I suspect that well meaning attempts to rig the system that way would just backfire. Big companies have the resources, lawyers and incentives to manipulate and exploit regulations like that to their advantage. I think the simplest approach, which is just regulating against discrimination, may not be perfect but trying to come up with a perfect system will just impose so much regulation and costs and exploitable loopholes that it wouldn’t end up any better and could well be both worse and more expensive.
Note I’m not taking a blanket all regulation is bad stance. I support regulation to protect pregnant employees and family life. I am recruiting right now for a contractor to cover for a pregnant employee in my team (in the UK). I just think in general the simplest approach is usually the beast, or anyway the least worst.
As a side note, I think the current US anti-discrimination laws are probably flawed, not because discrimination is not bad but because of problems with enforcement. I am thinking of imposing anti-discrimination conditions on specific companies instead.
I am thinking of ditching anti-discrimination laws and instead allow EEOC, anti-trust, or other regulatory agencies to impose anti-discrimination conditions on companies as necessary, which hopefully will be a last resort.
As a side note, the cost of the lawsuits (relative to the benefits) is one of the reasons why I don't think anti discrimination laws are a good idea. I am thinking of ditching them, but allowing the EEOC or similar to order particular sets of companies to stop discrimination for a period of time if necessary.
Anti-discrimination laws are even worse in that discrimination can happen with no evidence at all. One of the methods used to enforce them (particularly in things like hiring) is statistics, most of which assumes employees are interchangeable commodities. They were designed back in the 1960s for things like manual labor jobs. I am willing to suggest a compromise to limit them to these kinds of jobs.
This is the oldest argument against all employment anti-discrimination efforts, namely „The free market will take care of it”
It’s quite obvious that this idea was never true: companies were quite willing to forgo some money to keep their workforce male & white, to not approve mortgages for minorities trying to move to the “wrong” part of town (redlining), etc.
In any case, your suggestion, even if workable, would seem to be eminently discriminatory: changing jobs, and everything it can entail such as moving a whole family, is in itself a harm nobody should suffer just for their gender/skin color/etc.
In practical matters, people are often not aware of discrimination they suffer until long after, because compensation information is regarded as secret, and because it requires aggregation of many data points to show systemic biases.
Imagine if a state had a law making it legal to discriminate against women. You might argue that would give the hiring company valuable hiring and firing flexibility. But it's probably obvious that, aside from the ethical issue, it would be bad for business to seek such jurisdictions out. Skilled workers (both women and men) wouldn't want to work there, and the PR impact would be negative.
Many corporations have been extremely vocal in their opposition to these laws in lobbying. They're bad for business because they make hiring harder, and it's bad PR.
This is one of the reasons why I dislike anti-discrimination laws. For example, one of the methods used to enforce them (particularly in things like hiring) is statistics, most of which assumes employees are interchangeable commodities. They were designed back in the 1960s for things like manual labor jobs. I am willing to suggest a compromise to limit them to these kinds of jobs.
True, but we are not postulating an employer who's customers prefer not to be served by a pregnant woman.
I believe you stated under "normal circumstances" discrimination is disadvantageous. I am not sure exactly what you would consider "normal circumstances", but I was merely giving an example where discrimination would be an advantage.
We are merely postulating an employer who wants his employees to show up for work.
Which can lead to discrimination because a woman may be turned down for a job because of something she has no control over, her ability to become pregnant, regardless of if she actually has plans to become pregnant or not, or is even fertile.
In that case, why bother with any laws on the topic at all? After all, those who do discriminate would continue to do so.
People still murder others even though it's illegal. Why have laws against murder? They obviously don't work.
No, but it does mitigate the harm that her pregnancy causes for her employer.
Isn't the biggest harm losing an employee & having to hire someone new? That happens regardless of leave laws. True it might be less hassle now that they can fire a now expectant mother, but they probably would save themselves even that hassle by not hiring a woman in the first place.
Also seems like allowing for it to continue would fail to discourage the companies from hiring the employees in the first place, assuming they were initially hired in a discriminatory way.
