Roman Ružbacký
February 9, 2016
Reading through many superb diversity articles in 2015, as well as discrimination and sexual harassment complaints in the papers and the Australasian Legal Information Institute, it wasn’t difficult to predict where organisational diversity and inclusion practitioners would invest their resources. It was hard to find anything that showed the same kind of examination, urgency, rigour and measurement in the employment sector as the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Sage’s Athena Swan, Male Champions of Change or Pride in Diversity’s AWEI index. Good governance, compliance and a culture of non-exploitation would hopefully tackle the rise in employment activity discrimination. And, Unconscious Bias training, a more sophisticated anti-discrimination measure examining power and privilege, when done well, was quite effective.
Yet again in 2015, and for some time now, Age was generally seen as the ‘sleeper’, race and faith (whilst making the news headlines on a weekly basis) was still experiencing a high degree of complacency, and disability …. in the shadows (invisible). Mental health strategy – didn’t we talk about that a few years ago?
The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission’s annual reports shows the number of issues raised in relation to discrimination and sexual harassment, complaints lodged, the grounds for complaint and the area in which the alleged discrimination occurred (example, employment, education, goods and services, etc.). The Fair Work Ombudsman also has similar data, but has disappointingly only managed a few hundred discrimination complaints a year in recent years (based on their reports).
Table 1 below shows the total number of complaint lodged at the VEOHRC in the area of employment and the top five grounds for complaint in the past three years. Disability continues to top the list for as long as I can remember. The number of complaints between 2013 and 2015 was 344, 340 and 355 respectively. It would be interesting to know, where multiple grounds for complaints were reported, which of the grounds intersected.
Table 1. Top discrimination complaints lodged at VEOHRC
Table 1. Top discrimination complaints lodged at VEOHRC
Employment 2013 2014 2015
Disability 22% 22% 21%
Employment activity 11% 14% 11%
Sex 9% 7% 11%
Race 11% 11% 10%
Sexual harassment 10% 12% 10%
No. of complaints lodged 1574 1540 1670
Table 2 below shows the number of enquiries made (issued raised) and complaints lodged by Victorians to the VEOHRC and the grounds of alleged discrimination. The results were not disaggregated by area, for example, employment. Disability, once again, had the highest number of enquiries and complaints lodged.
Although the figures may suggest that information provided by the VEOHRC to people making enquiries may have been sufficient enough to resolve their issue, they may also indicate other deeper or systemic issues, often identified by complaints managers, advocates and support people.
These may include, being afraid to make a complaint, lack of confidence in lodging a complaint or in the system, fear of victimisation, fear of fracturing your professional relationship, being too exhausted from being subjected to discrimination, having to prepare a complaint while you are working under pressure, being isolated by colleagues when you make a complaint and feeling like you need to prove how you are being discriminated. These all lead to under reporting. We need to ask why the number of complaints lodged is so much lower than the enquiries made (see Table 2). Calling VHREOC in relation to a discrimination issue is a big step.
Table 2. Number of enquiries and complaints in 2015
Category (areas) enq. Compl. Compl.
No. No. (%)
Age 500 145 29%
Parental status 358 111 31%
Carer status 377 123 33%
Sexual harassment 542 183 34%
Disability 2178 752 35%
Race 850 307 36%
Sex 590 235 40%
Sexual orientation 155 75 48%
Employment activity 387 188 49%
Victimisation 518 328 63%
Total 13877 2977 21%
However, getting back to the issues of disability strategy stagnation, the most important piece of information I have uncovered as a practitioner was from the design and results of a diversity survey. Whilst the number of reported incidence of discrimination on the grounds of disability was very low, people with disability were over-represented in reported incidence of unfair treatment in mainstream employment situations, compared to any other cohort. Employment situations included, workload allocation, promotion, career progression, remuneration, recognition, performance review and access to career opportunities. Based on this information, organisations could closely examine its diversity conscious and diversity blind strategies, and pinpoint where intervention, prevention or action is required.
Based on this finding I then started to question my thinking around covert or overt discrimination based. Does covert discrimination really exist? It depends on who’s lens you are ‘looking’ through. What I see as covert discrimination may be seen or experienced as overt discrimination by someone else, even if they can’t clearly articulate that their unfair treatment constitutes discrimination.
Diversity and HR practitioners must not wait for an agency to appear on the horizon to bring disability in employment out of the shadows. Perhaps using existing models (for example, AWEI and WGEA) and the evidence from VEOHRC, the elimination of disability in employment will be done with greater urgency, rigour and measurement.