACHR 1997: 22)

In the literature which examines occupational crow ding and segmentation, it is widely recognised that complex social and economic processes affect the differential labour market outcomes of distinct groups (see for example Bergmann 1986; Rubery 1992). Unfortunately, the majority of previous analyses of the Northern Ireland labour market have not examined these processes. Taking the unequal unemployed seriously There is a strong case to be made that unemployment is now a more significant indicator of labour market inequalities than it was twenty years ago when the first Fair Employment Act was introduced. Firstly, there is the issue of the size of the problem. In the mid-1970s, one in eighteen of the workforce was unemployed. Rising unemployment throughout the 1980s and 1990s has meant that at any one time between a fifth and an eighth of the total workforce have been unemployed claimants and more than this experience a spell of unemployment in a given year. It would be wholly unreasonable to exclude this large segment of the workforce from monitoring and discussion of employment equity. Secondly, there is clear evidence of a simultaneous growth in workless households and two income households over the last two decades—a polarisation between work-poor and work-rich households. When new jobs become available they are: ...disproportionately taken by people in households where someone is already working... [In the 1990s] this effect is likely to be stronger than during the 1980s recovery as the differential in favour o f members o f work-rich households has substantially increased. (Gregg and Wadsworth 1995:20)

Essentially, the argument is that changes in the structure of the labour market, in particular the growth of part-time jobs, have made it more difficult than it used to be to move from unemployment into work, thus increasing the depth of the unemployment experience (McLaughlin 1991). If this situation is not actively addressed, the effect is to ‘freeze’ substantial

84

The Unequal Unemployed

inequalities into the unemployed population. Furthermore, increases in recorded unemployment over the past twenty years have been accompanied by rising rates of economic inactivity, masking a considerable volume of unemployment as ‘long-term sickness’ and ‘discouraged workers’ (those who have given up searching for work) (Borooah 1995). Gudgin and Breen take recorded unemployment at face value, without questioning the basis of the figures. But the true levels of Catholic unemployment may be worse than they assume. When economic inactivity is analysed by religion, it is found that the number of economically inactive Protestant men doubled between 1981 and 1991, but the number of Catholic men went up by more than 2.5 times (Gillespie 1996: 5). Finally, the degree of unemployment inequality between Protestants and Catholics is not fully appreciated without taking account of differences between short- and long-term unemployment. Although the claimant-based unemployment rate for Northern Ireland declined from over 17 per cent in the mid-1980s to 11 per cent in the mid-1990s, long-term unemployment has grown as a proportion of all unemployment. Since the 1989 Fair Employment Act, an increasing majority of the unemployed have been out of work for one year or more, notwithstanding the expansion o f the Action for Community Employment scheme which, until recently, absorbed almost 10,000 long-term unemployed (not all from the claimant count). It makes sense to acknowledge this trend by calculating long-term (and short-term) unemployment rates, and the ratios of these rates, as an means of evaluating changes in inequalities. These calculations are difficult to do and can only be regarded as illustrative, given the limitations of existing published sources such as the Labour Force Survey Religion Reports (PPRU 1992; 1993; 1994) which show rounded percentage figures based on relatively small sample sizes. The 1991 figures show that the Catholic/Protestant short-term unemployment ratio was 1.66:1 and the long-term ratio was considerably higher at 3.08:1. The argument over the existence of discrimination as a factor in producing and reproducing unemployment has clearly overshadowed questions of inequalities between the short- and long-term unemployed. In other words, there has been a tendency to ignore what happens to people once they become unemployed and the processes which determine whether they stay unemployed or not. Furthermore, the studies which deny the existence of discrimination most strongly, rely on unsubstantiated notions about individual labour market behaviour and motivation. This latter deficiency is certainly not unique to Northern Ireland. With notable

Unemployment and Fair Employment

85

exceptions (Trew and Kilpatrick 1984; Evason 1985; McLaughlin et al 1989; Howe 1990; Dawes 1993; Gallie et al 1994; Evason and Woods 1995), there is little understanding of the attitudes, behaviour and needs of the LTU in the UK and in Northern Ireland. Our survey of the LTU, therefore, placed a great deal of emphasis on such questions of motivation, job search, incentives and earning-whileclaiming. The research differs from past studies on fair employment and unemployment in Northern Ireland in that the analysis is based on primary data from both the LTU and employers in an area o f very high unemployment. It is therefore able to examine some of the processes behind the outcomes analysed by other researchers. The study not only contributes to the debate in Northern Ireland but also contributes to the analysis of unem ploym ent regardless o f geographical remit. Few studies o f unemployment, especially by economists actually seek to understand the behaviour, attitudes and processes experienced by the unemployed. Rather, assumptions based on neoclassical economists’ perceptions of ‘rational behaviour’ (e.g. in relation to ‘reservation wage rates’) are simply imposed as we saw in Chapter 3. These assumptions not only lack empirical evidence but actually contradict existing, albeit limited, evidence. Nevertheless, popular assumptions about the behaviour of the unemployed continue to have a significant impact on economic and social policies. The findings presented in Chapters 5 - 8 challenge many of the common assumptions made by policy makers and economists about the unemployed, and, in particular, the LTU.

5 The Long-term Unemployed in West Belfast Introduction his chapter discusses the results of a postal questionnaire sent out to long-term unemployed people in West Belfast in December 1995. It is important at the outset to be clear that our survey was not an attempt to be representative of all long-term unemployed people in Northern Ireland. Rather, it deals with a particular area which is predominantly Catholic and, as we said in Chapter 1, which has a political notoriety and a specific economic marginality. In this and Chapter 6 and 7, we examine the survey evidence for what happens to people once they become unemployed and the processes which shape whether they stay unemployed or not. The necessity or desirability of social security reforms which are centred around compulsion can be evaluated from the survey o f long-term unemployed people in West Belfast. This chapter concentrates on the basic characteristics of the sample including household size, economic status and duration of unemployment. The health and educational profile of the respondents is examined for differences by gender and religion. The postal questionnaire was sent to a sample o f unemployed claimants living in the pilot area for the West Belfast Community Work Programme. Further details of the sampling process and the data protection issues involved are provided in Appendix One at the end of this chapter. The final sample consisted of 314 useable returned questionnaires. Compared with the claimant count population of LTU in West Belfast the sample was biased towards women (26 per cent o f the sample), who are under-represented in the claimant count, and slightly over-represented the very LTU (five years+) (50 per cent of the sample) and Protestants (27 per cent of the sample) (see Figure 5.1). It is unlikely that any of these biases significantly alter the main findings of the research. The sample is broadly representative of the age structure of West Belfast LTU claimants. Unemployment in both the sample and claimant count population is concentrated in the age groups 25-34 and 35-44 years of age which together account for 60 per 86

The Long-term U nem ployed in West B elfast 87

Figure 5.1: P opulation an d sam ple b y religion

cent o f those in the claimant count population and 63 per cent o f those in the sample. H ouseh olds a n d children

Table 5.1 shows the breakdown of the sample by the number of children in households. Fifty-six per cent of the sample were living in households with children. Of these, 84 per cent were in households with three or fewer children and the average number of children was 2.36 (Catholic average 2.4 and Protestant, 2.2). This compares to 2.39 for Northern Ireland as a whole according to the 1991 Census (Northern Ireland Economic Council, Table 5.1: Households an d children C

h il d r e n

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 T

otal

N

um ber

P

er cen t

137 51 63 31 14 7 5 1 1

44.2 16.5 20.3 10.0 4.5 2.3 1.6 0.3 0.3

310

100.0

88

The Unequal Unemployed

1995b). Catholic households were more likely to contain four or more children but such households were a very small percentage of the total sample. Just over a third, 36 per cent, of respondents were single (34 per cent of men and 44 per cent of women); 35 per cent were married or living with a partner (40 per cent of men and 20 per cent of women); 22 per cent were separated (19 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women); five per cent divorced (six per cent of men and five per cent of women); and two per cent were widowed (two per cent of men and one per cent of women). The very different proportions of men and women who were single suggests that the sample was over-representative of single women. This is further supported by comparison with the Northern Ireland population as a whole in which 28 per cent of all women aged over 16 are single. The figure for men is 35 per cent (Northern Ireland Economic Council, 1995b). The corresponding implication is that women with children may be under-represented in the sample. Economic status Nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) of all respondents described themselves as seeking work, 14 per cent were not seeking work, four per cent were sick or disabled and four per cent were waiting to start a job, scheme or course. Protestant men (10 per cent) were more likely than Catholic men (five per cent) to describe themselves as ‘sick or disabled’ and this was not sensitive to age. Generally, however, Catholic and Protestant men gave very similar answers. The most significant differences between respondents were in terms of gender. Women were less likely to describe themselves as seeking work than men (64 per cent to 81 per cent respectively). Unemployment duration Almost of all of the results presented below are sensitive to the duration of unemployment. It is therefore useful to examine the distribution of unemployment durations by religion, gender and age. Just over half the LTU had been unemployed for five years or more. Average age did not seem to be a significant factor in unemployment duration. Those aged 35+, however, were more likely to have been unemployed for more than five years compared to those under 35. The average duration for individuals who had been unemployed for five years or more was 13 years. Figure 5.2 examines differences in the duration of unemployment by gender and religion. Protestant and Catholic women followed the same

The Long-term Unemployed in West Belfast 89 pattern, with about 40 per cent of their LTU falling in the five years or more category. Catholic and Protestant men, however, were markedly different. Only seven per cent of Catholic men LTU had been unemployed for between one and two years, compared to a fifth of Protestant men. At the other end of the spectrum, 62 per cent of Catholic LTU men were five or more years unemployed compared to just over a third of Protestant men. The pattern of Catholic men having longer unemployment than Protestants and being less likely to be short-term unemployed is broadly consistent with findings elsewhere (Murphy and Armstrong 1994). Figure 5.2: Duration o f unemployment by religion and gender

Table 5.2: Number o f children and unemployment duration U

No

n em ploym ent d u r a t io n

A

ll

C

1-3

h il d r e n

Years

C

h il d r e n

44C

h il d r e n

p e r cen t

1-2

14.3

11.8

15.9

2 -3

10.5

12.5

9 .0

7.1

3 -4

1 2 .4

14 .2

11.7

7.1

14.3

4 -5

12.7

1 4 .0

11.7

2 1 .4

5+

5 0 .2

4 8 .5

5 1 .7

5 0 .0

90

The Unequal Unemployed

Among households with children, the number of children in a household has only a slight effect on unemployment duration (Table 5.2). Respondents in households with four or more children were less likely than childless households (and other households with children) to have been unemployed for between two and four years and more likely to have been out of work between four and five years. However, there was almost no difference among those who had been unemployed for more than five years (50 per cent) across household types. Education and unemployment duration In general higher educational qualifications are associated with lower rates and shorter durations of unemployment (Nickell, 1979; Gallagher et al, 1994). For Northern Ireland as a whole, approximately six-tenths of the LTU have no formal qualifications. This rises to seven-tenths for those unemployed more than four years (Armstrong, 1994). In terms of religion, results from the 1991 Census indicate that amongst the economically active population there are relatively few differences in the proportions of Catholics and Protestants with a qualification of some sort. Catholic males, however, are over-represented amongst those without qualifications (64 per cent compared to 59 per cent for Protestant males). According to the 1991 Census, Catholic unemployment rates for men and women are higher than those of Protestants for every level of qualification (Gallagher et al 1994), including none. Since the West Belfast survey was for the LTU only, comparisons to other studies are limited. It is possible, however, to examine the relationship between level of educational qualification, unemployment duration, age and religion. Three categories of educational attainment are distinguished: GCE ‘A’-level and the vocational equivalents (e.g. BTEC (National)), and above; up to ‘O ’-level and its equivalents; and no qualifications. An eighth of respondents (14 per cent of Catholics and nine per cent of Protestants) had ‘A’-levels (or the vocational equivalent) and above, including four per cent with degrees. Forty per cent of the LTU (41 per cent of Catholics and 42 per cent of Protestants) had up to ‘O’-levels and 46 per cent (41 per cent of Catholics and 49 per cent of Protestants) had no formal qualifications. Although 46 per cent of the LTU in West Belfast had no formal qualifications, this was substantially lower than the average for the Northern Ireland population of LTU (60 per cent), suggesting that the West Belfast LTU are relatively better educated. In addition, West Belfast LTU unemployed Catholics were less likely to have no qualifications

The Long-term Unemployed in West Belfast 9 1 than LTU Protestants, the opposite trend to that in Northern Ireland as a whole. Men were more likely to have no formal qualifications than women (48 per cent compared to 40 per cent). Educational qualifications were also linked to age. For example, 29 per cent of respondents aged 18-24 had no formal qualifications compared to 55 per cent of those aged 45-54 and 72 per cent of those aged 55+. Figure 5.3: Education and duration o f unemployment

Figure 5.3 shows that unemployment duration was found to be associated with educational qualifications. For example, of those unemployed less than two years 23 per cent did not have any formal qualifications compared to 57 per cent of those unemployed for five years or more. Nevertheless, a relatively high percentage (43 per cent) of the very LTU in West Belfast had a formal qualification compared to the Northern Ireland population as a whole (30 per cent), again suggesting that the West Belfast LTU are relatively well educated. Mental and physical health The impact of increasing levels of long-term unemployment, combined with relatively low out-of-work income, on physical and mental health is an important issue though less well researched than other aspects of

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The Unequal Unemployed

unemployment. Townsend and Davidson (1992), and Wilkinson (1994), highlight the sensitivity of health to socioeconomic circumstances, and the latter concludes that: ...the most likely pathways [to ill-health] are through feelings o f failure, in­ security, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and the like. (Wilkinson 1994: 26)

Additional evidence of the effects of long-term unemployment specifically on mental health is provided by Fryer (1992: 104): ...much o f the psychological ill-health o f unemployed people and their families is caused by income-related factors rather than by, or even as well as, the absence o f employment itself.

Fryer therefore refutes the argument posited from the 1930s onwards by the Jahoda school that the principal adverse mental health effects of long­ term unemployment are due to the absence o f integrative and supportive social relationships provided by employment. Fryer’s analysis implies that the depression, anxiety and passivity commonly associated with unemployment are largely the result of the restrictions imposed on unemployed people by the material context o f unemployment, rather than being the cause of (continued) unemployment or the effect of the absence of employment (McLaughlin, 1994a). Similarly, studies carried out in Northern Ireland by Evason (1985) and Trew and Kilpatrick (1984) emphasised psychological deterioration and boredom, as well as the loss of physical health, associated with long-term unemployment. Depression was common in both studies. In the present study, people were asked a series of questions on mental and physical health and how unemployment had affected their health. Just over half reported that they did not suffer from any health problems. Eightyseven per cent o f respondents described their overall state of health as ‘good’ (46 per cent) or ‘fair’ (41 per cent) with 13 per cent answering ‘not so good’. Catholic men were the most likely to describe their health as ‘not so good’ (16 per cent compared to three per cent of Protestant men). It is likely that this reflects the effects of long periods o f unemployment on physical health, but it is a finding which appears to contradict the point reported earlier that Protestants were more likely than Catholics to describe their current economic status as ‘sick or disabled’. This is explained by the fact that most Catholics whose health was ‘not so good’ still regarded themselves as seeking work. There was little difference in overall health amongst those unemployed less than five years (only five per cent of individuals

The Long-term Unemployed in West Belfast 93 unemployed for five years or less reported that their health was ‘not so good’). In contrast, 22 per cent of individuals who had been unemployed for five years or more reported that their health was ‘not so good’, 50 per cent reported that their health was ‘fair’ while only 28 per cent described their health as ‘good’. People were also asked if their general health had changed since becoming unemployed. Thirty-seven per cent reported that their health had become ‘worse’, 59 per cent ‘the same’ and four per cent ‘better’. Again the most significant effect was amongst those unemployed for five years or more, of whom 48 per cent reported that their health had become worse. Consistent with other studies, the most common form of health difficulty was depression (15 per cent). Depression was most common amongst Protestant men. Protestant men also scored the lowest on a mental health index constructed from a series of questions about stress, depression, sleeping problems and consideration of suicide. Women, especially those with children, scored the highest on the index. These patterns follow findings of other studies on the mental health effects of unemployment. Evason (1985) found that Protestants were much more likely than Catholics to report loss of self-esteem and confidence as a result o f unemployment. Howe (1990) suggests that this stems from the different position and experience of Catholics and Protestants in relation to the economy. This is likely to reflect the fact that in some areas o f Northern Ireland, like West Belfast, people in the area, especially young people, had become used to unemployment in the sense that they never expected to have work (Rolston and Tomlinson 1988). This difference in attitude to unemployment may also be the product of different political perceptions and responses, and differences in social support structures. Respondents who had never had a job An important characteristic of the sample, in terms of both current and future trends in long-term unemployment, was that 23 per cent o f all respondents had never had a job. Fifty-five per cent of these were Catholic men, 20 per cent Catholic women, 18 per cent Protestant men and seven per cent Protestant women. As expected the people who reported never having had a job tended to be gathered in the younger age bands. Eightyseven per cent of these respondents were aged 34 and less, which meant that 46 per cent of this age group had never had a job. Although respondents who had never had a real job tended to be grouped in the younger age bands, a high percentage had been unemployed for

94

The Unequal Unemployed

long durations. Sixty per cent of the ‘never worked’ had been unemployed for five+ years (accounting for 27 per cent of all five+ years unemployed). In terms o f qualifications, 49 per cent o f the ‘never worked’ had qualifications up to ‘O’-level and nine per cent had qualifications of ‘A’level or above. Seventy-one per cent of the ‘never worked’ had been on a government scheme and 85 per cent regarded themselves as searching for work. Sum m ary The survey results reviewed in this chapter provide a basic profile o f one of the most economically marginalised sections of the workforce in Northern Ireland. Catholic men were much more likely to be unemployed for five or more years than Protestant men and report more ill-health, but Protestant men suffered more depression. Just over a half of the people surveyed had been unemployed for five years or more, with an average time unemployed of 13 years. Almost a quarter of all the LTU, and nearly a half of those aged 34 or less, had never had a job. Since the mid-1980s a growing majority of the unemployed in Northern Ireland as a whole have been out of work for more than a year, until very recently. The polarisation of work and unemployment at the household level indicates that it is more difficult to escape from long-term unemployment than it was. These changes make unemployment a more significant indicator o f labour market inequalities than it was in the past and gives support to the development of routine monitoring of long-term (and short-term) unemployment rates (by religion and gender) both at Northern Ireland and small area levels. Appendix One The long-term unemployed postal sample was drawn from the claimant register of the unemployed in the relevant West Belfast wards at October 1995, but in order to stratify the sample, figures for July 1995 were used. Sixty-three per cent of total unemployed claimants (7, 893) in West Belfast were LTU (in July 1995). The distribution of long-term unemployment in West Belfast at July 1995 was: 3, 528 Catholic men (71 per cent of the total LTU); 894 Protestant men (18 per cent of the total LTU); 398 Catholic women (eight per cent of the total LTU) and 149 Protestant women (three per cent of the total LTU). Thus, Catholics comprised 79 per cent of the

