New Delhi
10 August 2006
Indian industry has said it is against any proposal that would affect
its freedom of choice in employment or hurt its competitiveness but Oversight Committee
Chairman Veerappa Moily feels Affirmative Action is "good business" and private sector
would do well to "change its mindset" and to emulate or customise a recent British
proposal to reject companies that bid for UK Government contracts if they do not employ
the ethnic minorities like Black and Asian workers.
Under a pilot project in the United Kingdom, the Ethnic Minority Employment Task Force
has proposed that companies wishing to bid for contracts with three agencies -- Job
Centre Plus, Identity and Passport Agency, and Department for Education and Skills --
would now have to submit information on the employment of ethnic minorities and
account for those figures. The Task Force has reported that one in 10 working age people
in the UK are of an ethnic minority background and 11.2 per cent ethnic minority people
are unemployed compared with only 4.6 per cent White people.
British Member of Parliament Keith Vaz, who is the chair of Labour Party Ethnic Minority
Task Force, said the proposal would require companies to justify the ethnic make-up of
their workforce in order to win public contracts. Mr Vaz said in an email, "Encouraging
companies to employ a workforce which reflects the diversity and strengths of modern
Britain would provide great social and economic benefits to this country. These
proposals do not amount to a quota system or positive discrimination. However, they do
ensure that companies recognise the impact their employment policies can have on a
local community."
"Tackling higher unemployment levels in [ethnic minorities] requires more than good
words, it requires concrete actions, and effective monitoring. The momentum behind
these proposals must not be lost. London won the 2012 Olympic Games on a platform of
diversity and inclusion. I hope this scheme will be extended to cover the contracts for
the 2012 games to ensure that the world witnesses a sporting spectacle organised by an
Olympic team representative of London and the wider United Kingdom," the British
parliamentarian of Indian-origin observed.
When contacted, Oversight Committee Chairman Veerappa Moily said Affirmative Action
helped to diversify business. "Business has not suffered on account of Affirmative
Action, it has prospered," he observed. He has not read much about the British proposal
or the Action Plan report recently released by Indian industry but maintained that it would
not hurt corporates to change their "mindset" and become "progressive" because many
American multinationals have found Affirmative Action to be good business.
Recently, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Associated Chambers of
Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) released a report titled "Proposed Concrete
Steps by Indian Industry on Affirmative Action for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes - CII-ASSOCHAM Action Plan", which said private industry is against "quota" as it
might affect "competitiveness of Indian Industry". The report, however, suggested
industry would be willing to improve the quality of education and to provide coaching
facilities to certain categories of students.
No comments:
Post a Comment