Ethnic Minority Women and Employment

[Socod_badne]

Oh poor Shehrezade is crying over spilled milk! To tell ya the truth, I aint surprised no one wants to hire ya. It has nothing to do with you belonging to the inferior sex, it's your attitude. To be blunt: you lack the gumption. You can't complete a task. Who wants to hire such person? Only your bloated ego!

[sheherazade]

^You again. Like a hiccup, aren't u? Repetitive, all noise and no use to the topic. Again.

 

Hooyo must be proud.

[Socod_badne]

^^^Just giving ya a reality check. Where is the gratitude :confused:

 

I'll do it again if need be and you can certain that I will see to it. What are the odds? Pretty darn good becuz I keep my word and I'm not an empty shirt like you; who threatens to beat ppl into oblivion only to bulk at the last minute. THAT is why you can't get a job and my sympathy.

[Castro]

^ Acting as Sheh's bodyguard, I encourage you to respect my employer. There will be consequences and repercussions to your actions.

[Socod_badne]

^^^Ooh, she sent el comandante Castro to speak for her. Poor Sheh, didn't know she was that fragile. Sorry Sheh, I promise to leave ya alone... for a while. Maalin dambe bey noo dambeysaa!

 

In the meantime, my proud hooyo baa suuqa uga soo adeygayaa.

 

Nabad galyo!

[Abaadir]

Socod Badane, Do not play with fire bro.. have you notice sister's title ...."Moderator"

[Valenteenah.]

Delightful Socod-Badne is looking to get b!tch-slapped. I would be happy to hold him down if Sheh wants to do the honours. :cool:

[Socod_badne]

Originally posted by Ahura:

Delightful

Socod-Badne

is looking to get b!tch-slapped. I would be happy to hold him down if

Sheh

wants to do the honours. :cool:

Shoo away! I seek peace and comity. Me want no trouble.

 

Abaadir,

 

Thanks for the heads-up.

[sheherazade]

Originally posted by Socod_badne:

Shoo away! I seek peace and comity. Me want no trouble.

 

Funny way of showing it. There's help out there, u just gotta know where to find it.

 

Dial 0800 NUUC BADAN.

[sheherazade]

Women from the Black and Ethnic minority community are being empowered by a new mentoring scheme, which enables them to get into the careers they want.

 

The scheme called Fempowerment 2, links women graduates and undergraduates with professionals working within different career fields, who can mentor them on working in that particular area and how get a job.

 

It is being run by Manchester Metropolitan University’s Centre for Social inclusion and is aimed at women of all ages who feel they may be disadvantaged in their careers by gender, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, social class, religion or beliefs.

 

Anish Kurien, Project Co-ordinator said: “We have identified that there are certain barriers for women from ethnic minorities who want to enter employment, so we aim to remove these barriers using research interventions and mentoring initiatives.

 

“The way it works, is we recruit volunteer mentors from regional employers and alumni of the university who are willing to mentor female graduates and undergraduates.

 

Potential candidates will have access to people working in teaching, architecture, IT, nursing, Law and more. Mentors will normally register themselves on the website which enables candidates to look up a mentor profile and make a suitable choice.

 

 

Mentees will be educate CV writing, job application, interview preparation as well as other general problems

 

Mentoring happens on an online basis or face to face if the mentor and mentee choose. The informal relationship involves the mentor educating their mentee on the career field, CV consultation, job application and interview preparation.

 

A mentee can also consult their mentor on any problems they might have such as academic issues, personal and financial issues.

 

A former IT mentee who was consulted on the value of the project said: “I was looking at things from a long term perspective. Obviously at that time I didn’t have a job and I was looking for a career in IT and as a female it’s probably not as easy.

 

“Nobody in my family is in the IT industry and has an inside knowledge, so I just thought the careers service and this scheme would be really beneficial to me.

 

“Mohammed, my mentor, initially gave me online support as well as telephone support. I think something which was really crucial was my CV. He helped to really sort out my CV with the layout and made it a lot more IT focused.