I have dislike anti-discrimination laws for a while now. For example, one of the methods used to enforce them (particularly in things like hiring) is statistics, most of which assumes employees are interchangeable commodities. Not to mention the problems with "performance" reviews and "PIPs" too. They were designed back in the 1960s for things like manual labor jobs. I am willing to suggest a compromise to limit them to these kinds of jobs.
The reason it's illegal is because it wouldn't just be companies like the one you are outlining that would discriminate, it would spread to all companies, because women are given special considerations like maternity leave. Hence, a company that discriminated against them would be avoiding, in essence, a tax that would then fall on others and thus lead to others deciding to avoid that competitive disadvantage even if they had found women applicants and workers to be perfectly suited to the work at hand.
If there were no unintended consequences (I hope that you do not intend this widespread discrimination) then I would be fine with you running your company that way as I would be happy with there being less competition for all the excellent women applicants, and I believe that a mixed sex workplace will outperform a solely male one. A belief I find much easier to hold than dudes prefer working with dudes or some such nonsense.
Yup. I wrote (in another comment) about the emergent behaviors that would come from that idea, and hiring discrimination is one of them.
At the same time (and I say this not as a point of argument, but as thinking through the thought experiment), I wonder if there should be some sort of legislative action to discourage the societal and environmental burden of these company policies.
For example, I assume that causing numerous people to commute multiple hours each day has some environmental cost. I also assume that there may be some economy of scale that benefits a centralized work force (heating and cooling one building rather than individual homes during the work day). Perhaps the electricity use for computers is better or worse. I don't know.
I'm a libertarian in philosophy, and I ultimately believe that people should be allowed to make their own choices about their own life. I also see the injustice, then, of treating corporations as people, which allows the one person who controls the corporation to have more power and influence than the person who does not own a corporation. It is the essence of "some people are more equal than others" from Animal Farm.
Again, ultimately, it is a thought experiment.
But, I can tell you, that I WFH. Next week, my employer has asked me to come in for a certain meeting, and it is a 2.5 hour commute each way. I get to count the drive as part of my work day. They don't need me to drive in very often. I like this arrangement.
It plainly isn't possible to implement without discrimination. Some argue that this is good discrimination. It is also noteworthy that only desirable jobs get quotas like this.
Let’s zoom out a bit. The big picture is that by using discrimination they are not hiring based on merit and therefore the ability to produce the best goods and services is impaired. If these discriminatory hiring practices put them at a productive disadvantage, then companies that hire out of merit should, over time, outcompete them in a free market and put them out of business. No regulation required.
Agree with you up until the very last sentence. It does not make business sense to break the law (and gender discrimination is a real thing a company can get sued over). No matter how tempting, you can't magically wish the problem away and say "I'll hire 5 women, then 10 people of color, then a couple of LGBT folks, then I won't have any diversity problems". It doesn't work that way.
Yes, it is a chicken and egg problem. Yes, the first couple of hires will be difficult to make. But if you don't have the framework in place to actually support these women once they join the workplace, guess what, even if you luck out into making those hires, they won't be sticking around. It's not a one-time kind of thing.
I also dislike anti-discrimination laws in general though. I think a good compromise would be to limit them to certain kinds of jobs. This also reminds me of wrongful termination lawsuits, and anti-discrimination happens to be one of the reasons. I have been thinking about Yishan-style CEOs for a while now.
One of the reasons I don't like anti discrimination laws. However, I am for allowing the EEOC, anti-trust or similar to order particular sets of companies to stop discrimination for a period of time if necessary, as I mentioned before.
I dislike employment anti-discrimination laws for this and other reasons. I suggest a compromise of limiting it to manual labor jobs and the like for which the anti-discrimination laws were actually designed for.
Note I’m not taking a blanket all regulation is bad stance. I support regulation to protect pregnant employees and family life. I am recruiting right now for a contractor to cover for a pregnant employee in my team (in the UK). I just think in general the simplest approach is usually the beast, or anyway the least worst.
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