The Long-term Unemployed in West Belfast 95 total LTU and Protestants 21 per cent. The claimant count is an inadequate measure of unemployment because of the under-representation of young people, married women, people with disabilities and ‘discouraged workers’ (Unemployment Unit 1994a; Royal Statistical Society 1995). However, there was little alternative to the count in securing a large sample of the unemployed from a small area, especially in view of the time constraints under which the study was conducted. Additional methods were used to supplement the count-based sample (see below). The sample was stratified by District Electoral Area (DEA), sex and duration for men (one to less than five years, and five or more years). For the purposes of the survey ‘West Belfast’ comprised three DEAs: Court, Upper Falls and Lower Falls. The last two areas are almost exclusively Catholic while Court is Protestant, so the DEAs serve as a proxy for religion for sampling purposes. Questionnaires were posted to 30 per cent of all LTU claimants in West Belfast (selected at random from NUBS—the National Unemployment Benefit System). The claimant register at 12 October (1995) yielded a sample of 1,410. Due to unforeseen difficulties with data protection issues, the posting was delayed by six weeks. The NUBS system is a UK-wide database of all unemployed claimants. It is used by staff in local social security offices to handle and log individual claims. Only the Statistics Branch of DED has the authority and capability to access NUBS on a batch basis in order to aggregate data for presenting the monthly claimant count. It cannot, however, identify individual names and addresses, only National Insurance numbers. The DCI/ITSA Branch o f the Department of Social Security at Longbenton, Newcastle-on-Tyne, is the only agency able to generate a batch of names and addresses from a list of National Insurance numbers. While it ‘controls’ the data at this level, it does not ‘own’ it, however. Data on social security claimants in Northern Ireland is formally owned by the Social Security Agency for Northern Ireland to which it is supplied in confidence. Using procedures applied in previous studies on unemployment in the UK (e.g. Dawes 1993; White and Lakey 1992), the plan was to ask the Social Security Agency to contact the sample with an introductory letter from the researchers. This letter would invite people to participate in the research, on a strictly confidential and anonymous basis, by filling in a survey which would be posted to them shortly by the researchers. The letter would ask them to object if they did not wish their name and address to be passed on to the researchers. Their ‘negative consent’would be sought, that is to say they would be invited to write or phone the SSA if they did

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The Unequal Unemployed

not wish their names to be passed on and to receive a questionnaire in the post. DCI Newcastle cleared this procedure with their own data protection staff but the final authority lay with the Department of Health and Social Services for NI. DHSS (NI) took the view that ‘positive consent’ was required from claimants, suggesting that a letter went out inviting potential respondents to contact the researchers to agree to participate. This procedure was rejected by the researchers on the grounds that very few people were likely to respond. Considerable delay resulted from this issue while the Data Protection Registrar at Wilmslow was asked for a ruling. The Registrar finally suggested that the SSA send out the questionnaire ‘cold’ as a mail shot with an explanatory covering letter on behalf of the researchers. While the researchers regarded this as rather more intrusive than the original plan, there was little choice but to follow the Registrar’s suggestion. This meant that questionnaires arrived just two weeks before Christmas. The questionnaire arrived without warning in a Social Security Agency envelope with no prior introductory letter. It was clear from feedback that many people were suspicious of the questionnaire and its assurances of confidentiality, and associated it with benefits’ administration. As a result, only 98 questionnaires were obtained this way. The rem aining questionnaires were obtained in a follow up exercise with the help of community groups, the Citizen Advice Bureaux in the area, and through face-to-face interviews. Many of these respondents had received a questionnaire in the post but had thrown it away. All respondents were assured that the answers given were completely confidential. No names or addresses were asked for and individual questionnaires were identified solely through a reference number.

6 Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes Introduction his chapter gives particular attention to a number of ‘motivational’ propositions about the long-term unemployed (LTU) outlined in Chapter 3. These include the idea that the LTU are ‘inflexible’ in terms of the types of jobs that they will consider and that they have little financial incentive to work. Evidence of the barriers faced by the long­ term unemployed which may reduce the probability of re-employment is reported. Such barriers include factors discussed in the last chapter such as ill-health, discouragement, and educational attainment, and also risks associated with coming off benefits to enter employment, and previous experience of work place intimidation which are reviewed here. Unique data on the effects of working in the informal economy and on reservation wage rates are also analysed. Again, the focus is on the variables of gender and religion.

T

Job search and willingness to work As outlined in Chapter 3, during the early 1980s the view that labour market rigidities reside largely in the unem ployed them selves becam e commonplace in the UK. In addition there is a widespread notion that the informal economy is buoyant, especially in inner-city areas such as West Belfast, and that the unemployed are readily able to supplement their benefits with substantial earnings from the informal economy. The findings presented below, however, challenge many of the common myths about the LTU and, in particular, many of the unsubstantiated assumptions about the LTU in West Belfast. Search behaviour It is generally argued that the effort people devote to job search will be affected both by the perceived value of getting a job and the perceived likelihood of success (see Nickell 1997 for a recent review). This implies

97

98

The Unequal Unemployed

that as the duration of unemployment increases and the individual believes that the probability of success becomes low, search effort will reduce. Seventy-seven per cent of the LTU in the West Belfast survey were searching for work (82 per cent of Catholic men and 83 per cent of Protestant men). As expected, unemployment duration has a significant effect on job search, especially after five years or more of unemployment. For example, 87 per cent of men unemployed less than two years were searching for work. This figure drops to 81 per cent of those unemployed four to five years and was only 69 per cent of those unemployed five years or more. The reasons people gave for not searching supports the ‘discouraged worker’ effect, the most common being ‘looked but couldn’t find work’ (67 per cent), ‘no suitable jobs available’ (23 per cent), ‘illness’ (20 per cent), and ‘lack of qualifications’ (13 per cent). C atholics had a higher search rate than Protestants for each unemployment duration (for example, 89 per cent of Catholic men unemployed less than two years were searching for work compared to 85 per cent of Protestant men). The largest difference in search activity emerges between Catholic and Protestant males who have been unemployed for more than five years—73 per cent of Catholic men compared to 64 per cent of Protestant men. It appears, therefore, that the discouraged worker effect in West Belfast is particularly significant amongst Protestant men. Women were less likely to be looking for work than men but Catholic women (64 per cent) were more likely to be searching than Protestant women (57 per cent). In contrast to the results for men, unemployment duration had little effect on women’s likelihood to be searching for work. The main reason why women were not looking for work was caring responsibilities: ‘responsibility for young children’ (83 per cent) and ‘responsibility for other dependants’ (11 per cent). The presence of children in a household had an effect such that unemployed people in childless households were more likely to be searching for work than others. But the number of children in a household had little effect on searching for work. Approximately 85 per cent of all the LTU with no children were searching for work compared to 72 per cent of those with one to three children and 71 per cent of those with four or more children. While 86 per cent of men without children were searching for work, 84 per cent of men with four or more children were searching for work. Both Catholic and Protestant women without children were more likely to be searching for work (73 per cent) compared to mothers (63 per cent).

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes 99 Finally, only four per cent of individuals (all men) answered that they were not searching for work because they felt that political beliefs or their religious background would prevent them from obtaining employment. It is difficult to interpret this result but it may be the answer chosen by ex­ prisoners, formerly involved in the conflict, who, if the employers’ attitudes reported in Chapter 8 are taken into account, are more likely to be excluded from the labour market than the LTU as a whole. Alternatively, it may be that intim idation, discussed later in this chapter, produces some ‘discouraged’ workers. In any event, the number deterred from seeking work altogether for these reasons is very small. Table 6.1: Job search methods and religion P

r o p o r t io n u s in g

m eth od

C

a t h o l ic s

P

rotestan ts

A

ll

Job C lu b /M a rk et

6 3 .8

6 1 .5

6 2 .1

Job C en tres

4 7 .2

5 8 .9

5 3 .1

3 .8

4 .9

4 .3

4 4 .5

4 1 .2

4 3 .3

8 1 .8

7 8 .5

7 9 .6

8 0 .5

7 9 .9

8 0 .2

17.3

11.2

1 4 .9

P riv a te E m p lo y m e n t A g e n c y L o o k e d at a d v erts o n sh o p w in d o w s /n o tic e b oard s L o o k e d at ad v erts in lo c a l n e w s p a p e r s/m a g a z in e s L o o k e d at ad v erts in N orth ern Irelan d w id e n e w s p a p e r s/m a g a z in e s L o o k e d at ad v erts in n a tio n a l n e w s p a p e r s/m a g a z in e s L o o k e d at a d verts in trade/ p r o fe ssio n a l jo u r n a ls

4 .2

5 .8

5.1

L o o k e d at ad v erts o n T V (te le te x t)

1 7 .2

16.1

1 6 .8

A p p r o a c h e d e m p lo y e r s

2 6 .3

2 7 .9

2 6 .9

A s k e d fa m ily c o n n e c tio n s

3 7 .2

4 0 .1

3 9 .2

A s k e d frien d s an d n e ig h b o u r s

53.1

4 9 .9

5 1 .4

2.1

2 .3

2 .3

O ther

It is generally expected (though not necessarily correctly) that the more intensely someone looks for a job, the more likely he or she will be to find work. To gauge search intensity people were asked about the type and number of search methods used, the number of jobs applied for and the number of interviews undertaken over the past year. They were presented with 12 possible search methods (Table 6.1) and more than three-quarters (79 per cent) used more than one method (84 per cent of men compared to

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The Unequal Unemployed

74 per cent of women). People used an average of 4.8 methods. These results, like those on job search (though to a lesser extent), are sensitive to unem ploym ent duration— the num ber o f methods declined as unemployment duration increased. For example, those unemployed less than two years used an average of seven search methods whereas those unemployed for five years or more used an average of three methods. Amongst those unemployed less than two years Catholics on average used 7.4 search methods and Protestants 7.1. Protestants unemployed between two to four years used slightly more job search methods than Catholics. There was no difference amongst those unemployed for five years or more. These findings are broadly consistent with other studies (for example, the most common form of job search is looking at adverts and visiting jobclubs) with one exception. Murphy and Armstrong (1994) found that 41 per cent of the unemployed in their sample approached employers directly (39 per cent of Catholics and 45 per cent of Protestants). In contrast, only 27 per cent of the West Belfast LTU contacted employers directly (26 per cent of Catholics and 28 per cent of Protestants). Since employer contact is considered to be a more intensive form of job search than other methods (Dawes 1993; Hughes and McCormick 1990), this is an important difference in the case of West Belfast. It is likely to reflect several factors: the relatively low numbers of employers in the West Belfast locality, past rejection by the limited number of employers, and low turnover amongst higher paid jobs. Another indicator of whether an individual is actively searching for work is the frequency of job applications to employers. Amongst the LTU who were searching for work 86 per cent had applied for a job in the past year (87 per cent of Catholic men; 92 per cent of Protestant men; 83 per cent of Catholic women and 74 per cent of Protestant women). The average number of jobs applied for by these individuals in the past year was 8.5 (9.1 for Catholic men, 10.6 for Protestant men, 5.2 for Catholic women, and 3.1 for Protestant women). There was, however, significant variation in the number of jobs applied for and this was again linked to unemployment duration. Individuals who were unemployed for less than two years applied, on average, for 19.2 jobs in the past year. Approximately a fifth of these individuals had applied for more than 25 jobs in the past year. In contrast, individuals who had been unemployed for five years or more, had applied for only 3.3 jobs on average. Approximately 36 per cent of those who had applied for at least one job had an interview in the past year. Catholic men who applied for jobs were significantly less likely to have had an interview

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes 101 (33 per cent) compared to Protestant men (46 per cent). Type o f work considered While the results presented above suggest that the vast majority of respondents were actively searching for work the issue o f the type o f work which respondents are searching for is also important. It has often been argued that the LTU restrict their job search (are ‘inflexible’) because they are attached to a particular industry, occupation or trade, even when such employment opportunities are in decline. It has also been argued that the structure of social security benefits for the unemployed is inflexible, financially and administratively, preventing some of the unemployed, particularly ‘breadwinners’ with children and unwaged partners, taking up part-tim e jobs and temporary contracts (M cLaughlin et al 1989; McLaughlin 1994b; NIEC 1995a; Social Security Advisory Committee 1994). Figure 6.1: Job search and willingness to consider any job p

90

Dawes (1993: 134) found that about half of LTU men (51 per cent) and women (49 per cent) were looking for any type o f job. In this West Belfast study, 52 per cent of the LTU who were searching for work said that they would consider any job. Statistically significant differences emerged between religion and gender, the latter in contrast to Dawes’ finding, as shown in Figure 6.1 (nearly two-thirds—65 per cent—of searching Catholic men would consider ‘anything’ compared to 35 per cent of searching

102

The Unequal Unemployed

Protestant men; 40 per cent of searching Catholic women and 17 per cent of searching Protestant women). It is likely that the gender result reflects both the gender segregation of the labour market and constraints faced by women in terms of childcare, care of other dependants and their partner’s employment status. The difference between Catholic and Protestant men in their willingness to consider any type of work reflects, to some extent, different work histories as well as differences in socioeconomic backgrounds. Briefly, in terms of work histories, Protestants had had more ‘stable’jobs than Catholics. As a result, Catholics were more likely to have held more jobs, worked in more occupations and more industries than Protestants. Catholics were also more likely to have answered that they did not have a ‘usual type of jo b ’. These general patterns were much more pronounced amongst the LTU aged over 34. Amongst those in the age bands 18-24 and 24-34 while the general pattern was sustained, few of the differences in work history were statistically significant. Using age as a proxy for work history, of those aged 18-34,69 per cent of Catholic males would have considered ‘anything’ compared to 55 per cent of Protestants, while amongst those aged over 35, 58 per cent of Catholic would consider anything compared to just 28 per cent of Protestants. This figure rose among those who had never had paid work to 61 per cent, but again statistically significant differences existed by religion (66 per cent of Catholics and 50 per cent of Protestants). Differences also emerged in willingness to consider part-time or full­ time employment, which might be an indicator o f flexibility and associated constraints of benefit entitlement. Forty-one per cent of all the LTU were prepared to consider either part- or full-time employment (compared to 14 per cent part-time only and 45 per cent full-time only). As expected, women were more likely to be looking for part-time work only compared to men (40 per cent of women compared to five per cent of men). There were religion effects: among women, 36 per cent of Catholics were prepared to consider either part- or full-time work compared to 21 per cent of Protestants. In contrast, 42 per cent of Protestant women were considering only full-time employment compared to 22 per cent of Catholics. Among men, 51 per cent of Catholics were prepared to consider either part- or full-time employment compared to 26 per cent of Protestants. In contrast, 71 per cent of Protestant men were considering full-time employment only, compared to 44 per cent of Catholics. Such differences in flexibility are not as prevalent in relation to short­ term or temporary jobs. Nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of all the LTU

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes 103 were prepared to consider a short-term or temporary job. Here, there was little religion or gender effect—67 per cent of Catholic men, 59 per cent of Protestant men, 64 per cent of Catholic women and 67 per cent of Protestant women answered that they would consider such jobs. The most common reasons given for considering temporary jobs were first financial and second the hope that they might lead on to permanent work. The most common reasons for not considering taking temporary jobs were linked to the social security system: the need to reapply for benefits and the amount o f time it takes to receive benefits when first signing on, and the loss of benefits. Men with four or more children were the most likely to answer that they were willing to consider any type of work (72 per cent) compared to 61 per cent of men with no children and 52 per cent of all respondents. Men with four or more children, however, were the least likely to consider a temporary or short-term job (59 per cent) compared to 62 per cent of men with no children and 64 per cent of all respondents. The risk associated with a temporary job in terms of the social security system referred to above was the most important factor behind why these respondents would not consider temporary jobs. This is consistent with the arguments and findings of McLaughlin (1994a; 1994b; 1991). Assistance with job search As discussed earlier, the government has given priority to counselling and guidance services for the unemployed such as Restart interviews and courses, Claimant Advisors and Job Clubs. (Note: The study was carried out before the introduction of New Deal.) There is a dearth of information, however, on the views of the LTU on the usefulness of such services. In this study, people were asked about the type of assistance they had received and their assessment of its effectiveness. About two-thirds (65 per cent) had received assistance with job search. Men were much more likely to have received assistance than women, (especially Catholic women of whom 64 per cent reported they had not received help). This finding does, however, reflect the inclusion of some women in our sample who are not required to register as unemployed as a condition of benefit and would not, therefore, be subject to regular interviews with Claimant Advisors. According to the respondents, Job Clubs and Job Centres are the most useful forms of assistance (53 per cent of respondents rated Job Clubs as ‘very useful’ or ‘useful’; 46 per cent rated Job Centres as ‘very useful’ or ‘useful’). Careers Officers atT&EA offices and Claimant Advisors at Social

104

The Unequal Unemployed

Security Offices were rated as ‘very useful/useful’ by 44 per cent and 34 per cent of respondents respectively. Only 20 per cent of respondents stated that the Restart Interview was ‘very useful/useful’. For all forms of job search assistance, Catholics (especially men), were much more likely to state that the assistance was ‘not very useful’ or ‘useless’. These differences were statistically significant for all forms of assistance except Restart. It is not clear why Catholics and Protestants view job search assistance so differently. Part of the difference is explained by longer unemployment duration. For both Catholics and Protestants the longer the unemployment duration the less favourably job search assistance was rated. Even amongst Catholics and Protestants with the same unemployment duration, however, Catholics viewed the assistance less favourably. These findings need further investigation, possibly with regard to differences in the way the lower Falls and Shankill Social Security Offices and other facilities are experienced and operate. Further evidence of difference between Catholics and Protestants in their experience of the public employment service came from whether people had ever been notified about a job, or had ever been called for a job interview, by the Social Security Office, Careers Officer or Job Club. Clearly, the public employment service generally had little to offer in this regard, with 80 per cent of the LTU never having been notified of a possible job. However, there were further important religion effects. Catholics were less likely than Protestants to have been notified about potential jobs (82 per cent of Catholic men, 63 per cent of Protestant men, 90 per cent of Catholic women and 76 per cent of Protestant women had never been notified of potential jobs). There also appears to be a religion effect in terms of the source of job notifications: four per cent of Catholic men, 15 per cent of Protestant men, two per cent of Catholic women, and 14 per cent of Protestant women had been notified by the Social Security Office. One per cent of Catholic men, nine per cent of Protestant men, three per cent of Catholic women, and five per cent of Protestant women said they had been notified by a Careers Officer at the local T&EA office. Catholic men were slightly less likely than Protestant men to have been notified about a job through a Job Club. These findings do suggest a need to review the degree of pro-activity of the public employment services in Catholic compared with Protestant areas, or with Catholic and Protestant clienteles. Seventy-three per cent of respondents had never been called for a job interview. Catholics (77 per cent of Catholic men and 85 per cent of

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes 105 Catholic women) and Protestant women (76 per cent) were significantly less likely to have been called for a job interview than Protestant men. Approximately 18 per cent of respondents reported that they had been called for a job interview via the Social Security Office (32 per cent of Protestant men compared to 15 per cent of Catholic men), six per cent by a Job Club and three per cent by a Careers Officer. Job search and intimidation It has often been argued that past intimidation or attack contributes to a ‘chill-factor’ which influences job search and where people will search for work. Of those who had had a job in this study, 30 per cent said they had experienced religious or political intimidation at work and most of these were men (85 per cent)— 88 per cent of whom were Catholics. Forty-two per cent of Catholic men (who had had a job) and 18 per cent of Protestant men had been intimidated. The equivalent figure for Catholic women was 18 per cent and for Protestants 14 per cent. Half of the intimidation occurred before 1979, a third during the 1980s and 15 per cent in the 1990s. Of those intimidated, 28 per cent experienced multiple forms of intimidation. The most common form was ‘words spoken’ (74 per cent), but over a third (35 per cent) of the intimidated claimed that they had experienced physical violence. Twenty-nine per cent of intimidated Catholic women reported physical violence but none of the intimidated Protestant women did so. Intimidated women were much more likely to report ‘other forms of intimidation’ compared to men (25 per cent compared to eight per cent), suggesting a sexual harassment factor. Overall, nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) said that intimidation was a factor in leaving a job (67 per cent of Catholics and 50 per cent of Protestants). A quarter of Catholic male participants in training and employment schemes reported intimidation compared to nine per cent of Protestant men. Figure 6.2 illustrates that intimidation does indeed reduce the rate of job search. The effect was not statistically significant for religion or gender. Intimidation also had a significant effect upon where individuals search for work—an effect which is statistically significant for men only. In Figure 6.2 the percentage of individuals searching for work is compared with those who have searched for work beyond the confines of West Belfast. The ‘gap’ between the two columns represents those who seemed to be looking for work in West Belfast only. This gap increased for all those intimidated and was largest for intimidated Catholic men (ICM). It was also sizeable for intimidated Protestant men (IPM).

