Transsexual launches huge legal claim over sex change

A transsexual has launched the biggest ever legal claim to be brought over a sex change.

Jessica Bussert, formerly known as Josh, is seeking £500,000 from Hitachi Data Systems under the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999. She is also suing Hitachi in the US for $3.6m (£1.93m) damages over claims the company demoted her from her high-level IT job after she had facial and breast surgery.

The regulations apply to any employee who intends to undergo gender reassignment, is going through the process or has already done so.

Bussert relocated to the UK from the American Mid West because she thought the UK would be more accepting of transgender people. The move came after a 19-year-old transsexual was murdered and set on fire in Indiana near where Bussert came from.

After taking six weeks off for the facial feminisation and breast surgery in March 2005, Bussert claims she was effectively demoted because she had to report to a different person who had previously been hired as her equal and was given basic administrative tasks normally performed by secretaries. Her salary remained the same at £88,000.

A spokeswoman for Hitachi UK said: "We don't think it's appropriate to comment, other than to say that we deny those allegations and will be defending them to the full extent."

The story was taken from Personnel Today

Unions are key to ending disability discrimination

To coincide with its annual disability conference, the TUC has published a guide to disability equality that calls on unions to work with public sector employers to make discrimination towards disabled people a thing of the past.

From December 2006 (a year later for some schools), all organisations in the public sector will have a new duty making them responsible for ending the discrimination so often experienced by disabled people both at work and in their everyday lives.

The TUC guide, 'Disability and work: A trade union guide to the law and good practice' sets out how unions can work with employers to make the new Disability Equality Duty become a reality. The guide says that the Government has pledged to end discrimination against disabled people by 2025, and says that it will take much to end the disadvantage and unfair treatment experienced by so many disabled people.

The new Duty that comes into force at the end of December 2006 will force the public sector to actively promote true equality not only for its disabled employees but also for disabled people in receipt of its services. The Duty, part of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, means that public bodies, including government departments, local councils, NHS Trusts and police authorities will have to:

• promote equality of opportunity to between disabled people and other people
• eliminate unlawful discrimination
• promote positive attitudes towards disabled people
• encourage disabled people to participate in public life.

'Disability and work: A trade union guide to the law and good practice' [opens as a PDF]

Sexual harassment rife in the Armed Force

A new action plan to prevent and deal with sexual harassment in the Armed Forces has been agreed by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) following research to clarify its extent.

Extensive research carried out by independent consultants into the nature and extent of sexual harassment in the Armed Forces, including a survey of all Service women and a series of focus groups, was completed by the MOD as part of the first phase of its Agreement with the EOC. There was a high response rate (52%) and the responses were broadly consistent across the three Services.

The research found that sexualised behaviours (jokes, stories, language and material) were widespread in all three Services. Almost all (99%) of the servicewomen who responded had been in situations where such sexualised behaviours had taken place in the previous 12 months, with two-thirds (67%) having had such behaviours directed at them personally and 15% having had a "particularly upsetting" experience.

The action plan forms Phase Three of an Agreement signed by the MOD and the EOC in June 2005, on preventing and dealing with sexual harassment in the Armed Forces. It demonstrates the MOD’s commitment to tackling the serious issues highlighted by this research. It provides a clear undertaking to create an environment, through strong leadership, in which harassment is recognised as inappropriate and preventable. The action plan aims to ensure that leaders in the Armed Forces take seriously their responsibilities to deal with harassment, by handling complaints appropriately and implementing effective monitoring arrangements. Service personnel will be encouraged to offer their views on how to prevent and deal with sexual harassment.

The action plan commits the MOD to delivering real improvements for Service personnel, including increased confidence in the complaints system and a reduction in the number of women reporting that unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature had been targeted at them. The EOC will be working with the MOD to monitor its progress.

