Discrimination

"The only way to end discrimination in the workplace is through legislation". Discuss.

Discrimination can be defined as "Any act or failure to act, impermissible based in whole or in part on a person's race, colour, religion, national origin, sex, age, physical or mental handicap, and/or reprisal, that adversely affects privileges, benefits, working conditions, and results in disparate treatment, or has a disparate impact on employees or applicants." By the end of 2006 the UK discrimination laws will fall within the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. The UK following directives new European directives has had to amend and extend its discrimination laws and policies as a result of which discrimination has now become a serious offence making the European court of Justice the final court of appeal. Apart from legislation there are other ways and methods of dealing with discrimination in the workplace. the ACAS suggests different ways of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), one school of thought supports the managing diversity approach that argues that the only way around such problems is to change the attitudes as misconceptions of such groups and in recent years a new more extreme school of thought promotes positive or reverse discrimination against the groups who have been historically discriminated against. It's only in recent year that we are finally beginning to understand the subtle psychological causes and forms of discrimination, most of the more blatant forms of discrimination have been significantly reduced through legislation. In the long run however in order to completely eliminate discrimination we would have to find more innovative ways of educating employees against discrimination and making them more apt to work in the multi-cultural, and diverse workplace of the future. In this essay we shall first explore various types of discrimination and we shall take a look at the Legislation associated with them. Then we will take a look at the other techniques that have and are being utilised to prevent discrimination