106

The Unequal Unemployed Figure 6.2: Intimidation and job search

KEY : I=Intimidated; C/PM=Catholic/Protestant Men; W =W omen

It is also possible to break down ‘outside West (ex-W.) Belfast’ into two areas— the ‘rest of Belfast’ and ‘elsewhere in Northern Ireland’ (i.e., outside Belfast). Protestant men with experience of intimidation who are searching outside of West Belfast are much more likely than their Catholic equivalents to be searching elsewhere in Belfast. Conversely, Catholic men with experience of intimidation are more likely to search elsewhere in Northern Ireland, presumably in Catholic areas. It appears that these patterns of search will change little in the near future. Eighty-two per cent of Catholics and 65 per cent of Protestants said that there were areas they would not work in before the 1994 ceasefires and 90 per cent of these Catholics would still not work in certain areas after the ceasefires, compared with 62 per cent of Protestants. In other words, only ten per cent of the Catholics had changed their view since the 1994 ceasefires, compared to 38 per cent of Protestants. The majority of those who changed their views were women. It is possible that these views will change in the longer term if the Belfast Agreement is adhered to and all republican and loyalist groups maintain a ceasefire. In terms of occupations, rather than areas, 71 per cent of Catholics and 21 per cent of Protestants said there were occupations they would not work in. The main excluded occupations were ‘Police/Army/Prison Service’ (92 per cent), while four per cent mentioned ‘construction’ and another four per cent, ‘roads’. Reluctance to join the ‘Police/Army/Prison Service’ only reduced very slightly after the ceasefires (six per cent changed their view— all were Protestants).

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes 107 Finally, people were asked about their willingness to leave Northern Ireland to look for work and if they would leave if offered a job outside of Northern Ireland. Over a third (34 per cent) would consider leaving Northern Ireland to look for work (36 per cent of Catholics and 31 per cent of Protestants) and 35 per cent would consider leaving if offered work (36 per cent of Catholics and 37 per cent of Protestants). People who had worked outside of Northern Ireland in the past (26 per cent of Catholics had worked outside of Northern Ireland in the past compared to 11 per cent of Protestants) were more likely to consider leaving Northern Ireland in the future. Women were less likely than men to consider leaving Northern Ireland (40 per cent of men compared to 13 per cent of women) and all individuals with children were less likely to consider leaving Northern Ireland than people without children. This is related to the reasons why people would not consider leaving. Firstly, this was because they did not want to leave their family and friends (61 per cent), while another 18 per cent were ‘attached to their area’, 12 per cent expressed concern for their children’s schooling and nine per cent expressed concern for elderly relatives who would be left behind. Interestingly no-one identified expenses associated with moving, or difficulty in obtaining housing, as important reasons for not considering leaving Northern Ireland. Wage flexibility The influence of the ‘replacement ratio’ (defined as the ratio of the income which an individual could get in work to the benefit income which an individual can get when out of work) on the probability of leaving unemployment, and hence on the duration of unemployment, has been the subject of a considerable amount of research by both economists and analysts of social policy. Economists have tended to regard replacement rates as a key motivational factor, arguing for a greater gap between wages and benefits, while social policy analysts have emphasised non-financial factors and security, rather than level of income (Stone 1985; McLaughlin e ta l 1989; McLaughlin 1991, 1994a, 1994b). In general the majority of studies which use unemployment and benefit data from the mid-1980s onwards have found the effect of replacement rates on return to work probabilities to be quite small (for surveys of this literature see Blundell 1994; Dawes 1993; Dilnot 1992). A recent British study which used data from actual social security benefit records (instead of the usual method of imputing estimated benefit levels) by Arulampalam and Stewart (1995) found that the effect of the replacement ratio was

108

The Unequal Unemployed

significant only in the first three months of an unemployment spell and is therefore likely to be irrelevant for the LTU. To date there has been only a limited analysis of replacement ratios and their influence on the unemployed in Northern Ireland (Armstrong 1994; NIEC 1995a). The most thorough examination of theoretical replacement ratios for different household sizes has been carried out by the NIEC. The study was based on the assumption that out-of-work income creates an inherent employment disincentive (NIEC 1995a) and that the disincentive effect of out-of-work income is more significant in Northern Ireland for two main reasons. Firstly, average wages tend to be lower compared to the UK as a whole (while benefits are the same), and secondly, average family size is higher in Northern Ireland. Following the Social Security Advisory Committee (1994), the Council recommended various changes to in-work and out-of-work benefits which, amongst other things, would make parttime work more attractive to the unemployed. These included increasing ‘earnings disregards’ (the amount of earned income benefit recipients are allowed to keep before facing 100 per cent withdrawal of benefit) and child care costs allowances for both Income Support and Family Credit. The NIEC also proposed that where earnings disregards were not used, they could be ‘rolled over’ for when a person does find a job. The Council also recommended steps to smooth the transition from a position o f unemployed benefit recipient to worker, by means of continuing some of the advantages of benefit receipt for a short time (receipt of so-called ‘passported benefits’ such as free dental care) and the granting of lump sums to those finding work. In arguing that the replacement rate issue is more serious in Northern Ireland than in the UK as a whole, the Council follows the assumption that, as economic actors, individuals are primarily motivated to derive ‘utility’ from the consumption of commodities and that in order to buy these commodities they have to obtain an income. Most individuals are assumed to undertake paid work to obtain income only as a means to this end: it is assumed there is no intrinsic utility derived from the activity of work itself. ‘Rational’ individuals (those who maximise individual utility functions), choosing how to allocate the scarce commodity, time, between two activities, work and ‘leisure’, are therefore assumed to supply labour hours up to the point where the wage rate equals the marginal rate of substitution between work and leisure (also assumed to be equal). Building on these assumptions, noeclassical economic theory argues that the welfare state has provided opportunities for individuals to ‘opt out’ of employment

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes 109 by making it financially viable for them to do so (i.e., enabling them to derive utility by consuming goods and services through income provided by the welfare state). As noted by Bryson (1994: 123): The idea that individuals, or households, simply calculate the levels o f paid w ork which m axim ises their financial returns and supply their labour accordingly, ignores the complexity o f individuals motivations in taking jobs. Yet the idea that financial motives predominate has proved difficult to dislodge.

Traditional research on replacement rates has ignored the non-financial importance of work. White (1991) provides an overview of some of the non-financial aspects of work. Firstly, a job fills a large part of the day, week and year with structured and productive activity which the majority of individuals find intrinsically interesting. Secondly, people’s status or position in society depends largely upon their work and thirdly, jobs provide social contact and recreation with fellow employees, customers, etc. In other words employment is important because it provides income, activity, social contact, and status all in one. Non-financial aspects of work are likely to alter significantly the size of an individual’s ‘reservation wage’ rate (the minimum they will work for) and therefore replacement rates. Indeed, a growing body of literature challenges the idea of a benefit-induced disincentive to work, both empirically and theoretically, thus calling into question the usefulness of replacement ratios in explaining why people are unemployed (Atkinson et al 1984; McLaughlin et al 1989; Smith and McLaughlin 1989; Dilnot 1992; Dawes 1993). In particular, there is evidence that a considerable number of employees work at rates of pay that are below or very close to their notional benefit levels (White 1993; 1991). In this study, people were asked to state the minimum amount they would work for (their ‘reservation wage’). The overall mean reservation wage rate for all respondents was £121.37 a week (around £3.40 an hour), which was well below the weekly ‘going wage’ rate of the majority of employers interviewed in the West Belfast area (see Chapter 8). Overall Catholics and women had lower mean reservation wage rates than Protestants and men respectively. As expected, the reservation wage varied according to the number of children in the household. For example, households with three children (ten per cent of households in the sample) had a mean reservation wage rate of £155.56 compared to £107.41 for a single parent with one child (11 per cent of households in the sample). The one exception to this pattern was single people with no children (33 per

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cent of the households in the sample) who had a mean reservation wage rate of £117.67. McLaughlin (1991) has argued that individuals fix their reservation wages by reference to their basic household commitments rather than benefits levels. In this study most people said that the most important factor in deciding the minimum amount of money they would work for was ‘the amount of money needed to meet financial commitments’ (65 per cent). A fifth referred to ‘the amount people should get for the type of job I’m looking for’ but only 15 per cent referred to their benefit levels as the benchmark. There was little variance in these responses by religion, gender or unemployment duration. The most significant difference occurred in households with three or more children (19 per cent of households in the sample), where 35 per cent referred to benefit levels. However, the majority (61 per cent) of these respondents still referred to the amount needed to live on. Dawes (1993: 24) argued that if respondents set their reservation wage by reference to their household costs, ‘then we would expect to see some correspondence between the previous levels of earnings and the reservation wage since household costs are likely to be determined predominantly by the past level of income’. The reservation wage rate of people who had worked in the past three years was compared to their previous level of earnings. Approximately 11 per cent set their reservation wage at exactly the same level as their last earnings. Following Dawes, a regression analysis showed a statistically significant (R2= .40) relationship between the most recent earnings and the reservation wage; and when this was confined to those who said that their most recent job was their normal type of work the relationship was stronger (R2= .47). When confined further to include those whose most recent job was in Northern Ireland the relationship increased again (R2 = .52). These results are generally consistent with other studies where individuals are actually asked about their reservation wage rate and the factors which influence this wage. The results imply that other factors, not just benefit levels, influence people’s decisions about working. Consistent with the findings of McLaughlin et al (1989) and Dawes (1993), the results indicate that household commitments (the amount of money that people need to live on) remain the dominant influence on people’s assessment of the earnings they require. To calculate replacement rates the reservation wage rate was compared to what different types of families should receive in benefits, making

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes 111 assumptions about children’s ages and housing costs. The replacement rate is simply calculated as follows: the Replacement Rate (RR) is equal to notional benefits divided by the stated reservation wage (with/without taking Family Credit into account) multiplied by 100. If the RR is more than 100 per cent, people are saying they will work for less than their benefits. If the RR is less than 100 per cent, people are pitching the minimum wage they will work for above their benefits. Figure 6.3 shows that respondents with a number of dependants appear to be willing to work for wages below their notional benefit entitlement. Only single respondents with no children set their reservation wage substantially above benefit levels. People were also asked if they had taken Family Credit (the social security benefit for low paid workers with children) into account when deciding the minimum they would work for. Forty-nine per cent said they had taken Family Credit into account (54 per cent of women, 45 per cent of men, 53 per cent of Catholics, 46 per cent of Protestants). In all cases, expect for single parents with one child, the reservation wage rate was lower for those who had taken Family Credit into account than among those who had not. Figure 6.3: Replacement rates, with and without Family Credit

Figure 6.3 also includes a comparison with the theoretical RRs calculated by the NIEC for the respective households at their average stated reservation wage. The NIEC values show what the ‘real’ RRs are for households in

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The Unequal Unemployed

work at their stated reservation wage, ‘real’ in so far as it is assumed that these households apply for and receive all the in-work benefits they are entitled to. That these values are substantially lower for the one and two child households in the West Belfast study suggests that people do not have a very precise or clear appreciation of whether they are better off working or claiming at particular wage rates because of the complexities of taxes and benefits. Single people with no children had RRs o f 69 per cent and a mean reservation wage of £117.67. The average age of these respondents (28) was younger than the mean age of all respondents in the sample (36) and these respondents were less likely to have ever had paid work. Similar signs of apparent ‘inflexibility’ amongst young workers without dependants have been found in other studies (White 1991). White suggests that these individuals may have had low previous wage rates (which often would have involved juvenile wage rates or training allowances) and were seeking pay increases when they looked for work. White also suggests that people’s stated wage expectations often have little bearing on what they actually do: faced with a real job offer, people will often take wage cuts (White 1991; McLaughlin, et al 1989). This might be particularly the case with young people without dependants who can afford to adjust to real offers quickly. Figure 6.4: Replacement rates fo r men by religion

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes 113 From Figure 6.4 it can be seen that Catholic and Protestant men have different replacement rates. Except for single Catholic men with no children, the chart indicates that Catholic men were more likely than Protestant men to say they will work for less than their benefits (the 100 per cent line in Figure 6.4). Catholic men were also more likely to take Family Credit into account when calculating their reservation wage. The difference in replacement rates between Catholic and Protestant men is likely to be influenced by higher previous earnings by Protestant men and therefore higher labour market expectations. It is, of course, possible that participation in the informal economy reduces job search and detracts from involvement in the formal economy in various ways. Research into the informal economy and ‘doing the double’ (working while claiming benefits as unemployed), however, suggests little or no impact on the financial and other incentives to take up paid work in the formal economy. Not forgetting the considerable methodological difficulties of this type of work, studies carried out in Northern Ireland and elsewhere provide little support for the idea that there are rich pickings to be had from claiming benefits and earning cash on the side (Jenkins and Harding 1988; Hakim 1992; Leonard 1994; Evason and Woods 1995; Evason 1994). Hakim argues that the linking of unemployment and the informal economy has important policy implications because it provides: ...the justification for policies which invest substantial resources in investigating possible benefit fraud...the introduction o f stringent job-seeking regulations for the unemployed, and the restriction o f benefit levels, creates a climate o f opinion in which unemployment is to be explained primarily by the attitudes and behaviour o f the unemployed. [...] given the weak evidence so far available on the size and rise of the black economy, policies addressing the issue must rest on an act o f faith rather than solid fact. (Hakim 1992: 145, 155)

Despite lack of evidence, the perception remains that the informal economy, especially in an area such as West Belfast, is buoyant and that the unemployed are able to readily supplement their unemployment benefit with substantial earnings. It was, therefore, important to try to obtain information on the extent to which the LTU in our sample engaged with the informal economy. The questionnaire pointed out that working and claiming is within the rules (up to a point) and asked a number of questions as to people’s knowledge of the earnings rules. People were then asked if they had managed to get any paid work in the past year and, if so, to name the amount earned.

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The Unequal Unemployed

The response rate to the question was perhaps surprisingly high. Ninetyeight per cent (308 individuals) of those who completed a questionnaire answered this question. Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) said they had worked in the informal economy in the past year (24 per cent of Catholics and 21 per cent of Protestants). Eighty per cent of these respondents were men and 20 per cent were women. Those unemployed over five years were slightly less likely (19 per cent) to have worked in the informal economy which may reflect poor health amongst the very LTU. Of those who had worked last year, 18 per cent had previously worked in ‘construction’, ten per cent in ‘metal work’ and eight per cent in either ‘shopkeeping’ or ‘catering’. Figure 6.5: Claiming and earnings from work in last year

Figure 6.5 shows the percentage of Catholics and Protestants earning different amounts while unemployed. There appeared to be more scope for Protestants to earn £ 100 to £500 than for Catholics, but strikingly similar proportions of Catholics and Protestants (about 78 per cent) earned below the annual equivalent of the existing earnings disregard for lone parents on Income Support (and those couples unemployed for two years), namely £15 per week (£780 per annum). The £15 disregard remains at the same level as in 1988, but if it had been increased in line with the Retail Price Index (and benefit levels) it would be worth £21.50 (or £1,118 per annum) by the first quarter of 1996 (Convery 1996: 21). Only a small proportion of

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes 115 those working and claiming (10 per cent) reported earnings of more than £29 per week, while six per cent had the equivalent of £39 per week or more. These were very small proportions of the total LTU—2.3 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively. It appears, therefore, that while around quarter of the LTU received supplementary income from the informal economy, the amount of income was very small scale. It is likely that people get opportunities to earn money in the informal economy sporadically (the ‘odd day’s work’) at quite low rates of pay. While relatively few respondents in the sample worked in the informal economy, and fewer still were earning sizeable amounts of money, it is still important to assess the argument that participation in the informal economy reduces an individual’s desire to secure work in the formal economy. Comparisons of search rates in fact showed that people who worked in the informal economy had higher search rates (79 per cent) than those who had not worked in the informal economy (76 per cent). This effect was particularly significant for men. Respondents were asked what the earnings disregard should be for people in their position, as well as how many hours they should be allowed to work without their benefit being affected. Over a quarter (27 per cent) named £55 as a disregard and a further 40 per cent gave amounts of £45 or below. About a half (48 per cent) thought the disregard should be between £55 and £75, and nearly one half of respondents wanted to be able to work for 16-20 hours without affecting their benefits (another 25 per cent specified 11-15 hours or less). This implies a reservation wage of around £3.70 per hour which is close to the mean reservation wage rate for all respondents of £3.40 an hour. There is, therefore, a very clear difference between what social security rules allowed at the time the research was conducted and what claimants themselves think would be appropriate. These results should also be considered in the light of the Labour government’s June 1998 commitment to introduce a national minimum wage of £3.60. Summ ary What our survey of the LTU in West Belfast demonstrates is that while long-term unemployment is severe in scale and chronic in nature, the unemployed themselves remain remarkably labour market active. The survey’s findings provide little comfort for those who seek to explain unemployment differences between social groupings, and unemployment per se, in terms of the characteristics and behaviour of the unemployed

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The Unequal Unemployed

themselves. The LTU in West Belfast were searching and applying for jobs, were prepared to work for modest wages and were generally flexible in the type of work they will take. There is no evidence that the greater incidence of Catholic long-term unemployment is due to particular ‘cultural’ factors. On the contrary, Catholics in this study were in many respects more ‘flexible’, and less ‘discouraged’, unemployed workers than Protestants. These factors did not vary significantly by family size except that people with children wanted more security and were less likely to consider temporary, short-term jobs. Less than a quarter of people in the survey reported ‘doing the double’ in the past year and nearly 80 per cent of these had earned less than the amount married couples on Income Support for two years are allowed to earn without jeopardising their benefits. Protestants appeared to have better opportunities in the informal economy in terms of earnings. The West Belfast LTU, in this study at least, were also significantly better educated than the LTU in Northern Ireland as a whole. Substantial differences by gender and religion were recorded by the survey. Women were losing out on education and training because of child care and other caring commitments. They were much less active in job search than men for the same reasons. Differences by religion tended to be highest in relation to men but both Catholic men and women were much more likely to consider taking any type of job than Protestant men and women. The higher labour market expectations of Protestants were also apparent in reservation wages. Such expectations and opportunities clearly relate to past and present structural differences between Catholics and Protestants in the overall labour market. The survey found that twice the proportion of Protestants (men and women) than Catholics had been notified about a job by a careers officer, social security office or job club. Although the numbers reporting job referrals were fairly low, there still appeared to be a religion effect of some importance which requires a response from the Social Security Agency and T&EA. The most important findings for fair employment policy concern the impact of intimidation and the experience of various forms of assistance with job search. Experience of intimidation was found to be widespread, with over 40 per cent of Catholics who had had a job experiencing intimidation at some time. Intimidation is usually considered in terms of effects at the individual level. But just as informal networks and information

Unemployment, Discrimination and Labour Market Processes 117 are important in encouraging access to jobs, they can also work to discourage and deter. Experiences become part of the shared knowledge of communities about where it is, and is not, safe to work, and they shape collective perceptions of where it is possible to get jobs and where not. The effects of intimidation, therefore, travel well beyond the individual. The survey showed that intimidation had a strong effect on where people were prepared to search for work. Both Protestant and Catholic intimidated men were much less likely to look for work outside of the West Belfast area. When they did, Catholics were far less likely than Protestants to be looking for work elsewhere in Belfast. These spatial adaptations to job search lend added importance to considerations of job location. In research conducted for the Standing Advisory Commission’s review o f fair employment in the 1980s, Smith and Chambers (1991: 376) concluded that: concentrating resources in particular areas would not reduce inequality much: for example, the unemployment differential would not be much reduced by creating jobs in West Belfast.