The Secretary of State for Defence Des Browne welcomed the next phase of the Agreement saying:

“Over the last ten years our Armed Forces have been deployed across the world in support of our fundamental democratic values – equal respect, toleration, and human rights. They are role models and standard-bearers for the values they defend. It is, therefore, absolutely vital that these values are clearly upheld within our Armed Forces themselves, and that all our Service men and women feel respected and valued regardless of gender, race, religion or sexual orientation. Without this our Armed Forces will not be able to sustain the teamwork and camaraderie they need, to continue to maintain the highest standards in the challenging commitments they face across the world.
More information from the EOC

Gender pay gap persists in the UK

Men continue to earn more than their female colleagues across the UK, official data has revealed.
The national average wage is £569 a week for men and £436 for women - a difference of almost £7,000 a year, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The biggest gap is in London, where men take home £790 a week, compared with £597 for women, followed by the South East (with a pay gap of £150) and the East (with a pay gap of £148).
Men in Northern Ireland however earn just £85 a week more than women.

The Equal Opportunities Commission has long been calling for government action to tackle the persistent gender pay gap – currently at 18% for full-time employees, and 40% for part-timers.

More information from the Office for National Statistics

Unemployed ethnic minorities urgently need more help

Government attempts to help ethnic minorities close their employment gap on Whites need a better focus and more one-to-one support for unemployed people in Jobcentres, says a new report for Department for Work and Pensions by the Policy Studies Institute.

Most Jobcentre customers struggle in their search for work, whatever their origin. They feel dissatisfied and frustrated when first engaging with the system, especially before being given a Personal Adviser to help them.

Ethnic minority women and men have additional needs that are not being met:

• Customers who meet employment discrimination are unaware of Jobcentre procedures to challenge firms and have little faith that the system will intervene to help them overcome it.
• Difficulties with language are addressed too slowly. Too many New Deal courses are unsupervised and young ethnic minority customers become disillusioned and drop out.
• Language and other training should be better aligned with minority needs, including women-only classes for older Bangladeshi women.

One of the authors of the report, Dr. Maria Hudson said: “Recent Jobcentre Plus initiatives have strengthened rules and procedures to help ethnic minority applicants achieve a better rate of entry to work. There remains a gulf in practice and understanding that can be closed by new staff training, particularly in multilingual services, and wider recruitment. This will require the injection of new resources”

More information

Take diversity seriously, CRE chair warns law firms

CRE chair Trevor Phillips has called on law firms to stop treating diversity as a 'tick-box' exercise, and to wake up to the benefits of ethnic monitoring.

Speaking at the launch of the Institute of Paralegals Awards 2006 at the House of Commons, Trevor Phillips said: "People struggling to improve ethnic minority representation in the upper echelons of their organisations often tell me that there just aren't enough ethnic minorities to draw on in the lower ranks. When it comes to the legal profession, however, this just doesn't hold water. The Black Solicitors Network recently claimed that paralegals are - anecdotally - a more diverse bunch than solicitors (at present, just under eight per cent of practising solicitors are from an ethnic minority background). So, if more is done to nurture this existing pool of talent, we could have a quick win on our hands."

Referring to the fact that only half of the Legal 500's ten biggest law firms had actually published data relating to the ethnicity of their staff online, Trevor Phillips added: "Ethnic monitoring is key to breaking down the barriers that prevent ethnic minorities from entering the legal profession. It is also essential practice if law firms and chambers want to keep the custom of public authorities and big business like Barclays."

More information from the CRE

UK Muslims likely to be unemployed

MUSLIMS are more likely than other religious minorities to be unemployed and live in poor housing in the most deprived parts of England, according to research published today.

Half of English Muslims over the age of 25 are not involved in the formal labour market and a third live in the most deprived areas of the country, according to the study commissioned by the government.
Muslims are also particularly vulnerable to long-term illness and experience poor levels of education, researchers from universities of Derby, Warwick, Birmingham and Oxford said.

"Taking the Muslim population as a whole, they face some of the most acute conditions of multiple deprivation," the report said.

The government office in charge of local government and communities commissioned the academics to review data on the Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities.

The report said members of the Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities were likely to remain concentrated in the same areas because families want to stay close together and may prefer to live near to their places of worship.

A government spokeswoman said the academics had reviewed a variety of data, including information from the 2001 national census.

