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Two prominent fighters in the battle against discrimination at work highlighted a symposium (Sunday, Apr. 29) on promoting social and economic justice candidly at the annual conference of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

 

Americans don’t have much tolerance for complicated solutions, rather they prefer simple and unintimidating answers, ideally condensed to a few choice words or a single step. This applies even to a problem as thorny as racial and gender discrimination. But visions of Rev. Dr. Martin King don’t lend themselves to such quick fixes, said Judith L. Komaki of Baruch College at City University of New York, who organized the session, which included top HR executives.

 

''From a dollars-and-cents standpoint,'' Theodore M. Shaw, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, said, ''it is no longer economically realistic for companies to be lily-white and male.'' He warned against setting diversity goals, which, if used inappropriately, can give “a black eye to affirmative action,” and can lead to executives glossing over qualifications of minorities simply to meet quotas.

 

He added that complaints of unfair evaluations, biased raters and unclear standards serve as harbingers of injustice, suffered by all employees, not just minorities. “If we listen, we can learn what ails the larger society. And if we make changes, we can make the workplace better for women and men, minority and majority, for all of us,” Shaw said.

 

Cyrus Mehriof Mehri & Skalet PLLC, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in discrimination cases at Texaco and Coca-Cola, provided a behind-the-scenes history of the first Task Force at Texaco which helped transform an initial climate of fear and retaliation against employees for simply raising EEO concerns to the creation of new human resource systems that emphasized fair competition and transparency.

 

A proponent of task forces to settle complaints and effect meaningful change, Mehri said “there are no other employment settlements, which entrust sweeping powers to the hands of an independent Task Force whose decisions are binding absent judicial interventions.”

 

At Coca-Cola, a Task Force and the company developed a sophisticated human resource data and monitoring system that led to significant improvements.

 

Mehri also discussed about the sex bias suit settlement with Morgan Stanley that was announced last week. After two years of behind-the-scenes negotiations, the landmark settlement focused on the yardstick used in promoting and paying brokers and the way in which "accounts are distributed in the firm's retail branches."

 

Changing this distribution system, which served to "institutionalize historical bias," tackles “a subtler . . . form of discrimination,” he said. A task force will oversee the settlement and will include two industrial psychologists.

 

Also contributing to the session was Georgia Chao of Michigan State University and Judith L. Komaki of Baruch College, City University of New York.

 

Mid-level managers need to become more involved in efforts to battle discrimination and effect diversity, Komaki said. All too often, upper level management will make diversity commitments but they do not filter down to mid-level managers, who must implement top managements’ statements to make changes.

 

Often, Komaki noted, incentives are given to senior managers based on EEO performance, but little is offered to mid-level managers.

 

She urged that senior leaders be held more accountable for their exhortations and that commitments be better communicated to managers at all levels and they be given appropriate recognition for improving EEO performance.

 

Speaking on the topic of worldwide job discrimination, Chao noted that while most countries have enacted anti-discrimination employment laws, many countries are unwilling or unable to enforce those laws. Some countries, she added, simply state that employment discrimination does not exist in their country and therefore no remedy is necessary.

 

Acknowledging that more research needs to be done to identify ways of reducing employment discrimination, she said “one thing is clear: victims of employment discrimination around the world are likely to suffer from professional difficulties, financial problems, physical symptoms and emotional problems.”