Smith and Chambers also argued that the physical scale of Northern Ireland is very small, implying that jobs are readily accessible irrespective of location. But this point is of limited relevance if large parts of the rest of Belfast are known as ‘no go’ employment areas by the LTU in West Belfast. Our findings on intimidation and job search suggest that the chances of the long-term unemployed in West Belfast being brought (back) into employment will only be substantially improved by locating work in the area and ensuring that new employment goes to the LTU. This needs to occur in addition to existing efforts to combat discrimination in recruitment and intimidation in the workplace.

7 Training and Employment

Introduction s outlined in Chapter 3, for nearly two decades government responses and policies to unemployment have centred on the supply side of the labour market. Issues around motivating the unemployed and the skill levels of unemployed individuals have been the primary focus of government policies. The findings from the survey of the long-term unemployed in West Belfast presented in the last chapter suggested that the majority of the LTU neither lack motivation in terms of job search nor were rigid or inflexible in terms o f their wage and occupational expectations. Opportunities to earn large sums of money in the informal economy were relatively scarce and did not reduce individuals’ motivation to search for work in the formal economy. These results clearly challenge the relevance of policies and programmes targeted at re­ motivating the unemployed. This chapter turns to the other main component of government policy towards the unemployed, training and employment schemes. Findings are presented on the extent of scheme participation and attitudes towards training schemes. Particular emphasis is given to an experimental response to unemployment in Northern Ireland, the Community Work Programme (CWP) which began as a pilot scheme in West Belfast, Strabane and Fermanagh in 1995/6.

A

Training and employment schemes—Britain Chapter 3 presented an overview of government policies towards the long­ term unemployed. It was argued that alongside the withdrawal of the ‘right to be unem ployed’, the second facet o f governm ent policy on unemployment in the 1980s and 1990s involved training, retraining and work experience programmes for the unemployed and young people. Following OECD classifications, these programmes can be placed into two broad categories: training measures and direct employment schemes. In Britain training measures include the Youth Training Scheme,

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Employment Training and Employment Action which were amalgamated into the Training for Work Programme in 1993. Training schemes in Northern Ireland include Adults in Training, Youth Training Programme (YTP) and Job Training Programme (JTP) which were amalgamated into the Jobskills Programme in 1995. The direct employment schemes which provide employment primarily in the ‘social sector’ of the economy included the Community Programme in Britain (eliminated in 1988) and Action for Community Employment and Enterprise Ulster in Northern Ireland. While the nature of training and employment schemes are very broadly similar in Northern Ireland and Britain, there has been a much higher concentration in Northern Ireland on direct employment schemes, especially the Action for Community Employment scheme which is now the only scheme in the UK which pays the ‘going rate for the job’ (Scott 1993; Murray 1998). Provision in both jurisdictions, and in relation to both types of scheme, is to be reviewed in the light of the Labour government’s New Deal policy which is UK-wide. As highlighted in Chapter 3, policies and provision on training and retraining have lagged behind need (White 1992; Jackman 1992). In particular, the percentage of ‘unskilled’ and low skilled workers receiving training is the lowest of all groups (McLaughlin 1992a). Since ‘unskilled’ and low skilled workers are the most likely to be long-term unemployed, present policy initiatives do not seem to target those most in need of training and retraining. Indeed, Green concludes that: ...contrary to the ideology that an education and training revolution has opened up wide avenues o f opportunity for the acquisition o f skills in Britain, [...] access to training remains very unequally distributed.... (Green 1994:78)

In addition, the evidence about the employment effects and the quality of skills obtained from various employment training programmes in Britain indicate that the gains have been moderate (Marsden and Ryan 1991; White 1994). Such findings have an important bearing on the issue of compulsion as we discussed in Chapter 3. On the one hand, there is the view that worklessness (or idleness) itself undermines the individual and therefore no-one should simply be allowed to languish on benefit. A condition of benefit, therefore, should be participation in one of the special measures. The Jobseeker’s Act gives powers to impose benefit penalties on adults up to the full duration and amount of benefit, as we have seen. On the other

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hand, compulsion within the benefit/training complex may have negative consequences for the motivation o f the unemployed. The Labour government’s New Deal policy retains the benefit sanctions (slightly modified) of the Jobseeker’s Act but with an ethos which emphasizes advice and help, rather than ‘hassle’. While unemployed people are increasingly compelled to participate on training schemes, participation of the unemployed in further and higher education has not been encouraged. There has been a long-standing debate about whether to change the ‘21 hour rule’—the Income Support/JSA regulation which allowed no more than to 21 hours’ part-time study without loss of benefit (Craven 1995; Finn 1995b). One of the options under New Deal does allow 12 months full-time education (or training) on an ‘approved course’ to improve employability, an option which is principally designed for young people with minimal or no qualifications. How extensive the ‘full-time education’ option will be remains to be seen. Training and employment schemes—Northern Ireland Training and employment schemes have been particularly important in Northern Ireland because of the very high rate of long-term unemployment. As of February 1996, there were more than 12,500 young people on the Jobskills scheme, and a further 17,000 on other employment or training schemes under the auspices of the T&EA. Just over half of the latter are participating in the Action for Community Employment scheme (ACE), which had, until recently been the centrepiece of the government’s response to long-term unemployment in Northern Ireland. Similar to the Community Programme long since axed in Britain (1988), the ACE scheme became an important feature of community-based, voluntary sector activity in areas of high unemployment. In 1996, about 1,500 ACE workers were involved in over 20 ACE projects in West Belfast. On some schemes, they are supporting essential and innovative services, albeit ‘on the cheap’, including nursery schools, youth-parent support, women’s centres, and transport and other services for people with disabilities. In the past two years, the number of young people participating in Jobskills has changed very little but there have been significant changes in adult schemes, notably the decline in ACE places which stood at 4,150 in April 1998, and the emergence of CWP (900 places). New Deal for long­ term unemployed people over the age of 25 was due to commence in November 1998 with one-third of the total UK spending being concentrated

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on Northern Ireland (which accounts for ten per cent of the UK’s LTU) (Convery and Bivand 1998: 6). Little over a third of ACE participants move into ‘employment, training or education’ within three months of finishing the scheme. Although this is higher than the 19 per cent of Jobskills graduates who find employment, it is barely above the normal outflow rate from long-term unemployment (SACHR 1997:49). Some insight into why this figure is not higher can be found in a survey of employers which found that 40 per cent of firms surveyed would not normally consider interviewing those who had been on the ACE scheme for any vacancy which arose (NISB/NIERC 1994). These views were broadly consistent with the findings from employers in West Belfast reported in Chapter 8. A top-level (unpublished) internal review of the ACE scheme was carried out in 1993. According to T&EA officials, the review showed that the scheme was attractive to women ‘returnees’ to the labour market (about one-fifth of participants) and young people, but not to male heads of households with children. The suggestion was that the latter were ‘benefittrapped’ out of ACE—the scheme did not provide wages above their existing benefit levels. It is unclear whether the review of ACE examined the issue of in-work benefits. If people with children claim all the in-work benefits they are entitled to, no-one should be better off out-of-work since the alignment of means tests (for Income Support, Housing Benefit and Family Credit) under the 1986 Social Security Act (see NIEC 1995a; McLaughlin 1994a), even though child care costs would effectively make families worse off in some circumstances. Whatever the accuracy of the 1993 review of ACE, the CWP was devised with two principal objectives: to reach the ‘missing’ target group identified in the ACE review and to test a new mode of delivery. The CWP is unique within the UK in that participants can stay on the scheme for up to three years, a recognition of the fact that one-year schemes, such as ACE, can be de-motivating and re/entry to paid work can take a long time. To participate in the CWP individuals must be: 1. aged 25 to 60 years and have been unemployed continuously for 12 months or more; and 2. aged 18-24 years and have been unemployed continuously for 12 months or more and have a high level qualification (e.g. degree, HND), a recognised vocational qualification or have completed a T&EA training programme.

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The Unequal Unemployed

All of the participant’s benefits are safeguarded for the duration of the Programme and a basic premium, formally called a ‘training allowance’, o f £20 per week is paid. Additional allowances or ‘training premiums’ may also be paid depending on skill and the level of responsibility associated with the post, as shown in Table 7.1. Table 7.1: Additional allowances fo r CWP participants A d ditional A llowance PER WEEK

(i) s k ills a llo w a n c e

T otal PER WEEK

£

£

5

25

(ii) su p e r v iso r y a llo w a n c e *

10

3 5 (in c lu d e s £ 5 sk ills a ll.)

( iii) m a n a g e r ia l a llo w a n c e *

30

5 5 (in c lu d e s £ 5 sk ills a ll.)

*(ii) and (iii) are mutually exclusive.

The CWP is based on the assumption that there are motivational and skills problems amongst the LTU, and is therefore a combination of the government’s two primary active labour market policies. The design of the CWP also implies that the LTU need to acclimatise to work in a way that is risk-free in terms of benefit status. Although ostensibly the CWP is a work scheme (rather than a job), and participants retain their benefits as if unemployed, they are neither ‘workers’ nor ‘unemployed’. According to the T&EA, participants’ legal status is that of trainees. Indeed the design of the scheme recognises that assistance with job search and training can be useful to the LTU. CWP participants are therefore offered a once-off bonus for participating on job search courses and can earn bonuses for obtaining NVQ qualifications (Level 2 or above). The CWP has always had a high political profile. It was given a clear political ‘spin’ when the Prime Minister John Major chose to launch it at the special post-ceasefires International Investment Forum held in Belfast’s Europa hotel in December 1994. He announced that the Department of Economic Development was to begin implementing CWP by initially providing places for 1,000 LTU in three areas: Strabane, Fermanagh and the largest (500 places), West Belfast. The Prime Minister announced that if the pilot was successful, the CWP might be extended to 20,000 places, more than double the size of ACE. The Programme was widely regarded as significant given the potential number of participants, and was unique because none of the existing employment and training measures provide

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placements of a three year duration, nor a range of benefit premiums differentiated by skill level. The political profiles of both ACE and CWP remain high for two reasons. The withdrawal in ACE funding, which commenced suddenly in December 1995, has involved significant losses, including hundreds of posts in the West Belfast area (O ’Broin 1996). Secondly, both programmes will inevitably be affected by New Deal although at the time of writing it is not possible to say how. Despite government statements to the contrary, in the minds of some scheme providers, there is a policy relationship between the ‘down-sizing’ of ACE and the new CWP. Unlike ACE, however, the CWP allows for the closer integration of Social Security-based work search and discipline measures with work skills. It is this closer integration of the two types (and sites) of labour market policies which was heralded by the Jobseekers Act and will be developed under New Deal. Given the potential number of CWP placements and its unique delivery mechanism, it was important to investigate the relevance of the CWP as a response to long-term unemployment. It is, however, likely that the voluntarism of CWP will be replaced under Labour’s New Deal with elements of compulsion. Experience of employment and training schemes In our survey of the LTU, we asked questions on the extent of scheme participation and about attitudes towards schemes. Four in ten of the LTU in West Belfast reported they had been on a training or employment scheme (42 per cent o f Catholic and Protestant men; 32 per cent of Catholic women; 52 per cent of Protestant women). Thus, Catholic women were the least likely to have experienced a scheme (68 per cent had never been on a scheme) while Protestant women were the most likely to have been on a scheme. Just over half (52 per cent) of individuals had been on more that one scheme. These were mostly younger respondents who had been through YTP and then proceeded onto ACE or the Job Training Programme (now being replaced by the Jobskills scheme). Interestingly, given the target group of the CWP, it was found that nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of men with four or more children had been on a scheme prior to the CWP (although the number of these respondents was small (14)). These individuals were most likely to have been on Adults in Training and Enterprise Ulster schemes. The main reasons why people had taken up a place on a training or

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employment scheme were: ‘to improve chances of getting a job’ (65 per cent); ‘interested in the skills involved’ (23 per cent); and ‘could make more money on the programme than on benefits alone’ (22 per cent). The latter answer was most common amongst young single respondents. These responses imply that when first going on a scheme people genuinely believed that it would increase their chances of getting work and help them to acquire skills. Three-quarters of those who had been on schemes completed them. Catholic men had the highest completion rate (80 per cent) and Protestant men the lowest (66 per cent). Interesting religious and gender differences emerged in the reasons why a minority had left a scheme before completion. Half of Protestant men who left a scheme, left to take a job, compared to only seven per cent of Catholic men, 25 per cent of Catholic women and no Protestant women. An examination of work histories suggests that the jobs which people left a scheme for, were of a very short duration (some lasted just a couple of weeks) and most averaged between four to six months. The most common reasons for Catholic and Protestant women leaving a scheme were ‘childcare’ and ‘other personal or family reasons’. Both Catholic and Protestant men also answered that they left schemes because of childcare problems although to a much lesser extent than women. The most common reasons for Catholic men leaving a scheme were ‘wages/ allowances too low’ and ‘transport problems’. People’s evaluation of how useful the scheme had been to them did not match their aspirations on entering the scheme. Nearly half (47 per cent) felt that the scheme had ‘no effect’ on their chances of employment, four per cent that it had ‘decreased chances of employment’ and 11 per cent that they ‘did not know’. Only 15 per cent felt that the scheme ‘greatly increased chances of employment’ and 23 per cent that it ‘slightly increased chances of employment’. Catholic men were most likely to respond that the scheme had ‘no effect’ (51 per cent) or had ‘decreased chances of employment’ (seven per cent). Protestant men were most likely to respond that the scheme had ‘greatly ‘ (27 per cent) or ‘slightly’ (23 per cent) increased their chances of employment. People were asked what they thought of the pay or training allowances which they received for participating on schemes. Only three per cent felt that the pay or allowances were ‘too high’, 28 per cent felt that it was ‘about right’; but the majority of respondents (69 per cent) felt that the pay or allowances were too low (73 per cent of Catholic men and 59 per cent of Protestant men).