The government will use the study in its work to encourage equal opportunities for members of all religious communities, the spokeswoman said.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of Muslim Council of Britain, said the research showed poverty and other deep-seated problems that have contributed to the marginalisation and disaffection felt among many young Muslims.

Inclusion and diversity research centre launched in Bradford

The University of Bradford is opening a centre for inclusion and diversity, located at the University's School of Health Studies. The opening ceremoney, which is taking place today at 10am is being commemorated by His Excellency Dr Walter P Eneji, the Deputy Governor of the Cross River State of Nigeria - where some of the Centre's health equality work has been focussed.

The keynote paper will be delivered by Lord Victor Adebowale. One of the first People's Peers to be elected in 2001, Lord Adebowale is a leading campaigner for the underprivileged and Chief Executive of Turning Point, one of the UK's leading social care organisations.

There will also be presentations by Steve Barnett, Director of NHS Employers and Terry Moran, Chief Executive of the Disabilities and Carers Agency.

Director of the Centre for Inclusion and Diversity, Professor Udy Archibong, said: "We are delighted to be welcoming such distinguished guests at the launch of the Centre.

"Our aim is to develop a world class centre of expertise in applied research, policy and programme development and consultancy on inclusion and diversity.

"Building on an already considerable research portfolio, we look forward to informing and shaping inclusion and diversity policy and practice not only in this country, but in countries such as Pakistan, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria where we are currently engaged in projects."

Research priorities for the Centre include workforce diversity, inequalities in health and social care, diversity and community cohesion and cultural considerations in research.

The launch of the Centre for Inclusion and Diversity will feature a showcase of some of its recent and ongoing research projects, including the Cultural Understanding in Leadership and Management ( CULM ). This project has focussed on the improvement of representation of black and minority ethnic staff in senior management roles in Higher Education.

Visit the centre for inclusion and diversity.

Local authorities fail to break glass ceiling for ethnic staff

According to a recent report from the Audit Commission, almost half of England's local authorities do not (BME) communities among their top earners.

Almost half of England's 411 local authorities still do not have a single person from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities among their top earners.

The 2004-05 Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPI), show that 189 local authorities do not have a single BME employee in their top 5% of earners, compared with 181 in 2003-04.

The BVPI allows local authorities in England to review and benchmark their performance. The most recent findings show that 60% of local authorities saw a decrease in the number of top earners from BME backgrounds. The report concludes that this particular performance indicator has seen no positive improvement since 2002-03.

Women fair better, with almost three-quarters of local authorities (72%) reporting an increase in female top earners last year. On average, just under a third (30%) of the top 5% of earners were women.

Diversity statistics

• 0.8% is the average proportion of top 5% earners in local authorities from BME backgrounds.
• 189 is the number of local authorities without any BME staff among their top earners.
• 60% is the proportion of local authorities reporting a decrease in the number of top earners from BME backgrounds.
• 30% is the average of top 5% earners in local authorities who are women.

The white world of science

This story has been taken from the Daily Telegraph

The prospect of a black Marie Curie or Michael Faraday emerging in Britain appear extremely bleak, according to a report for the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Physics that concludes that physics, in particular, "is very much white (and male) dominated".

Prof Peter Elias and Dr Paul Jones of the University of Warwick, and Dr Sean McWhinnie and Royal Society of Chemistry call for more work to find out why ethnic minority groups do less well than the white population at university, and are less likely to choose postgraduate study in chemistry and physics, even when qualified to do so.

The progress of ethnic groups through chemistry and physics is likened to a "leaky pipeline". Physics in particular and, to a lesser extent, chemistry, are also male dominated. Many Caribbean, Pakistani and Bangladeshi teenagers "fall at the first hurdle - often before students have the opportunity to specialise in chemistry or physics. Consequently, numbers from these populations are much lower than might be expected, in relation to population size, at later stages of academic study."

White students are three times as likely to achieve an A-level in chemistry as black Caribbean ones. In physics, only Indian and Chinese students are more likely to achieve an A-level than whites. Chinese students are almost three times as likely to achieve an A-level in physics as white students. Black Caribbean students are only a sixth as likely to achieve an A-level in physics as their white counterparts.

