Fortnight Publications Ltd.

[women in Labour]Author(s): Sheila HamiltonSource: Fortnight, No. 273 (May, 1989), p. 4Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25551938 .

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BRIEFING I Stairway to success?Ballybeen women, plus a token man, celebrate the opening of their new women's centre on the east Belfast estate. Their problems are given

too low a priority, says Jo Richardson (inset).

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"I THINK the battle for women's rights has largely been won," said Margaret Thatcher in 1987. Labour's conference for women at

Queen's last month made it

clear that nothing could be

further from the truth. The conference was de

signed to combat the mar

ginalisation of 'women's

issues' in The Way For

ward, Labour's last major policy document. As Jo

Richardson, the only woman in the shadow

cabinet, observed, "Every

thing is a woman's issue." But those perceived as

'women's issues'?health, social security, childcare?

tend to have a low priority. Many of the problems

raised by the 100-odd

participants?poverty and

the debt trap, contending with a man-made legal system and health service? concern women throughout the UK. Childcare emerged as a crucial factor in enab

ling women to work and

participate in public life. Other issues raised were

specific to Northern Ireland:

the Payment of Debt Act,

unavailability of abortion,

emigration, strip-searching, the Belfast Urban Area plan, and the role of the Catholic run Mater hospital in the

impending rationalisation of

gynaecology in the city. A transcript of the pro

ceedings can be obtained from Marjorie Mowlam MP

at the Commons.

Anyone interested in a

network to liaise with the

European Women's Lobby should contact Margaret

Kelly at NICVA or Bronagh Hinds at Gingerbread.

1 Sheila Hamilton

King needs to

pay a ransom THE Fair Employment Bill (Fort night 270) received its second read

ing at Westminster on January 31 st.

Labour said it was deficient and

joined the unionists?for different

reasons?in voting against it. The

SDLP abstained. Tom King was

reportedly furious.

The secretary of state had wanted

an agreed bill to present a united

front when addressing the growing MacBride principles campaign in

the United States. So the crucial

question through the committee

stage was whether the government would make sufficient concessions

to bring the Opposition on board.

At the time of writing this ques tion remained unanswered. Al

though the bill has emerged from committee the Labour party is still

pressing the government to table

amendments at the report stage to

meet its remaining objections. In committee the government

made two important concessions.

The bill has been amended to pro vide explicitly for 'goals and time

tables' to be introduced as part of

affirmative action programmes. The

government has also accepted the

Opposition argument that such pro

grammes need to be protected from

claims that they are themselves dis

criminatory because their intention

and impact is to benefit a religious

group. However, this protection has

only been applied to one type of

affirmative action?measures to

I encourage applications from mem

bers of an under-represented group. The main areas of dispute are:

Affirmative action. Labour wants

the protection for affirmative action

to be extended to permit training

programmes specifically designed to equip members of an under

represented group with the skills

they need to obtain employment. It

also wants employers to be allowed

to adopt a practice of recruiting un

employed people, which would dis

proportionately benefit Catholics.

Monitoring. The code of practice which accompanies the bill tells

employers how to monitor. They have only two methods at their dis

posal: to ask an employee their

religion or to examine personnel records to discover what school they attended. This is inadequate, Lab

our argues. Employees may refuse

to divulge their religion voluntarily and the practice of many employers in the past has been to clean person

nel records of information like

school history which would allow a

person to be so classified.

Individual remedies. Under the

bill victims of discrimination will not be able to secure the same reme

dies as under existing law. Compen sation will be limited to ?8,500 and the new Fair Employment Tribunal

will only be able to recommend

engagement, re-engagement, etc?

not require it. Labour does not want

individual remedies watered down.

Definition of indirect discrimin ation. Certain practices by firms

may work to the detriment of one

section of the community although this is not necessarily intended. A

firm with a predominantly Protest

ant workforce recruiting staff on the

recommendation of existing em

ployees may unjustifiably exclude

more Catholics than Protestants. The

government is legislating to pro hibit such discrimination but ac

cording to Labour will miss half the

mischief. Under the bill the firm which required employees to be

recommended by existing staff

would probably be guilty of indirect discrimination. A similar firm which

only preferred employees to be

recommended would however be

acting lawfully, even though the

actions of both firms would dispro

portionately exclude Catholics.

Review of national security cer

tificates. Where the government thinks that hearing a complaint of

religious discrimination may endan

ger 'national security' it will be able

to issue a certificate which halts

proceedings. Labour wants certifi

cates to be amenable to review by the courts to make sure they are not

issued on spurious grounds. It remains to be seen whether the

government makes concessions

which will persuade Labour and the

SDLP to vote for the bill, or at least

not vote against it. There are strong

arguments that in the absence of

proper monitoring to identify ine

quality of opportunity, and adequate

scope for affirmative action to end

that inequality, the main thrust of

the bill is undermined.

Jim Knox

Language difficulties

THE recent announcement

by the education minister, Brian Mawhinney, that he

intends abandoning his

controversial proposals on

the Irish language [Fortnight 269) has been widely ap

plauded. For many, this will

mark the end of a dispute that has lasted over a year.

Others, however, will see a

return to the status quo as

only the first step in a

campaign for greater govern ment support for Irish.

The original Department of Education discussion

document, Proposals for Re

form (March 1988) and the

revised draft, The Way For

ward (October 1988), pro

posed that Irish could only be studied in secondary schools in addition to

French, German or Spanish. And The Way Forward

recommended doing away with all second-language teaching at primary level.

Not surprisingly, the idea

that Irish and other lan

guages should take second

place to the three 'core'

4 May Fortnight

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