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Thus, there has been a relatively high rate of participation on training and employment schemes amongst the LTU in West Belfast but participants’ evaluation of the effect of schemes on employment prospects were not very favourable. There appears also to be a high degree of resistance to further schemes amongst all respondents. So when people were asked what they thought should be done to reduce unemployment in their area, nearly a third (30 per cent) said ‘no more schemes’ and over a half said ‘more real jobs’ (55 per cent). The T&EA’s response to such findings has been somewhat selective. The main point has been to take the scheme participation rate and argue that: ...a substantial gap exists: there is a broad group o f the long-term unemployed with whom the Agency has failed to engage. (Training and Employment Agency

1997:25) This glosses over serious questions, not only about how schemes are experienced by participants, but also in terms of ‘the poor performance of current training schemes’ (SACHR 1997: 53). Attitudes towards a benefits-plus scheme Since the CWP involves ‘benefits-plus’ rather than a wage, people were asked about the attractiveness o f a scheme on which they worked full­ time, kept all their present benefits and got at least £20 a week on top. Nearly half (45 per cent) reported that they would be interested in such a scheme (Figure 7.1). Women (53 per cent) were more likely to be interested in such a scheme than men (43 per cent). Catholic men were least likely to be attracted to such a scheme (only 39 per cent). Turning to the attractiveness of the CWP to its target group, 43 per cent o f men with one to three children were interested in such a scheme and this dropped only slightly to 41 per cent of men with four or more children. Both men and women with no children were more likely to be interested in a CWP type scheme. People were also asked, if offered a place on a benefits-plus scheme, what the ‘plus’ would need to be for them to seriously consider going on the scheme. The average premium was £54 (Figure 7.2). Women (£49.06) specified lower average premiums than men (£57.12), consistent with the finding (reported in Chapter 5) that women have lower average reservation wage rates than men. Again, Catholic men showed the greatest resistance

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Figure 7.2: Level o f weekly addition in benefits-plus scheme

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to the scheme by specifying the highest premium (£60). These premiums are substantially higher than those available under the current CWP. Prospects for the CWP There has been a relatively high rate of participation on training and employment schemes amongst the LTU in West Belfast. Forty-one per cent of respondents said they had been on a training or employment scheme. Fifty-two per cent of these had been on more than one scheme. In general, people did not believe that participating on a scheme increased their chances of employment greatly. Over 70 per cent of respondents felt that the training allowance which they received for participating on schemes was too low. There appears also to be a high degree o f ‘scheme-resistance’ amongst all respondents. Catholic men, who had the highest rate of participation on previous schemes, were the most ‘scheme-weary’ and would find a CWPtype scheme less attractive compared to other respondents. The premium needed to attract them on the scheme was higher than that suggested by Protestant men. Further evidence for such scheme resistance was found in responses to an open-ended question which asked people what they felt should be done to reduce unemployment in their area. The most common answers were ‘more real jobs’ (55 per cent) and ‘no more schemes’ (30 per cent). The two responses were often given together. The findings on training and employment schemes do not auger well for the CWP or existing approaches to training the unemployed. In general, the LTU do not want more schemes, they want proper jobs. Furthermore, the CWP is operating in the context of ACE cuts, a high political profile linked to the ‘peace process’ and an increase in compulsion heralded by the Jobseekers Act. Some potential participants have been deterred from going on the scheme by the prospect of changes in the way they receive their benefit (or ‘training allowance’). Some of those involved with the CWP (City West Action Board members, providers and participants) complained about the lack of consideration given to child care issues for participants. The scheme seems to assume that because men with children are the target, child care provision is unnecessary. Although women were much more likely to cite lack of child care as a reason for not participating in education and training, child care was also an issue for many of the men in the sample. The lack of

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thought given to child care in the CWP is surprising in the context of a broad acknowledgement in the social policy community that families can only escape unemployment (and poverty) through adequate, subsidised child care and if as many adults as possible within a household have some degree of paid work. If the scheme does have difficulties attracting participants these may be resolved by the greater level of compulsion heralded by the Jobseeker’s Allowance and New Deal. This would be a poor solution, however, since all the evidence to date shows that compulsory schemes are wasteful, demotivating and demoralising, so much so that even in the United States they are limited in scope. The alternative is to find ways of improving the CWP, as well as exploring other policy avenues. The CWP is based on a very traditional approach to work and workers. In particular, it is based on the assumptions that ‘work’ requires a 35 hour working week, is carried out by one individual and is done primarily by men whose partners stay at home and look after the children. These assumptions do not reflect existing labour market realities, and innovative approaches to work, and the supports on which labour market participation rests, need to be considered. One obvious change is to create part-time CWP posts. Innovative approaches to work such as job-sharing and flexi-time could also be considered under the CWP. These more flexible approaches would make the scheme much more attractive because of the considerations discussed above of child care, the informal sector and the stress felt by individuals who have been out of work for long periods of time. The very long-term unemployed might be more attracted to a scheme which allows them to increase the hours worked (i.e. to transfer from part-time to three-quarter or full-time). The size of the premiums is also worth consideration. Increasing the average weekly premium to £60 a week has significant cost implications even if a quarter of the places were part-time and continued to pay a premium of £25 a week. Indeed, it more than doubles the annual costs of premiums. It can be argued, however, that these additional costs should not rule out completely adjustments being made to the scheme. If the New Deal is prepared to subsidise employers at this level then there can be no financial objection in giving the subsidy to the long-term unemployed trying to get back into the labour market. If the scheme is to be expanded—a distinct possibility under New Deal— greater flexibility by the government in terms of financing the CWP is

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required. In particular, it seems unreasonable that the ‘savings’ on benefits from the social security budget cannot be transferred to the Northern Ireland public expenditure block (whether to the T&EA or not). Looked at another way, if the cost o f participants’ benefits was to be paid out of the social security budget, the cost to the T&EA of running the CWP would be reduced by £2.8 million in 1996/97. This saving exceeds the additional £1.4 million required to increase the size o f the average CWP premium. An increase in the size of the average premium combined with the availability of some part-time posts should increase the attractiveness of the CWP and make its expansion affordable. Re­ modelled, and in the context of an expanding jobs market, it could provide a useful transition to work. The fair employment implications of the distribution of training have been considered at some length by the SACHR. Some systematic biases have been pointed out, for instance the propensity of Catholics to be catered for in community-based schemes/workshops and for Protestants to be in Further Education. Community provision graduates have the least success in finding work. While the T&EA does some monitoring, including in relation to religion, fair employment considerations do not seem to form a part of its strategic thinking (see West Belfast Economic Forum 1997). Yet the expansion of a scheme like CWP, requires careful consideration in relation to unequal unemployment. If the 500 pilot places were distributed as planned in West Belfast for the first year, this would cause a change in the distribution of the remaining LTU from 21.0 per cent to 19.6 per cent for Protestants. Although this is a slight effect, if the scheme were to be enlarged to the size o f current West Belfast ACE provision (and distributed as now), the Protestant share of the LTU in West Belfast would fall from 21.0 per cent to 15.7 per cent and the Catholic share of the LTU would increase from 79 per cent to 84.3 per cent. The equality and fair employment issues can be tackled by means of the T&EA (and/or the CWA Board) adopting a policy on what it hopes to achieve in terms of participants. This might include, for instance, allocating a certain num ber o f places for individuals with disabilities and deciding what is a desirable gender balance. Arguably, the T&EA/Partnership Board/Provider structure makes it more difficult to achieve any desired representation, although even small providers could still be asked to contribute to the targets in particular ways.

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While there are ways which the CWP could be made more attractive and ‘user friendly’ it is, however, yet another supply side intervention by the government which fails to incorporate the ‘missing ingredient’ required in successful labour market policies, labour demand. An alternative, therefore, is to consider if those policies which affect labour demand can offer more hope to the LTU. These policies are considered in more detail in Chapter 8.

8 Employers and the Long-term Unemployed Introduction he supply-side emphasis o f government labour market policies has led to a neglect of labour demand in policy debates with respect both to unemployment and inequalities in unemployment (Grieve Smith 1997a). This chapter addresses this issue at the microeconomic level by presenting findings from interviews with human resources/personnel managers of major employers in the West Belfast area. The interviewees were asked detailed questions about their recruitment practices, their attitudes to, and experiences of, hiring the long-term unemployed, their assessment o f the usefulness o f the government’s training and employment schemes, and their attitudes towards different types of policy interventions such as national tax holidays, a minimum wage and local labour clauses.

T

The importance of employers The ‘Hoskins-Leicester’ (H-L) model of recruitment provides a useful starting point to illustrate the importance that employers play in recruitment aspects—the demand side— of the labour market. According to the H-L model, the probability that an unemployed individual (with particular characteristics) secures a job (in a particular labour market) is a function of: 1. the probability that she learns about the job; 2. the probability that she applies for the job; 3. the probability that she is given an interview; 4. the probability that she is offered the job; and 5. the probability that she accepts the job. The first of these requires particular action and behaviour by both the unemployed person (e.g. reading newspaper advertisements) and the employer. In particular, the employer would have decided that the job 131

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will not be filled through the company’s own internal labour market and, therefore, has publicised the vacancy. The second and fifth processes requires action and decisions by the unemployed person; the third and fourth processes by the employer. Clearly, three and four are necessary conditions which must be fulfilled before five, and therefore employment, can be realised. Given the influence exerted on the labour market by employers through various employment practices and, in particular, the recruitment process, it was important that the research included a survey o f employers. As noted by Maguire, employers: ...effectively act as gatekeepers to the labour market. They are able to structure the entry to work and to constrain movement within the labour m arket by virtue o f their control over the recruitm ent process. (M aguire 1992: 80)

Employers’ attitudes and behaviour towards the long-term unemployed and their views on training and employment schemes have received considerably less attention than those of the LTU, yet ‘.. .the importance o f employers’ role in the labour market means that unemployment is also a problem of employers’ attitudes and behaviour’ (ibid.). Maguire argued that, in the absence of measures to influence employers’ attitudes and behaviour, government policy of supply side intervention is ‘not only misguided but neglectful’ (ibid.). In terms o f employer attitudes to the LTU, findings from previous research are not encouraging (see DfEE 1997; Dawes 1993; Maguire 1992; Meager and Metcalf 1987). Maguire (1992: 100) found that there has been little movement in employers’ traditional ideas o f suitability and suggested that, ‘if employers’ attitudes and stereotyping are key factors which work to the disadvantage of certain groups of job-seekers, then some means of effecting a change in employer behaviour needs to be sought’. Dawes concluded that: ...recruitm ent practices o f employers appear to present m ajor difficulties for the LTU because recruiters are highly risk averse in their approach to potential em ployees. They put a prem ium on characteristics which are difficult for the long-term unem ployed to exhibit. (Dawes 1993: 12)

It is useful to consider briefly reasons why the LTU may not be recruited. The risk attached to recruitment from the employer’s point o f view arises from a lack of information about the applicant’s true

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productivity. The employer tries to gain as much information about the applicant as possible before deciding whether to the hire the person. The main sources o f information come from the applicant’s CV and inform ation revealed during a job interview. Inform ation is also obtained through formal and informal (word-of-mouth) references from past employers. ‘Unemployment’ is itself a piece o f information and research has found that it weighs heavily in an em ployer’s hiring decisions (Crowley-Bainton 1987; White 1991). It has been found that employers believe that being long-term unemployed is negatively correlated with the applicant’s likely performance or general suitability for the job. In particular, employers (like governments!) often believe that the LTU lack motivation, a good ‘work ethic’ or the ability to do the job through either lack of practice or ability (Meager and M etcalf 1987). The LTU may, therefore, not be recruited by virtue of being long-term unemployed. M eager and M etcalf (1987) found an im portant geographical dimension to employers’ attitudes to the LTU. Employers in areas of high unemployment, for example Glasgow, were considerably more sympathetic towards the LTU than employers in areas o f relatively low unemployment. In addition, studies of employers’ recruitment preferences have found that the more objective characteristics which were regarded as important, included a steady work history, experience in a similar job, and references from past employers, all of which pose difficulties for the LTU. Other characteristics were far more subjective and involved a sse ssin g the ‘a ttitu d e ’ o f the a p p lican t. T hese ‘a ttitu d in a P characteristics required applicants to display self confidence, active enthusiasm but not desperation, a smart appearance and domestic stability. Again, all of these may be difficult for the LTU to display relative to job-changers. Employers in West Belfast If there has been limited research on employers’ attitudes and behaviour towards the LTU elsewhere, there has been nothing in Northern Ireland. Given the focus of this study, research was limited to employers in the West Belfast area. The research concentrated on the larger employers in the area and o f the 14 surveyed, six were locally owned, five were multinationals, two were British-owned, and one was publicly owned.

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Four companies were in the service sector and the remaining in manufacturing. Approximately two-thirds of the companies employed between 30-150 people; the remaining employed over 150 people. Confidentiality prevents a more detailed description of the employers involved. Two methods were used in the study of employers. Once an employer agreed to participate, a questionnaire which asked for basic data on employment and recruitm ent levels (number and type o f current employees, expected recruitment, etc) and personnel policies was sent, and each employer was subsequently interviewed about more qualitative and sensitive issues. Only one employer declined to participate in the study. Recruitment practices All employers interviewed appeared to have highly professional recruitment procedures, were very knowledgeable and interested in fair employment issues, and only one employer complained about additional paper work generated by the legislation. Recruitment procedures had changed in all of the firms in response to the 1989 Fair Employment Act. There were very similar methods of recruitment across firms or across employee categories (e.g. managerial, technical, semi-skilled, etc). A ll employers reported that they placed advertisem ents in newspapers for each category of employee (though not for every employee) recruited. The code of practice for the 1989 Fair Employment Act requires that employers advertise new posts and vacancies in the local press. Private employment agencies and backfiles were used only for managerial/professional workers and for some clerical office staff/ sales personnel. Job Clubs and the Training and Employment Agency’s pre-employment programmes (discussed below) were used to recruit semi- and unskilled manual workers and some skilled manual workers. None of the employers reported that they used word-of-mouth, personal contacts or unsolicited applications. When asked about draw-backs o f various recruitment methods, several employers commented that while newspaper advertisements assured a very high number of applications, several dozen of these would be ‘token’ applications. ‘Token’ applications refer to applications whose sole intention was to demonstrate that the person was ‘actively

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seeking w o rk ’ so that he/she may receive benefit. E m ployers complained that there had been an increase in all applications and it was often difficult and very time consuming to detect token applications. Such applications also contributed to the problem of people not turning up to interviews. Employers were concerned that the Jobseeker’s Act would exacerbate the situation further. In the recruitment of skilled, semi-skilled and ‘unskilled’ manual workers (as discussed below almost all of the LTU who were recruited were in these categories), employers identified ‘experience’ and ‘stable employment record’ as ‘very important’. They identified as ‘important’, ‘p e rso n a l c h a ra c te ris tic s /q u a litie s ’, ‘s k ills ’, ‘re fe re n c e s ’, ‘qualifications’ and a ‘history o f previous unemployment’. None o f the employers identified ‘age’, ‘gender’, or ‘personal recommendations’ as important in the recruitment decision. The importance o f the applicant conveying motivation and the ‘right attitude’ during an interview was emphasised. Several employers commented that the unemployed, especially the LTU, ‘don’t really have a lot to talk about’ during interviews and that it was often ‘difficult to keep a conversation flowing’. Attitudes to the long-term unemployed Nine o f the employers had recently recruited long-term unemployed people. The responses varied considerably by sector and industry, and the age of the firm. These firms included all of the employers in the service sector and most of the ‘newer’ firms, including three o f the five multinationals. The types of jobs for which the LTU were recruited were sales, skilled manual and semi- and unskilled manual. In the manufacturing sector, a high percentage of the LTU were recruited for temporary jobs. Two employers responded that they ‘didn’t know ’ if they had hired any long-term unemployed people recently. These results suggest that despite the barriers w hich exist for the long-term unemployed (reported below), they had access to at least some o f the vacancies in more than half of the surveyed firms. All of the employers said that the length of time that an individual had been unemployed affected their attitude towards hiring the person. The explanations fell into two broad categories: ‘motivational’ and ‘ability’. Many employers felt that a lengthy period of unemployment indicated a lack of motivation and as a result said they were ‘suspicious’

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o f someone who had been unemployed for a long time. A common comment was, ‘What have they been up to all that time?’ Interestingly, these suspicions were lessened if the applicant revealed that they had w orked in the inform al economy which em ployers regarded as demonstrating ‘motivation’ and ‘initiative’. Other employers said that long-term unemployment indicated that the applicant must have some undesirable characteristic which they had not discovered but other employers had. This view was summed up by one employer who commented: I f som eone has been unem ployed for say less than 6 months, that is OK, it m ay be ju st bad luck. But if he has been unem ployed for a year or more, there m ust be som ething wrong with him. He m ust not be up to doing the work. No one else has taken him, right? There m ust be som ething wrong.

Six of the nine employers who had recently recruited long-term unemployed people said that there was ‘really no difference’ between the LTU and other workers in terms of work performance. They com m ented that there were often ‘settling-in’ problem s, related primarily to timekeeping, amongst most new workers and, in general, the LTU were no different from other new workers in this respect. Three o f these employers considered the LTU recruits, especially men with children, to be their best and most loyal workers because they were ‘very grateful to have a jo b ’. The three employers who found differences in performance between the LTU and other workers identified poor time-keeping (especially amongst shift workers) and high rates of absenteeism as the most significant problems. Two of these employers operated a warning system w here w orkers were given three w arnings about poor performance before being sacked. In most cases the warnings resolved these problems. One employer commented, ‘...maybe they just didn’t know what was expected o f them if they hadn’t worked for a long-time and that is why the warnings work for m ost’. Increasing the recruitment of the long-term unemployed Employers were asked what might encourage them to recruit more LTU. The most important factor identified was a ‘growth in the volume of sales’. Approximately half of employers said an improvement in the job applications, skills, presentation, motivation and attitudes would encourage them to recruit more LTU. This response appears to reflect

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common stereotypes of the LTU rather than their actual characteristics, because most employers contradicted themselves in a subsequent question where they said that there was little difference between the LTU and other applicants in terms of the quality o f applications, skills and presentation. O ther factors id en tified as im portant w ere: ‘evidence that unemployed applicants had recently received some training or work experience through a government sponsored schemes’ and ‘changes in the organisation o f work in the business (i.e. greater emphasis on temporary or casual employment)’. Few employers felt that a shift towards more jobs requiring low skills would increase recruitment of the LTU. Three out of four employers said that a greater willingness on the part of the LTU to work for lower wages (e.g. a reduction in the reservation wage rate) would not encourage them to recruit more LTU. Only one em ployer said that a reduction in N ational Insurance contributions for companies that recruit people who have been unemployed for two years or more (as provided for in the Jobseeker’s Act) would encourage the company to take on such people. It is possible, however, that the more generous £60 per week plus £750 lump sum New Deal employer subsidy under the Labour government may prove to be more attractive. Interestingly, a high proportion of employers were concerned about the fair employment implications of the policy and whether it would cut across attempts to achieve representative or ‘balanced’ workforces. Only one employer (in the service sector) was opposed to the introduction of a national (or European) minimum wage set at around £4.00 per hour — two years after these responses were collated, the minimum wage was set at £3.60. All of the other employers stated that it would have Tittle or no effect’ because they already paid wage rates above or around that rate. Most of the employers surveyed, therefore, paid wage rates above the mean hourly reservation wage rate of £3.40 o f the long-term unemployed in our sample. Employers were asked whether they could fulfil conditions such as having to hire a certain percentage of their workforce (e.g. 30 per cent) either from the local labour m arket and/or from the long-term unemployed, if these were introduced as a condition o f grant-aid (e.g. from the Indu strial D evelopm ent B oard and the T raining and Employment Agency). All o f the employers studied said that they

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probably could, not least because the majority already exceeded such a local labour condition, and several thought that they also exceeded such a long-term unemployed requirement. Their attitudes towards such conditions varied, however. Employers were again concerned with the fair employment implications of the conditions. Several employers noted that grants were already conditional upon fulfilling many requirem ents and that a few more conditions ‘w ouldn’t make a difference’. It was noteworthy that Am erican-owned com panies observed that these types of conditions were quite common and probably more rigorous in the US. For example, companies which receive government contracts are often required to purchase a proportion of their inputs from firms owned by ethnic minorities or ‘community’ businesses. Employers were asked to assess the help which the government provides for the LTU in terms of job search skills and training and employment schemes, and whether enough is being done to help the LTU generally. Many said more help should be given to the LTU with filling in applications, CVs and improving their motivation. However, when asked if there were marked differences in the quality o f CVs and job applications between the LTU and others, most said this was not the case. The majority, however, reported that the LTU often lacked confidence in interviews. Several suggested that job search courses should encourage the LTU to highlight skills that they have acquired outside the workplace (e.g. family budgeting, childminding, car repair, etc) and other activities (e.g. voluntary work) that they have been involved in while unemployed. It was felt this would help the LTU to have more complete application forms and would be particularly important for women returnees who often underestimated the skills which they had. In general, employers did not believe that training and employment schemes were helpful either in terms of increasing participant’s chances of being hired or in improving skills. Indeed, a few employers said that they would not consider hiring anyone who had been on either the Job T raining Program m e or the Y outh T raining P rogram m e. Participation on these schemes was taken as a negative signal about the applicant by these employers. Many employers felt that the quality and relevance o f the skills acquired were minimal. One important exception cited by employers was a customised training service run by

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the T raining and E m ploym ent A gency w hich is a v ailab le to multinationals. Employers noted that since the skills learned on the programme were customised, they were directly relevant and o f a high quality. In addition, several employers said that it gave them the opportunity to hire unemployed people. This is because participants on the schemes (referred to as ‘pre-employment’ programmes) are unemployed. Participants who complete such a pre-em ploym ent programme are guaranteed an interview with the firm. It appears therefore that this employer-linked training benefits both the firm and the unemployed. In some respects, this type of scheme parallels the relative success and popularity of Job Trials in Britain. These conclusions are supported by Shuttleworth et a l’s research into em ployers’ attitudes. While their research only covered five com panies, they were able to report that stereotypes about the unemployed were very much alive: The unem ployed were seen as being bad risks because o f a lack o f work discipline, a perceived laziness and trheir length o f unem ploym ent. The m ain criticism s w ere that recruits from the unem ployed had proved unreliable and unable to perform satisfactorily in their posts. The fact that they were unem ployed was also seen as som ething o f a stigma. Gaps in w o rk h is to rie s ra ise d aw k w ard q u e stio n s a b o u t m o tiv a tio n , an d unem ploym ent was generally seen as being a result o f a personal failing o f the unem ployed person. (Shuttleworth et al 1996: 35)

Conclusions While economic recovery has reduced overall unemployment rates across most EU countries recently, many areas, regions and distinct social groupings continue to be beleaguered by chronic long-term unemployment. The situation where there is job creation and growth but little reduction of long-term unemployment and unemployment inequalities certainly is not unique to Northern Ireland. There is, therefore, a need for a fresh approach to long-term unemployment and employment equity which takes account of real labour market changes and processes, and which involves employers sharing more o f the responsibility in actively targeting the unemployed. Clearly, employer stereotypes of the unemployed, particularly the long-term unemployed, represent a significant barrier to bringing the

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unemployed into work, but there is an institutional framework of fair employment, industrial development and training policy within which employers act. This framework is particularly important in the case o f areas of high unemployment and significant challenges have been neglected during an era of ‘supply-side’ economic and labour market policies.

