ERC Report …
No policies to address discrimination, equal employment opportunity in Region Four
Kaieteur News
March 25, 2007
Research data has shown that the majority of organisations in the public and private sectors and trade unions in Region Four have policies to address recruitment, promotion, appraisals, transfers and termination of services.
However, policies to address non-discrimination and equal employment opportunity seem to be lacking in many of the organisations.
This is according to a report released by the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), which studied employment practices in the private, public and trade union organisations across Region Four between August 2001 and August 2006.
According to the study, many organisations did not “very often” follow the established policies of recruitment, promotion, appraisals, transfers and termination to guide their recruitment and promotional practices.
Employers have differing positions on the notion that some employers have a tendency of hiring people of their own race first. Many of them strongly agree, the report stated.
Pamela Rodney, who conducted the research, said in the executive summary that an overall majority of the human resources personnel practitioners strongly agree that employers should attempt to employ all racial groups.
She noted that the majority of human resource personnel practitioners never assigned positions to persons based on social characteristics of age, religion, sex nor ethnicity.
Data showed that at least half of the human resource personnel practitioners use special criteria for hiring applicants.
The trade union representatives also attested to this as did 67 percent of the practitioners in the private sector.
None of the participating organisations in the public and private sectors or trade union organisations appeared to utilise social characteristics of marital status, ethnicity or religion as a requirement for employment.
However, 20 percent of those surveyed used gender/sex as a requirement. Some 33 percent of the public sector and 17 percent of private sector organisations attested to this. Research data further suggests that human resource personnel practitioners in the public and private sectors and trade union organisations never received complaints from employees of denial of favourable career moves because of age, race, religion, marital status or disability.
The majority of the organisations in the private sector in Region Four do have procedures for addressing reports of disciplinary matters, grievances, absence due to sickness, pregnancy benefits and exit notices.
However, the majority--83 percent of them—do not have procedures for addressing discrimination.
The majority of organisations in the public sector have procedures for addressing reports of disciplinary matters and absence due to sickness or other reasons, but they are without procedures for addressing grievances, pregnancy benefits and exit notices.
As is the case with the private sector, no organisation in the public sector has procedures for addressing reports of discrimination.
The research found that the most common recruitment methods through which employees were recruited were recommendations followed by resume2 and walk-ins.
Employees in the participating organisations in Region Four stated that the most common basis of employees' selection was academic qualification (42 percent) more than any other.
The majority of the employees in the participating sectors believed that neither age, sex nor other social characteristics were requirements for their jobs.
All the respondents in the private sector felt they were overlooked for scholarships and transfers, while a large majority of them felt they were overlooked for promotion.
“There seemed to be little concerted effort within the public and private sectors and trade unions in Region Four to provide equitable distribution of employment to the different ethnic groups in Guyana, over the period August 2001 to August 2006,” the study found.
The study is expected to be presented to the National Assembly shortly.
Chairman of the ERC, Bishop Juan Edghill stated that the research done in Region Four could be used to glean knowledge of employment practices at the national level.