The pipeline is leakiest for the black Caribbean school-leavers. "This group has the lowest overall survival rate in academic chemistry and physics, with only one student in 10,000 expected to undertake a doctorate degree in chemistry and fewer than one student in 10,000 expected to undertake a doctorate degree in physics."

Professor Peter Main of the Institute of Physics commented: "We believe that lack of ethnic diversity is mainly due to socio-economic factors and poor A-level combinations. The institute is piloting projects in schools with a mixed ethnic background to encourage a better take-up from under-represented minorities."

This story was published by the Daily Telegraph on 9 May 2006

Drive to increase diversity in media industries

A new programme of initiatives to tackle diversity in the media has been launched by Skillset and the UK Film Council. Over £3m funding will enable over 20 innovative projects across the UK to benefit almost 600 individuals. The projects are part of the Audio Visual Entrepreneurship (AVE) programme which has been launched to support individuals from groups currently under represented within the media including women, people with disabilities, black & ethnic minorities, older people and young people from economically disadvantaged areas.

The wide ranging projects include mentoring schemes, showcasing and networking events, work placement schemes and graduate fellowships. All are designed to foster creativity and develop industry skills, knowledge and experience to boost both individual career potential, self employment and the success of businesses.

Trevor Phillips, Skillset Patron and Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, hosted the AVE launch event in London saying:

"The media industries play a key role in telling our national story and contributing to a genuinely inclusive society, which is why representation within the workforce is so important. It is hoped that the AVE Programme will have a profound effect on the careers of the individual beneficiaries as well as helping our industries as a whole to successfully address the diversity issues they are facing."

Skillset’s survey of the workforce, which received nearly 7000 responses and was conducted last year, found that:

38% of the workforce is female, compared with 46% of the UK workforce as a whole. 5% of the workforce has a disability - a similar proportion to that reported by the wider UK workforce. 7% of the workforce is from a black or minority ethnic origin, a similar proportion to the UK workforce as a whole. However, around half the workforce is based in London in which 24% of the working population are from a black or minority ethnic origin.

Deaf and hard of hearing people face discrimination in the job market

According to the results of an RNID survey issued today to mark the start of Deaf Awareness Week, only 63% of deaf and hard of hearing people of working age are in employment, compared to 75% of the national workforce. Thousands of deaf and hard of hearing people are still facing serious barriers to employment and RNID is urging employers to help combat discrimination and create more accessible workplaces.

RNID, the national charity representing the UK’s 9 million deaf and hard of hearing people, claims that issues ranging from attitudes of potential employers to a basic lack of deaf awareness represent serious barriers for deaf and hard of hearing people seeking work. Over half (53%) of those surveyed cited "attitude of employers" as one of the main barriers preventing them from finding employment.

These barriers also severely restrict career prospects for those already in employment, creating artificial and unnecessary "glass ceilings". Over half (51%) of those within work felt they had been held back from promotion or developing their careers as a result of their deafness and 34% felt their job didn’t make full use of their qualifications.

Cheryl Cullen, director of ETSS at RNID, says: "Deaf and hard of hearing people represent a talented and skilled, but largely untapped, labour resource. Every deaf and hard of hearing person is capable of working with the right support. At a time of real skills shortages in key sectors of the economy, the country cannot afford to neglect the vast pool of talent represented by deaf and hard of hearing people."

Deaf and hard of hearing people represent a talented and skilled, but largely untapped, labour resource. Over half (55%) of respondents in work reported feeling isolated at work due to their deafness and a quarter (24%) found it difficult to communicate with their work colleagues. The vast majority (75%) felt that the situation would be improved if their employer provided deaf awareness training to their staff, yet two fifths (43%) of their employers did not provide any training.

Employers can make a profound difference by making simple changes and have a legal duty under the Disability Discrimination Act to make reasonable adjustments to the workplace and provide support. RNID is urging employers to make the simple but necessary adjustments in the way candidates are assessed and employees are treated to ensure an inclusive and effective working environment for all.

More information for employers is available from the RNID