9 Equality and Full Employment

he focus o f this book has been research into the long-term unemployed in West Belfast. Some of the findings will be all too familiar to students of contemporary labour markets, particularly for those who have knowledge of localities where unemployment has become endemic over the last 20 years. In such areas, it is common to find whole generations of workers who have never had work, older workers who once had jobs but are resigned to permanent unemployment, and young people coming into the labour market who see nothing before them other than ‘training’ and more training. Many of the latter will have internalised the limits of opportunity well before leaving school and in this sense it is not surprising to find that a major role of training schemes is remedial literacy and numeracy education for young people. For instance, recent research has revealed that one-fifth of young entrants to the Jobskills programme in Northern Ireland are getting help o f this kind (SACHR 1997: 38). The causes of unemployment in the contemporary period are hotly debated but there is agreement that there has been a very substantial shift at national and international levels in the core goals of economic policy and that this has had an enormous influence on popular beliefs about alternatives. The political consensus which emerged from the mass unemployment of the 1920s and 1930s, and from the Second World War, that the priority for governments was to maintain full employment has been swept aside in favour of inflation and monetary management. It seemed natural enough to incorporate the idea of a ‘right to work’ in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But over the past 30 years, the role of economic policy has been recast so that state budgets and interest rate policies have been used to produce deflationary effects whenever necessary and at whatever cost to unemployment. Worse still, such macroeconomic tools are typically presented as technical levers for inflation control, as if there are no real policy choices available. Policy choices have been made, however. In the case of Britain where, since the 1970s, income inequalities have grown more rapidly than in any of the OECD countries (Rowntree Foundation 1995; Goodman et al 1997), 141

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there has been a direct trade-off between the welfare state of the rich (taxbreaks) and that of the poor (social security benefits). The unemployed have been particularly hard hit in this respect with the withdrawal and devaluation of insurance-based benefits, and latterly, a substantial increase in the obligations of job seeking. This parallels the welfare cuts and obligation enforcement measures in US, the latest of which were brought in under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act discussed in Chapter 3. While the ‘right’ to be unemployed has been eroded, there has been no corresponding development of a guaranteed opportunity to work. On the contrary, the response to unemployment has been characterised by supply side approaches to the labour market, accompanied at times by highly stigmatising and derogatory social doctrines about the ‘underclass’, a particular feature of the debate in the US and Britain. In such a way, the problem of unemployment has been individualised—as a problem of motivation, lack of educational achievement, or a failure to migrate. At worst, the argument is that ‘welfare’ generates dependencydriven problems of crime and illegitimacy the only cure for which is the raw reality of a free market in wages. The ‘strategy of inequality’, then, has institutionalised unemployment to a great extent. There is another side to the current inequality of unemployment, namely its differential impact on particular social groups. We have sought to show that, just as economic orthodoxies have shifted, so too have debates over the acceptability or otherwise of discrimination of one sort or another. Following the abolition of slavery, it took many decades for an antidiscrimination policy paradigm to be established in the US, at national level, in relation to ‘race’ and latterly gender. Periods o f recession and unemployment produced popular campaigns against segregated and exclusionary workplaces, but state responses to discrimination have typically been most active during periods of political conflict and social disorder, and in the context of relatively full employment and rising aspirations. This was the case in the US in the 1950s and 1960s before the passing of the Civil Rights Act, and in Northern Ireland before the van Straubenzee Report and the first Fair Employment Act. Legislative responses to ‘race relations’ in Britain were initially very modest, dealing primarily with manifestations of exclusion and direct discrimination, rather than with indirect discrimination. Similarly, Northern Ireland’s 1976 Act outlawing direct discrimination on grounds of religion or political opinion, was a great disappointment to civil rights campaigners and fell far short of the, albeit voluntaristic, aspirations o f the van

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Straubenzee working party. What the latter accepted, but unionists and conservatives have contested ever since, was that wide-ranging affirmative action was required to address the legacy of past discriminations. In particular, the working party recognised that extensive affirmative action was needed across many government departments and policy fields, including economic development, regional planning, education and training. If there was to be a ‘serious and sustained’effort to deal with unemployment, this clearly called for ‘equality proofing’ (as it is known today) of all the short- and long-term decisions of agencies shaping the availability o f jobs in different localities, and the ability of people to secure those jobs. Extensive monitoring— including the unemployed— would also be necessary as a guide to measuring the success or otherwise of affirmative action programmes. The ten year period following the establishment of the Fair Employment Agency is instructive for two reasons. Firstly, much more data on labour market patterns by religion within sectors and particular companies, and across Northern Ireland as a whole, became available partly as a result of investigations initiated by the FEA itself. To a certain extent, the antidiscrimination policy debate became ‘technicised’ as analysts scrutinised workforce data and debated whether or not the patterns represented discrimination and if so where that discrimination arose. An important controversy emerged over the FEA’s enquiry into the Northern Ireland Civil Service, with reports being rewritten and delayed for publication (see Miller 1988). The outcome was the establishment of routine monitoring within the civil service which became the model for the legal requirement to monitor under the 1989 Fair Employment Act. The second thing which became apparent during the 1980s and early 1990s was the degree of opposition to fair employment measures and to the development of more radical forms of affirmative action. Some of this echoed what we have called the ‘backlash’ against movements campaigning for social and economic justice and against racism and sexism. In the Thatcher/Reagan years, both the libertarian and paternalistic wings of conservatism acquired a new confidence and many fresh recruits. One Northern Ireland convert was senior civil servant Arthur Green: I was secretary, at the beginning o f the troubles, to the Cameron and Scarman Inquiries. But I have become a strong, violent, right-winger and libertarian and an opponent o f fair employment legislation... I did genuinely write the bits o f the Cameron Commission Report which dealt with discrimination... I now think that we went too far. (Cullen 1992: 78)

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It is questionable whether Northern Ireland ever acquired a sufficiently strong anti-discrimination culture for the notion of a backlash, as such, to have any meaning. This is because the debate about discrimination is, as we have argued, grounded in the broader political struggle between nationalism and unionism, and the intensity given to that struggle by the structure of partition. When Britain stood down the old Stormont regime, a view emerged that the ‘nationalist-inspired’ civil rights movement had greatly exaggerated the prevalence of discrimination (see Whyte 1983) which, in any event, was associated with the ‘old unionism’ of the past. This sat uneasily alongside the traditional ‘justification’ of anti-Catholic discrimination, that jobs should not be given to those regarded as ‘disloyal’ to the state of Northern Ireland—an idea that was updated to include discrimination as a security-screening device in the wake of the IRA’s campaign. Nevertheless, the facts of unrepresentative workforces, the continuing unemployment differential and in particular, evidence that the upper echelons of the civil service were over 85 per cent Protestant and 90 per cent male, lent weight to those arguing for more forceful fair employment and equal opportunities policies. In the mid-1980s, momentum for reform built up from two sources— the MacBride Principles campaign in the US and institutional and political activity within Northern Ireland itself, notably the SACHR review (1987). Britain actively opposed the former (and continued to do so into the late 1990s) while at the same time acknowledging that it was losing the argument over reform. The government rejected SACHR’s proposal to make the reduction of the unemployment differential within five years a specific target for public policy. It also rejected a number o f recommendations on affirmative action, including the idea of a legal exemption permitting positive discrimination in favour of the unemployed or people from a particular area. With more than a hint of frustration following the passing of the 1989 Act, McCormack and O ’Hara concluded: The process which led to the 1976 Act and that which preceded the 1989 Act show striking similarities between the Governments’ attitudes then and now. In both cases the Government of the day expressed firm commitment to change. On both occasions, official com m ittees, appointed by G overnm ent, recommended appropriate mechanisms. On both occasions, the substance o f their advice was ignored. There is every indication that the past inability to effect real progress towards equality o f opportunity in employment will be repeated. The parallels between the problems then and now means that the legislation may fail for the same reasons. (1990: 77)

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Beyond discrimination? In November 1994, SACHR was asked to review the 1989 Act. It took several months to agree the terms of reference for the review which included the following: ...to undertake a comprehensive review of employment equality... The review should consider all aspects of fair employment (including the cost of compliance on employers and employees) but notably the legal, social and economic dimensions and the impact o f relevant government policies.

This was not, then, to be simply a review of existing fair employment law and the workings of the Fair Employment Commission, but would include education and training, as well as other government policies such as Targeting Social Need (TSN) and Policy Appraisal and Fair Treatment (PAFT). The SACHR review concluded that the 1989 Act had made a positive contribution to employment equality. The monitoring returns of applicants and appointees show that between 1991 and 1996, for both men and women, there was no evidence of ‘systematic discrimination’ (1997: 11). On the basis of Census figures, Catholics were 31 per cent of the economically active in 1971 and had a 29.1 per cent share of employment. By 1991 Catholics were 39.8 per cent of the economically active and had a 36.3 per cent employment share. Over the same period the Catholic share of unemployment had risen from 52.7 per cent to 58.4 per cent and Catholic economic inactivity rose relative to Protestant inactivity. These overall figures mask changes in occupations and sectors. In 1991, Catholics remained under-represented in administrative and management occupations and in skilled engineering. Catholic females were over­ represented in nursing but under-represented in management, administration and in clerical occupations. Catholic men were particularly under­ represented in security-related occupations and this remained true in 1996: Catholic male under-representation in the security services accounts entirely for the Catholic under-representation among men in the public sector... One Protestant man in three in the public sector was in security-related occupations compared with one in seventeen Catholic men. One in twelve Protestant females worked in security-related occupations, compared to one in seventy-seven Catholic females. (ibid: 16)

Although the latest SACHR review does not draw attention to the point, the areas of the labour market dominated by Catholics and Protestants

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respectively are highly significant in political terms. Protestant men have a firm grip on the most powerful institutions of state, the police and Northern Ireland-based sections of the British Army, and the upper layers o f the civil service. The Northern Ireland Civil Service has the lowest reported Catholic share of senior employees o f anywhere within the public sector. Only 24.9 per cent of the 3,200 senior employees w ithin the central machinery o f government are Catholics (Fair Employment Commission 1997). At the highest salary band the Catholic share o f ‘specialist staff’ (lawyers, architects, accountants, engineers etc.) actually went down between 1990 and 1995 to just 14.9 per cent. The Catholic share of non-specialist staff at the highest level was 19 per cent in 1995. This contrasts with the very substantial over­ representation of Catholics among the unemployed and the economically inactive. As in the 1980s, the SACHR set out an ambitious agenda for reform. A number of specific changes to Fair Employment law were recommended, including broadening the law to cover discrimination in the provision of services, not simply employment. Many of the recommendations directly concern affirmation action and strengthening the application of affirmative action. The SACHR proposed that the definition of affirmative action under Section 58 of the 1989 Act be amended to indicate that its function is, to secure a fairer participation o f Protestants and Catholics at all levels within each workforce and in all aspects o f employment in Northern Ireland. (SACHR

1997: 89) The law should also permit employers to deliberately recruit from the unemployed without being open to charges of indirect discrimination—a repeat of the Commission’s recommendation of ten years earlier—and if all else fails, employers (in consultation with the FEC) should be allowed to limit their recruitment to a specific geographical area. Another significant recommendation was to change the 1989 Act so as to broaden the scope for linking contract compliance to the promotion of affirmative action, backed up by stronger powers for Fair Employment Tribunals to disqualify employers (public and private) from the receipt of grants or contracts. Furthermore, public bodies offering grants or contracts should be much more rigorous in their assessments of contractors in fair employment terms, striking out any which do not have in place ‘effective fair employment, equal opportunities and anti-discrimination policies, procedures and practices’ (SACHR 1997: 90). Tender documents should

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specify any equal opportunities goals a contractor is expected to meet. While the SACHR review did not recommend routine monitoring of the unemployed, it did propose that the scope of monitoring should be widened to include part-time workers (less than 16 hours per week). Employers should monitor the employment status of those who apply for jobs and submit this information as part of the annual return to the FEC (ibid: 93). There are two other areas covered by the SACHR review which are important to the unequal unemployed: Targeting Social Need (TSN) and Policy Appraisal and Fair Treatment (PAFT). TSN was announced as one of the priorities of public expenditure in 1991. It exists more on paper than in terms of measurable changes in expenditure programmes and priorities. McLaughlin and Quirk (1996) found little evidence that TSN had influenced departmental spending and decision-making. Most departments were reluctant to monitor their expenditures in terms of Catholic/Protestant or social class impacts. This was confirmed in another study which found that the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland seemed to have ignored the policy altogether: ...it hands out money to rich farmers, while cutting subsidies to poorer ones and it entirely ignores the impact o f its programmes on the Protestant and Catholic communities. (McGill 1996: 57)

The inescapable conclusion was that, far from being an expenditure priority, TSN was ‘a principle awaiting definition, operationalisation and implementation’ (McLaughlin and Quirk 1996: 183). Essentially, the SACHR recommended that TSN should become a real policy guiding public expenditure priorities at departmental level and that the Secretary o f State assume responsibility for the direction and implementation of TSN. The second area, PAFT, originated in UK-wide ‘equality proofing’ guidelines sent out to all government departments in 1990 and which were aimed at gender and ‘race’ issues. Three years later, the Northern Ireland Office issued its own guidelines with the aim of ensuring that ‘all sections of the community enjoy equal opportunities and fair treatment’ (NIO 1993). Osborne et a ls (1996) review of the workings of PAFT gives a good summary of the political significance of the initiative: For many in the nationalist community... particularly those who feel themselves to tally excluded from the w ider society— socially, econom ically and politically—the suspicions about the fairness in the administration o f policy remain. (1996: 128)

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Their research project is also instructive of the orientation and inertia amongst top civil servants, and raised ‘serious questions about the effectiveness of the body with overall responsibility’ which is the Central Community Relations Unit (SACHR 1997: 71). This was the body which had control of the fair employment review following the passage of the 1989 Act and up to 1994, when it was handed over to the SACHR. Osborne et al cite the attitude o f the Department of Finance and Personnel (effectively the senior department within the direct rule administration) which, ‘because of its role in the public expenditure process, undoubtedly reflects a conservatism towards any activity that requires additional funding’ (ibid: 135). The DFP argued that PAFT heightened expectations of policy proofing which simply could not be delivered because the costs and complexities of such an exercise had been underestimated (ibid: 134). Besides, the discretion of departments is constrained by Northern Ireland’s position as a region of the UK which obliges London-based government policy to take precedence (ibid.). The status, implementation and effectiveness of PAFT were very quickly tested by a judicial review case against a Health Trust’s use of ‘com pulsory com petitive tendering’, mounted by the trade union UNISON. The union argued that competitive tendering had not been subject to equality proofing using the PAFT guidelines. Indeed, it had not—because the relevant government department had not even issued the guidelines to the Trust concerned! While the case was dismissed on this technicality, it pointed to some of the potential difficulties of using ‘guidelines’to appraise legally-based government policies with known inequality impacts. Hence, the SACHR review recommended that PAFT be placed on a legal footing which at a minimum would include a duty on the Secretary of State: ...to promote, in drawing up new policies, reviewing existing policies and administering public services, full and effective equality between persons o f different religious beliefs, political opinion, gender, marital status, having or not having a dependant, ethnicity, disability, age or sexual orientation. (SACHR

1997: 75) The law should also provide for the designation and review o f a list of public bodies to be covered by the above. A code of practice should be devised to guide best practice and public bodies should routinely include equality objectives in their planning (ibid: 76) (see also McCrudden 1998).

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The rhetoric of reform In March 1998, the British government published a White Paper— Partnershipfo r Equality (1998) (hereafter PE)—in response to the SACHR review. At the same time, the talks on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland between the British and Irish governments and most of the political parties were reaching a conclusion which finally emerged as the Belfast Agreement on 10 April. The coming together of these two processes is more than coincidental because the issue o f historically engrained discriminations—political, social and economic—has been central to unionist and nationalist politics in the post-partition era. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the Belfast Agreement involves a comprehensive agenda which includes constitutional change, human rights, policing and justice, demilitarisation and a substantial list of equality issues: economic, social and cultural. Written into the Agreement is an undertaking that the British government will ‘make rapid progress’ with: ...measures on employment equality...covering the extension and strengthening o f anti-discrimination legislation, a review o f the national security aspects o f the present fair employment legislation... a new more focused Targeting Social Need initiative and a range o f measures aimed at combating unemployment and progressively eliminating the differential in unemployment rates between the two communities by targeting objective need.

In terms of institutional development under the Agreement, the British government ‘intends a new statutory Equality Commission ’. All these points are covered in the White Paper and it is clear that, as in the past, the British government is firmly in the driving seat of reform. PE acknowledges, after a fashion, the connection between past and present discriminations and the political conflict over the constitution of Northern Ireland, but it does so by framing the problem as one o f ‘perceptions (our emphasis) of discrimination and unfairness [which] have fuelled political alienation’ (1998: 7). It also acknowledges that the fair employment question involves the Irish government, lobbyists in the US as well as locally-based political actors. In terms of the realities of inequality, PE concentrates on unemployment and without judging the origins of the differential, it expresses the government’s hope that ‘a substantial reduction’ in the unemployment differential can be achieved by the time of the 2011 Census. The modesty o f this ambition is indicated by the qualified recognition of unequal unemployment:

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The Governm ent will not differentiate between Protestant and Catholic unemployed in the implementation of its policies. However, it is conscious that the continuing unemployment differential between the communities is an indicator o f Catholic socio-economic disadvantage, {ibid: 48)

The flagship of the proposed government response, however, is not to adopt the SACHR affirmative action agenda, but to subsume the issue within the UK-wide policy of New Deal. While the government has agreed that targeting recruitment on the unemployed should be exempt from the legal definition of indirect discrimination, PE claims that New Deal ‘will meet many of the objectives of SACHR’s recommendations on affirmative action for the unemployed’ {ibid: 15), effectively making most of SACHR’s affirmative action proposals redundant. This is misplaced optimism about a policy which combines traditional labour supply measures (training, employment service assistance, benefit sanctions) with short-term employment subsidies. New Labour’s approach to the unemployed may have dropped some of the trappings of conservative individualism, but it continues to be pursued within an overall context of a macroeconomic policy prioritising inflation management and European economic integration over employment demand. At one point PE refers directly to the European Union goal of a single market as making certain affirmative action proposals undesirable and illegal. The unemployed, it seems, must await the benefits of the single market to ‘trickle down’ to them: The SACHR report recommends that the Government should use its spending power to influence employers to recruit from the unemployed, by including terms in public sector contracts with this requirement (often known as “contract compliance”). This is an area where European Union law on public procurement imposes considerable restraints on the Government. The European Union has regarded the liberalisation of public procurement as an essential element of the Single Market, with economic benefits flowing from the operation o f a U n io n -w id e p ro c u rem en t free m arket. The E uro p ean C o m m issio n Communication of 1989 on social objectives in public sector contracts allows only lim ited scope for applying conditions on the recruitm ent o f the unemployed. Furthermore, the general policy of the UK Government, which

has been consistently applied, is that public sector procurement should not be used as a means of achieving social policy objectives. (our emphasis) {ibid: 14)

This bald, unmediated support of the EU free market fails to recognise how the debate over social policy objectives and public procurement has

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been developing within Europe. It is not clear where this sweeping rejection o f a major instrument of policy—government purchasing power—came from, but the conservatism of the last sentence in the quote is clear both in terms of economic and social policy. It is remarkable that the White Paper does not mention the European Commission Green Paper on public procurement (Commission of the European Communities 1996) and that the New Labour government failed to usePE to take up a progressive position in relation to it. Besides, the statement appears to be at odds with a number of PE’s proposed changes in legislation and policy which will facilitate the targeting of the unemployed. While the Commission’s Green Paper was principally concerned to discuss ways of improving general compliance with the public procurement regime—for example, about 85 per cent of contracting authorities fail to comply with advertising and transparency requirements (1996: 39)—it specifically sought views on how to reconcile the liberalisation o f procurement policy with national and European social and environmental policy objectives. The Commission pointed out that both social objectives and environmental protection can be achieved, to a limited extent, under existing procurement rules. Successful tenderers can be required to fulfil social obligations providing these are not included as part of the contract award procedure. In addition potential contractors/suppliers may be excluded from the competition for contracts where they have been found to be failing to comply with legislation designed to promote social objectives, which would of course include anti-discrimination provisions. There is also nothing preventing contracting authorities from including ‘social preferences’ in the award of contracts whose value falls below the thresholds for the application of the Commission’s Directives, ‘provided that they are extended without discrimination to all Community nationals with the same characteristics’ (ibid: 40). Environmental protection has greater possibilities because it can be built into the technical criteria of contracts. Nevertheless, the Commission recognises the limitations of the current framework and it is clear that further developments will take place as the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified. The action plan against racism, for example, identifies public procurement as one of the sectors which could make ‘a particularly useful contribution’ in ‘mainstreaming’ the fight against racism (Commission of the European Communities 1998). Albeit late in the day, at least the Commission has begun to recognise that Europe has a growing problem of racism, even if it cannot—as guardian of the single market policy—comprehend the connection between a European free market and

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a ‘racist Europe’ (see Fekete and Webber 1994; Tomlinson 1995b). It is in the light of such developments that PE is so disappointing. Instead of taking a lead at the European level in the development of equality policies through government purchasing power, Britain has chosen to hide behind a conservative interpretation o f existing procurement Directives so as to limit the scope of affirmative action (for further discussion see Committee on the Adm inistration o f Justice 1996: 22 ). As promised in the Belfast Agreement, PE proposes the creation o f a unified Equality Commission to replace a number o f existing bodies: the F a ir E m ploym ent C om m ission, the E qual O p p o rtu n itie s Commission for Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Disability Council and the Commission for Racial Equality for Northern Ireland. This represents institutional reform rather than legislative integration because it is not proposed to codify all forms o f anti-discrimination law into a single statute at this stage. The SACHR review considered this amalgamation, which has been raised as a possibility on a number of occasions in the past, but rejected it in favour of reviewing the workings of the separate bodies under any new legislation following the review. PE not only proposes a single equality agency but argues that the Equality Commission should be responsible for overseeing a new statutory requirement on government departments and public bodies to promote equality of opportunity. This reflects the SACHR recommendation referred to above that PAFT should be placed on a legal footing and that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland would be given direct responsibility for oversight through the Central Community Relations Unit. PE rejects this structure, proposing instead that the Equality Commission assumes responsibility for the statutory version o f PAFT. Unless resourced appropriately, the PE framework o f accountability for PAFT is weaker that the SACHR proposal. PE does, however, follow the SACHR model for the implementation o f New TSN. The White Paper stated that the Secretary of State should assume direct responsibility for TSN via the Central Community Relations Unit which would report annually on the implementation and progress o f New TSN. It also proposes to re-focus TSN towards ‘problems of unemployment and employability’ (1998: 29) and, without making specific targets, followed the SACHR’s recommendation that an increasing proportion of departmental budgets should be targeted th rough TSN o bjectives and designated areas. F o llo w in g the

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establishment of the Social Exclusion Unit within the London Cabinet Office, PE outlines a similar initiative for Northern Ireland—Promoting Social Exclusion—to be placed under the umbrella o f New TSN. Equality and full employment There is an interesting tension in Partnership fo r Equality between an agenda for employment equality tailored towards the particular social circumstances within Northern Ireland and the British policy agenda of the New Labour government. This tension is further reflected in the text of the Belfast Agreement which commits the British and Irish governments to implement constitutional changes and a number of human rights measures. In a literal sense, the passage of the Partnership fo r Equality White Paper into law fulfils the British government’s pledge in the Belfast Agreement to extend anti-discrimination law, to produce a more focused TSN initiative and to tackle the unemployment differential. But whether any of this will be effective in delivering greater employment equality and eradicating unequal unemployment remains questionable because of the limitations being placed on employment equality policy by a range of economic and political factors. As we have seen, the lack of equality on many levels between Catholics and Protestants is at its starkest at the top and bottom ends of the labour market, within the ‘security industry’ and among senior civil servants. In the context of existing Northern Ireland labour market patterns, therefore, employment equality requires an attack on the unemployment differential, unemployment and underemployment per se, the radical transformation of the security industry and the civil service, and continuing attention to inequalities within the higher levels of manufacturing industry, commerce and services. This presents a complex agenda— part local, part international— involving constitutional and political issues as well as questions of economic and social policy. At the local level, the implementation of Partnership fo r Equality will strengthen fair employment provisions to a certain extent but the White Paper falls far short of the recommendations which emerged from the SACHR review, and the government’s proposals are already subject to widespread criticism (see Economic Bulletin 1998). The failure to develop ‘contract com pliance’ as a weapon in the fight against unequal unemployment is particularly disappointing. ‘National security’ exemptions will remain, though are likely to be subject to a judicial element following

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the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling discussed in Chapter 3. Scepticism surrounds the proposed remodelling of PAFT and New TSN, and in the light of the Belfast Agreement’s provisions for a Northern Assembly, cross-border and intergovernmental bodies, there is considerable ambiguity over where responsibility and political authority for equality issues will lie. The traditional antipathy of Unionism to fair employment measures (as exemplified in the ‘Note by Dissenting Member’ attached to the SACHR review) means that the spirit and intentions of any new legislative and institutional initiatives will be contested within the Assembly and the Executive Committee. In theory, it is possible for the Assembly to agree to the setting up of a new equality ministry with a strong equality-proofing brief across the range of government departments. There may also be scope for a certain amount of redistribution of expenditure priorities in keeping w ith the objectives o f em ploym ent equality. But any developments on either front will be hard-won. As in the past, the equality agenda is more likely to progress on the basis of external institutional and political influences, including those in the US and Europe. Increasingly, anti-discrimination policies are being monitored and tested under human rights provisions at European and United Nations levels. Critics of the latest equality initiatives will therefore be concerned to ensure that the new Northern Ireland Human Rights Com m ission and the equivalent Dublin-based Commission, both promised in the Belfast Agreement, will have more authority than the existing Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights whose recommendations are frequently ignored by governments, as we have seen. I f U nionism represents one restraint on com bating unequal unemployment within Northern Ireland, the framework o f current British social and economic policies represents another. Throughout this book we have been critical of the way the problem of unemployment has been subordinated to other economic and social objectives in government policies over the past two decades. This is not, o f course, entirely a matter of national choice. As members of the European Union, both Britain and Ireland are subject to the public finance and currency stability disciplines designed to produce economic convergence and monetary union, and to keep inflation down. But the two countries have developed somewhat different political cultures in relation to the European project, reflecting in part the Unionist/Nationalist orientations

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within Northern Ireland itself. Since 1972, Irish governments have been more obviously pro-European than their British counterparts and have developed a rhetoric of concern around unemployment and poverty which is to a certain extent backed up by corporatist political practice. This has not solved the problem of unemployment, even if it has given rise to some interesting and flexible policies, but neither has B ritain’s generally anti-European and deregulatory approach to economic and social policies. The latter was certainly influential in the deflationary monetarism of the Maastricht Treaty, notwithstanding Britain’s optout regarding the Social Chapter. From Northern Ireland’s point o f view, in other words, neither a strengthening of the union with Britain nor greater progress towards Irish unity can provide a decisive solution to unemployment, even if many recent economic trends and factors point to the latter as the best option. Neither Britain nor Ireland can hope to achieve full employment while the European and broader international consensus continues to prioritise global economic liberalisation and inflation management. Attacking unemployment not only involves tackling demand management, developing industrial capacity and sk illing at national and regional levels, but also estab lish in g international economic and financial regimes to facilitate expansion and stability (Grieve Smith 1997a: 224). As an entity, Northern Ireland possesses minimal economic sovereignty and the establishment of an Assembly will do little to alter this in the short­ term since the Belfast Agreement makes it clear that taxation powers remain centralised at Westminster, along with the control of overall budgets, especially law and order. In public expenditure terms, Northern Ireland is heavily subsidised by Britain, partly because of the ‘war economy’ but mainly because of the convention since 1949 that the British Exchequer will meet higher levels of social need on the basis of parity o f social provision (see Tomlinson 1995c). Indeed, Partnership fo r Equality rejects SACHR’s recommendation to review primary and secondary legislation for impediments to the successful implementation of TSN, and for open debate on the parity principle ‘if divergence would be advantageous to Northern Ireland and if locally-determined solutions would be superior’ (SACHR 1997: 63-4). This flirtation with greater local democratic input is dismissed by PE as follows: [...] the G overnm ent m ust also acknow ledge that m any departm ental programmes, such as social security provision, are effectively determined at national level and in others, notably agricultural support, policy is to a large

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extent determined at EU level... The principle of parity works overall in Northern Ireland’s favour and calling into question aspects o f the principle may not be, in the long term, in its best interests. (1998: 30-1)

This statement clearly warns against challenging existing constitutional arrangements regarding the financing of Northern Ireland, and suggests that the only democratic input to the economy must come from Northern Ireland’s 18 MPs sitting in the 659-strong House of Commons (a 2.7 per cent presence). While this may satisfy Unionists, Nationalists see more prospects in Northern elected representatives constituting up to 30 per cent of an all-Ireland parliament. With respect to the unequal unemployed, then, the immediate challenge following the B elfast A greem ent is to ensure that specific antidiscrimination measures, and general economic and social policies, take up a position of combating unemployment and underemployment as the foremost of priorities. This requires a radical reorientation of the decision-making culture of those private and public sector institutions w hich influence the structure and distribution o f labour market opportunities.

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Index absenteeism 136 academics 80 ACE see Action for Community Employment Action for Community Employment 84, 119123, 127 active labour market policy 4, 53, 122 Adam Smith 32 Adams, Gerry 6 Adults in Training 119, 123 advertising 73-4 AFDC see Aid to Families with Dependent Children affirmative action 9, 19, 25-6, 28, 29-32, 356, 39, 40, 42, 66-7, 69, 72-4, 78, 81-2, 143-4, 146,150,152 see also positive action Africa 13 African-Americans 10, 11, 13 age 88 Aid to Families with Dependent Children 17, 18, 5 3 ,5 5 ,5 6 ‘aliens’ 12 Aliens Act (1905) 13 Americans 12 black 65, 80 native 11 Amsterdam Treaty 151 Anglo-Irish relations 7 anti-colonialism 13 in Ireland 14 anti-discrimination policy 5-7, 9, 18-20, 22, 25, 30, 35, 38-9, 72, 142, 149, 154 anti-racism 33 apartheid 3 Armstrong 82, 100 army see British Army Arrow 19-20 asbestos 76 Asia 13 Asylum and Immigration 39 Australia 49, 53, 58 backlash 5 ,9 ,3 0 ,1 4 3 -4 and individualism 32-43 Banton 21 -22 Becker 19-21

Belfast 62 Belfast Agreement 7, 106, 149, 152-56 Belfast Corporation 63 Belgium 79 B ell Curve 39-41 benefit levels 109, 110 benefits fraud 113 in-work 50,51, 108, 112, 121 ‘benefits-plus’ 125-27 Bergmann 28-9, 30, 37, 39 biological inferiority 5 ‘black codes’ 10 black economy see informal economy black men/males 38, 39 black middle class 37 black people 5, 10, 11, 12, 15, 1 7 ,2 7 ,3 5 ,8 0 black power 18 Black Studies 34 black vote 12 black women/females 18, 38 black workers 20, 23, 26 unionisation o f 37 Blair, Prime Minister 7 Breen 81-2 Britain 1, 7, 8, 12, 13, 15, 30, 31,32, 36, 39, 41, 43, 52, 53, 54, 56, 60, 61, 81, 118, 141, 142, 144, 154, 155 British Army 2, 13, 66, 106, 146 British Empire 12, 14, 27 British government 7, 70, 78, 149, 155 British policy 14,27 British subjects 12 Brooke, Sir Basil 63 Budd 56 business, minority 29 CAB see Citizen’s Advice Bureau Cabinet Office 153 California 11 Cameron Commission 64-6,143 Canada 12,49 Cardiff 13 Careers Officers 103,104 Catholics 1-7, 14, 15, 23, 61, 63-4, 69, 71, 73-5, 77, 79, 80, 90, 92, 94, 98, 100,

174

Index 175 104, 106, 107, 109, 111, 114, 116, 117, 129,145-6 in United States 12 ceasefires 106 Census 1971 70 1981 70 1991 8 7 ,9 0 ,1 4 5 2011 149 Central Community Relations Unit 78, 148, 152 Chambers 23, 69, 81, 117 Chicago 20 child care 58, 102, 124, 127, 128 children 87, 89-90, 93, 98, 101, 103, 107, 109, 110, 116, 121, 125, 128, 136 ‘chill’ factor 105 Chinese 11, 13 Citizen’s Advice Bureau 96 citizenship British 33 United States 10 City West Action Board 127 civil rights 18 movement 65, 144 Civil Rights Act (1866) 10 (1875) 11 (1964) 2 4 ,2 6 ,6 9 (1972) 26, 142 Civil Rights Commission 32 Civil Service 68, 144 Northern Ireland 143, 146 Civil War, American 11 Claimant Advisors 103 claimant count 78, 79, 86, 95 claimants 6, 50, 79, 86, 95 class 5, 1 6 ,2 2 ,3 7 ,3 9 ,4 2 Cloward 18 Coleraine 64 Collinson 21 colonialism 41 colour bar 13 ‘colour blind’ 10, 11,39 Commission for Racial Equality 28, 72 Commission for Racial Equality for Northern Ireland 152 Committee on Sterilization 16 Community Programme 119, 120 Community Relations Commission 28 Community Work Experience Programmes 55 Community Work Programme 6, 86, 118-130

competence 54 competition 20,58 labour market 23 competitiveness 48 Compton 81 compulsion 53-8, 86, 119, 123 compulsory competitive tendering 148 Congress (US) 11,23,27 consent 94-6 conservatism 5 ,34 Conservative government 31, 47, 4 8 ,4 9 constitution Northern Ireland 149,156 United States 10-12,15 Fifteenth Amendment 11 Fourteenth Amendment 10 Thirteenth Amendment 10 constitutional change 149 contract compliance 31, 33, 74, 75, 153 Contract Compliance Unit 31 contractors 25, 29, 33, 146, 151 Craigavon, Lord 63 Cranfield 50 crime 10, 15, 142 Crow see Jim Crow culture o f poverty 16, 54 CWP see Community Work Programme Data Protection Registrar 96 Davidson 92 Dawes 101,110,132 DEA see District Electoral Areas decolonisation 27 demand 4 ,1 9 ,5 8 ,8 0 ,1 5 0 ,1 5 5 labour 45, 47, 60 demilitarisation 149 Department for Education and Employment 59 Department o f Agriculture for Northern Ireland 147 Department o f Economic Development

71,

122 Statistics Branch 95 Department o f Finance and Personnel 148 Department o f Health, Education and Welfare 18 Department o f Social Security 95 Department o f the Environment 76, 77 dependency culture 35, 39 deregulation 32, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 Derry 64

176

The Unequal Unemployed

disabilities 120 Disability Council 152 disabled 88,92 Disabled Persons (Employment) Act (1944) 30 discouraged workers 51, 84, 98, 99, 116 discrimination 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9-43, 61, 63, 65, 70, 75,77, 117, 142-5, 149 anti-Catholic 15 anti-Protestant 82 concepts o f 19-22 culture o f 63 definitions 21-2, 27, 72 direct 11, 1 8 ,6 6 ,6 8 ,7 1 ,7 3 ,8 0 -2 indirect 11, 19, 26, 28, 71, 73, 74, 80-2 job 40 local government 64-5 provision of services 28, 77 racial 37,38 reverse 26, 30, 36, 37 statistical 43 structural 77 ‘taste’ model 19 training 53 working party 66 dismissal 72 disparate impact 26 District Electoral Areas 95 divorce 17 ‘doing-the-double’ see informal economy Dublin 63 duration o f unemployment 86, 88-91, 94-5, 98, 100, 104, 107, 110 earnings disregard 108, 114, 115 economic activity 75, 145 economic development 29, 61, 64, 67, 77, 143 economic inactivity 45, 49, 84, 145 economic justice 77, 143 economic policy 4 ,4 5 , 46, 60, 141, 155 economic sovereignty 155 economic status 86, 88 economics 41 economists 19, 20, 21,43, 46, 48, 107 neoclassical 85 economy, modernisation o f 64 education 6, 38, 64, 67, 86, 90-1, 143 Edwards 26, 29-30, 42, 73 Ellwood 54 emigration 61

employees 19, 72 immigration status 39 employers 6, 7, 19, 29, 30, 31, 53, 55, 58, 59, 60, 68, 69, 71, 75, 77, 85, 100, 120, 147 and long-term unemployed 131-140 discrimination 20 equal opportunity 68 in West Belfast 133-140 employment 28, 38, 48, 50, 58, 65, 77, 83 equality 80, 145, 154 equality models 24, 73 equity 83 growth 60 part-time 83, 101, 102 private sector 71 protection 47 public sector 61 rate 60 rights 47 status of partner 102 schemes 6,105,118-125 Employment Action 119 Employment Committee 55 Employment Service 56, 59 Employment Training 119 enforcement 72 Enterprise Ulster 119, 123 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 25, 27, 32 equal pay 24 Equal Pay Act ( 1970) 69 equal opportunities 24, 73, 147 ‘industry’ 5 policy 22, 28, 32, 36, 41, 144, 146 Equal Opportunities Commission 72, 152 equal treatment 23, 73 equality 1 0 ,1 5 ,6 5 ,1 4 8 ‘colourblind’ 10, 11 economic 7 employment law models 24 o f opportunity 5, 9,22-3, 26, 32, 69, 152 o f outcome 77 political 8 equality proofing 143,147,154 Equality Commission 149,152 eugenics 16 Europe 1 3 ,4 8 ,5 2 ,7 2 European Commission 48, 150, 151 European Commission on Human Rights 76 European Convention on Human Rights 77

Index i l l European Court o f Human Rights 76, 77, 153 European Union 1, 53, 78, 79, 150, 154, 156 ‘Eurosclerosis’ 48 Evason 92,93 Eversley 80 fair employment 7, 21, 61 -2, 66, 81, 129, 145 law 77,79 policy 6 2 ,7 8 ,8 1 , 144, 146 Fair Employment Act ( 1976) 28, 68-71, 83, 84, 142, 144 (1989) 2 8 ,3 1 ,6 8 , 71 -8, 79, 81, 84, 134, 143-6, 148 review o f 77 section 42 75, 76, 77 Fair Employment Agency 68, 69, 76, 143 Fair Employment Commission 71, 76, 77, 145,146, 152 Fair Employment Tribunal 75,146 ‘fair participation’ 72, 73, 75 fair treatment 147 Falls, Lower 95 Upper 95 Family Credit 108, 111, 113, 121 family size 108,116 Fermanagh 118, 122 fertility 82 Fifteenth Amendment see constitution Finland 78 Florida 11 Fourteenth Amendment see constitution franchise 64 fraud 113 free market 20, 33, 3 9 ,4 2 ,4 6 , 142, 150, 152 Freedmen’s Bureau Act ( 1866) 10 freedom, individual 32 Freidman 21 French revolution 13 Fryer 92 full employment 4, 45, 61, 141, 142, 155 GAIN programme 53 Galbraith 18 Galton 16 Gardiner 58 gender 9, 19, 21, 22, 31, 35, 37, 38, 39, 42, 86, 88, 97, 101, 102, 103, 105, 110, 142, 147 general intelligence 40 Georgia 18 Germans 13

Gillespie 82 Glasgow 133 Glasgow Works 59 goals and timetables 29, 30, 36, 77 Godley 46 Government o f Ireland Act (1920) 15, 62 Greater London Council 31 Green 119 Green, Arthur 143 Grieve Smith 60 Griggs case 26-7 group rights 23, 37, 39, 42 growth centres 64 Gudgin 81, 82 gypsies 5 Hakim 113 Harbour Board 63 Harrington 18,35 health 86,91-3,97, 114 health and safety 20 Hermstein 39-40,44 High Court 76 Hispanics 80 home rule 62 Hoskins-Leicester model 131 household costs 110 size 86,87-8 housing 2 8 ,6 4 ,1 0 7 public 65 Housing Benefit 121 Hull 55 human capital 21, 52 human rights 149 Human Rights Commission 154 illegitimacy 17 immigrants 16 Irish 16 new commonwealth 27 immigration 13 Immigration Acts 27 incentives 85 income inequalities 141-2 low 91 out-of-work 51 income tax 49 Income Support 108, 114, 116, 120, 121 Indians 11

178

The Unequal Unemployed

individualism 9, 150 and backlash 32-43 industrial capacity 155 industrial training 67 industrial sites 64 Industrial Development Board 77,137 inequality 4, 16, 18, 22, 39, 41, 42, 142 class 37 ethnic 23 gender 9 ,2 3 o f opportunity 67 racial 9, 17 inferiority 35 ‘racial’ 15 o f women 29 inflation 4, 45, 46, 47, 60, 141, 154 non-accelerating inflation rate o f unemployment (NAIRU) 46 informal economy 97,113-5,116,118 Institute for Employment 59 intelligence 42 and ‘race’ 40 general 40 internment 66 intimidation 4, 6, 12, 62, 99, 105-7, 116, 117 IQ 40 IRA 2 ,6 4 ,7 6 ,1 4 4 Ireland 7 ,8 ,4 1 ,7 8 ,7 9 , 154 Irish government 7 ,1 4 9 ,1 5 5 Irish immigrants 16 Irish racism towards 12,13 Irish separatism 6, 14 Irish unity 155 Italy 79 Jahoda 92 Jenkins 41 Jewish settlers 13 Jews 12 Johnson, President 10, 80 Jim Crow 42 laws 11 JobCentres 103 Job Clubs 103, 104, 105, 134 job creation 78,139 job interviews 29, 30 job location 117 job search 4, 6, 50, 85, 97, 98, 100, 101, 116, 118 and intimidation 105-7

and religion 99 job segregation 37, 38 Job Training Programme 119, 123, 138 Jobfinder’s Grant 58 Jobmatch 58 Jobseeker’s Act (1996) 55, 56, 119, 120, 135, 137 Jobseeker ’s Allowance 128 Jobskills Programme 119, 120, 121, 123, 141 judicial review 76 justice 149 economic 77 social 32,41 Kennedy, President 80 Kentucky 11 Keynesianism 4 ,3 2 KuKluxKlan 10,12 labour demand for 60,130,131 local 29,74, 131, 137 supply o f 4, 48 labour discipline 18 labour force growth 81 participation 49 Labour Force Survey 78, 79 religion reports 84 Labour government 115, 119, 120, 137 labour market 37, 81, 83, 102, 141 ‘active’ 45, 47, 53 competition 23, 47, 58 demand 80 deregulation 32,47-50, 51 differentials 21 discrimination 9, 19 expectations 113, 116 free 47 inequalities 3, 4, 83 intermediate 58,60 monitoring 68 monopsonistic 20 neoclassical model 20 policy 4 ,4 5 , 131, 139 postwar 27 rigidities 47 security-related employment 3 segmented 60 statistics 68 supply 80,1 1 8 ,1 3 9

Index 179 United States 38, 49 women returners 58 young entrants 58 land ownership Catholic 14 Layard 56 League o f Coloured Peoples 13 Lee 14 Lewis 16 linen mills 62 literacy tests 11 Liverpool 13 Local Enterprise Development Unit local labour 29,74, 131, 137 local government 29, 32, 64 Local Government Act 33 location o f industry 68 London 13, 148, 153 Londonderry County Borough 64 lone parents 57-8,114 low paid 48 low pay 50 loyalists 63 killings 2 LTU see unemployment Lurgan 64 Lynch 36 Maastricht Treaty 155 MacBride Principles 70, 144 Maguire 132 Maidstone 55 Major, Prime Minister 7, 54, 122 marital status 88 market deregulation 5 discrimination 21 Marshall 59 McCormack 144 McCrudden 38,62 McElduff brothers 76 McLaughlin 110 Mead 53, 55, 56 Meager 133 Medway 55 mental health 91-3 meritocracy 40 Merseyside 78 Metcalf 133 metropolitan racism 14 Michie 47,51

middle class 43, 75 migration 81, 82 minimumwage 7 ,4 8 ,1 1 1 ,1 1 5 ,1 3 7 minority business 29 monetarism 4, 39, 46, 48 monitoring 31, 68, 72, 83, 143, 147 Moreno 27 Murphy 82, 100 Murray 35, 37, 39, 41, 44, 53, 81 Muslims 5 Myrdal 17-18,24-5,42 77

NAIRU see inflation National Insurance 58, 95, 137 National Labour Relations Board 25 national security 69, 75, 149, 153 National Unemployment Benefit System 95 nationalism British 33 Irish 144 nationalists Irish 6 4 ,8 2 ,1 5 6 ‘natives’ 14 Naturalisation Act 12 ‘never employed’ 7 never worked 93-4, 141 New Deal 5 6 ,5 8 ,5 9 , 103, 118, 120, 123, 128, 137,150 New Labour 7,150,151 New Right 3 2,33,41 new towns 64 Newcastle-on-Tyne 95 Newry 64 NIEC see Northern Ireland Economic Council Nisbett 40 nondiscrimination 26 non-employment 49 North Belfast 6 Northern Ireland 1-7, 14-15, 23, 42, 60, 63-5, 70, 73, 78-81, 83-7, 93-4, 96, 106-108, 110, 113, 117, 120, 141, 142, 148, 153-

6 Northern Ireland Civil Service 143, 144, 146 Northern Ireland Disability Council 152 Northern Ireland Economic Council 103, 111 Northern Ireland Electricity 76 Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission 154 Northern Ireland Office 66, 78, 81, 147 NUBS see National Unemployment Benefit System

180

The Unequal Unemployed

nursery schools

120

OECD see Organisation for Economic Co­ operation and Development O ’Hara 144 Orange Order 14 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 45,49,1 1 8 ,1 4 1 Osborne 147,148 PAFT see Policy Appraisal and Fair Treatment 78, 145, 147, 148, 152, 153 parity principle 155 part-time employment 83, 101, 102 part-time workers 72 partition o f Ireland 14,62,63 P artnership f o r Equality (White Paper) 149156 patriarchy 41 peace, economic consequences of 3 penal laws 14 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (1996) 56,142 physical health 91-3 Piven 18 police 3 4 ,6 3 ,6 5 , 106, 146 policing 149 Polish immigrants 16 political correctness 41 Poor Law, English 18 population growth 83 Portadown 64 positive action 28 se e also affirmative action positive discrimination 63 poverty 16, 1 8 ,35,53, 155 Powell 27 preferential treatment 30, 36 Prison Service private sector 67, 71 privatisation 48 Project Work 55 Promoting Social Exclusion 153 promotion 25, 29, 30, 72 Protestants 1-4, 6, 7, 14, 15, 23,42, 61, 64-5, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 80, 86, 90, 95, 98, 100, 104, 106, 107, 109, 111, 114, 116, 117, 129, 145, 146 public expenditure 3, 30, 45, 129, 147, 148, 154, 155

public public public public public public

interest 75, 76 interest immunity certificate order 69, 75 procurement safety 75 sector 6 7 ,1 4 6 ,1 5 0

76

questionnaire 86,95-6 ‘quit’ rates 81 quotas 30,36 Reagan, President 32, 41, 143 ‘race’ 4 ,5 ,9 , 11, 1 9 ,2 1 ,3 8 ,4 2 , 142, 147 declining significance o f 37 ‘race conscious’ 10,11 ‘race riots’ 13 race relations 27, 77, 142 Race Relations Act ( 1965) 28 (1968) 13 (1976) 2 8 ,2 9 ,3 0 ,3 1 ,3 3 Race Relations Board 28 racism 11, 12, 13, 14, 1 8 ,2 7 ,3 3 ,3 4 ,4 1 ,4 2 , 143, 151 institutionalised 12 scientific 12 recruitment 36, 72, 74, 117, 131 practices 134-5 professionalisation o f 30,134 word-of-mouth 26, 134 redundancy 72-4 regional planning 67, 143 religion 86, 88, 90, 95, 97, 101-5, 110 and job search 99 replacement rates 50-1, 107-113 reservation wages 85, 97, 109, 110-3, 115-6, 137 residential segregation 3 Restart 103, 104 Retail Price Index 114 right to vote 11,62 right to work 141 rights employment 47 group 23, 37, 39,42 human 149 individual 23 Royal Irish Regiment 2 Royal Ulster Constabulary 2, 66 SACHR see Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights

Index 181 Scarman Inquiry 143 scientific racism 12, 15, 39-41 Scotland 59 Scruton 34 Secretary o f State 75, 76, 78, 148, 152 security 77, 145 segregation 3, 11, 12, 25, 37, 38, 102, 142 Select Committee on Education and Employment 59 self-government 35 Senate (US) 23 ‘separate but equal ’ 12 settler racism 13 ‘settlers’ 13, 14 Sex Discrimination Act (1975) 28, 69 sexism 3 4 ,4 1 ,4 2 ,1 4 3 sexual harassment 105 Shankill Road 6 Shire 39 Sheffield 131 shipyards 62 sick 88 sick and disabled 92 sickness, long-term 84 single market 150-1 Sinn Féin 6, 70 skills 4, 52-3, 55, 74, 119, 122, 124, 135, 138, 155 slave trade 12 slavery 9, 10, 12, 15, 16,41, 142 Smith 2 3 ,3 7 ,6 9 ,8 1 , 117 Social Chapter (Maastricht Treaty) 155 social disorganisation 17 social engineering 5, 35 social exclusion 1 Social Exclusion Unit 153 social justice 3 2 ,4 1 ,1 4 3 ‘social preferences ’ 151 social sciences 15, 18, 27 social security 45 and compulsion 53 benefits 6, 47, 50, 101, 103, 142 reform o f 86 Social Security Act (1935) (US) 17 (1986) (Britain) 54, 121 Social Security Advisory Committee 108 Social Security Agency 95-6, 116 sociologists 19 sociology 34 ,3 5 ,4 1 South Africa 70 sovereignty 10 economic 155

Spain 78 Special Powers Act 66 SS A see Social Security Agency Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights 7 ,7 1 ,7 8 -9 ,8 1 -2 , 117, 144-8, 150,152, 154 Stormont 63, 65, 66, 71, 144 Strabane 118, 122 Sullivan Principles 70 supply 19, 39, 46, 80, 118, 131, 140 Supreme Court (US) 11,27, 32 Sweden 49 Targeting Social Need 78, 145, 147, 149, 155, New TSN 152,153 T&EA see Training and Employment Agency Temporary Assistance for Needy Families 56 tendering 148 Thatcher 3 2 ,3 3 ,4 1 ,4 6 ,1 4 3 Thirteenth Amendment see constitution timekeeping 136 Tinnelly & Sons 76 Townsend 92 trade unions 20, 47,4 8 training 6, 29, 31, 45, 53, 55, 57-9, 67, 69, 72-4, 141, 143 and employment schemes 118-125 and intimidation 105 pre-employment 139 Training and Employment Agency 77, 103-4, 116, 120-1, 125, 129, 137, 139 Training for Work Programme 118 Travellers 5 TSN see Targeting Social Need Tyneside 13 Ulster Special Constabulary 66 Ulster Unionist Party 82 underclass 5 ,3 2 ,3 5 ,4 1 ,8 1 black 37 underrepresentation 29-31 unemployed 7 ,35,151 and informal economy 113-5 Catholics 69 claimant count 78 long-term 6, 58, 60, 74, 75, 79, 81, 84-5, 86-96, 98, 100-3, 108, 116-8, 125, 127, 132-41 loyalists 63 never worked 93-4 short-term 58, 60, 84, 94 survey o f 86

182

The Unequal Unemployed

unequal 1,4 unemployment 1, 3, 7, 25, 37, 38, 42, 48, 56, 67, 74, 83, 118, 128, 142, 155 acceptability o f 4 and age 86, 88 and discrimination 97-117 and education 90-1 and fair employment 61 -85 and informal economy 113 differential 38-9, 44, 61-2, 70, 77, 78, 79, 81, 84, 144, 149, 150 duration 59, 86, 88-91, 94-5, 98, 100, 104, 107 in Britain 45 in Europe 45 in Ireland 45 long-term 4, 6, 41-2, 45, 48, 51-3, 56-8, 61-2, 78, 84, 116 non-accelerating inflation rate o f 46 Northern Ireland 61 policies 45-60 rates 4 5 ,5 7 ,6 1 ,7 8 -9 ,8 3 -4 , 139 Catholic 70 ratio 81 responsibility for 50 short-term 84 skilling/training 52-3 statistics 4 9 ,6 0 unequal 5, 78-85, 129, 131, 149, 153 young people 39, 56 Unionism 6, 14, 61, 63, 64, 144, 153 Unionist government 66 Unionist Party 63 Unionists 82, 143, 156 unions se e trade unions UNISON 148 United Irish Society 13 United Nations 9, 154 United Kingdom 49, 54, 58, 59, 78, 79, 85, 95, 108, 121, 147, 148, 150 United States 1, 2, 4, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 27, 30, 31, 36, 39, 41-3, 48-9, 53-6, 70, 74, 80, 81, 128, 138, 142, 144, 149, 154 Universal Declaration o f Human Rights 9, 141 Urban Institute 39 urban revolt 18 van Straubenzee Report 66-9, 74, 142 violence 76 in workplace 105 labour market effects 2-4

racist 34 supporter o f 75 white on black people voting rights 11, 62, 64

11,27

wage councils 48 differentials 21 flexibility 107-115 minimum 48 wages 37-8,47 low 38 reservation 85 War, Second World 25 ‘war economy’ 155 War o f Independence, American 12 War on Poverty 18 Water Commission 63 Webster 56-8 welfare state 35, 61, 108, 142 ‘welfare-to-work’ 45, 53, 56-8 costs of 58 West Belfast 6, 7, 86, 90-1, 93-5, 97-8, 100-1, 105-6, 109, 1 1 1 ,115-130, 131-141 West Midlands 31 Westminster 77, 155 White 109,112 white America 16 white people 10, 42, 80 white males/men 36, 38, 39 white women 38 white workers 20, 23, 26 Wilkinson 47, 51 Wilson, Harold 65 Wilson, Tom 64 Wilson, W J. 37 Wise Group 59 women workers 72 women’s centres 120 women’s rights 18, 34 Women’s Studies 34 work discipline 59 work experience 118 work histories 6 ,1 0 2 ,1 3 9 Work Trials 59 workfare 53-5 young unemployed 52, 56, 120 Youth Training Programme 119, 123, 138 Youth Training Scheme 52, 118