 

“Before then it was really general, and he made it more skills focussed and obviously he gave me advice on the types of companies I should be aiming for and the fact that I should go ahead and apply to graduate schemes which was something that I was a little bit more sceptical about in the past.

 

“I have been offered a job with Logica CMG which I am really happy with. It’s a consultancy which perfect and exactly what I want.â€

 

Fempowerment had 180 mentees and 160 mentors last year. This year they are aiming to get 250 mentees and 150 mentors. Together with mentoring, graduates and undergraduates can access the Careers service at MMU for extra careers support.

 

To find out more about the project go the fempowerment website at www.csi.mmu.ac.uk/fempower or call Anish Kurien on 0161 247 5360.

 

article

[Cara.]

^Sounds good. Hope it has concrete benefits for those who need it.

 

I have a penpal who runs a warshad in San Diego who tells me he doesn't bother to tell Somali women employees to get a drug test. Reverse discrimination?

[Caano Geel]

shehehehehhehehehe

teh equal opportunities commition's project which the original research makes intersting reading though it falls short on plans for combatting the situation.

[sheherazade]

GOVERNMENT URGED TO CLOSE GENDER PAY GAP

 

A charity dedicated to campaigning for equality was today urging the Government's Women and Work Commission to call for radical new measures when it unveils its report today.

 

The Women and Work Commission was set up by the Government in July 2004 to investigate the gender pay gap and other issues affecting women's employment and was today due to publish its final report.

 

However, the Fawcett Society has today hit out at the Labour Government ahead of the new report claiming it has failed to live up to promises over gender equality in the workplace.

 

Dr Katherine Rake, director of the Fawcett Society, said: "Women have waited too long for this Government to take action and we fear the Women and Work Commission will not go far enough in calling for the radical measures we need.

 

"At the current rate it's going to take more than 40 years to close the full-time pay gap and around 140 years to end the part-time pay gap. We are not prepared to wait that long.

 

"Simply encouraging employers to change is not going to work fast enough. We need the Government to introduce strong enforcement measures to combat discrimination and narrow the pay gap.

 

"Fawcett celebrates its 140th anniversary this year. We know change sometimes takes time, but I'd hate to think we'd still need to be fighting this 140 years from now."

 

Ahead of the report charity chiefs are calling for the Government to introduce compulsory gender pay audits for all organisations, bring in measures to combat the long hours working culture that limits women with caring responsibilities and encourage men - not just women - to engage with work-life balance issues.

 

The good cause also wants improved pay and employment for part-time workers, urgent action to help the women facing the greatest inequality in the workplace, particularly some groups of Black and Minority Ethnic women, and the Government to adopt set target dates for closing the pay gap.

 

Fawcett Society researchers said that since 1997 the full time hourly gender pay gap has closed by just 3.6% - from 20.7% to 17.1%. At that rate of change it would take more than 43 years to close the full time pay gap completely.

 

The part time gap has narrowed by only 2.5% - from 41% to 38.5% - in the same period meaning it would take around 140 years to be closed.

 

Research also shows in the private sector, men working full-time earn 23% more an hour than their female counterparts and 45% more than women working part time. In the public sector, the respective figures are 13% and 34%.

 

Since 1997 the Government has introduced some measures that have benefited women in work, including the minimum wage, greater rights for part time workers and gender pay audits for the public sector, but the Fawcett Society said more is required.

 

The Fawcett is the UK's leading campaign for equality between women and men. The charity works to create a society in which women and men can enjoy equality at work, at home and in public life.

 

For more information visit www.fawcettsociety.org.uk

source

[Valenteenah.]

^ Apparently it's all down to bad advice given to girls at high school. I must admit that the Career's Advisor at my old school was horrible. The woman always discouraged any ideas pupils had of what they wanted to do career-wise, especially the black girls. She only encouraged them to do Health & Social Care.

 

It was the same for all my sisters as well. At one point, I was tempted to go into my youngest sister's school and punch her idiotic Advisor in the face, because the woman told my super-smart sister that she shouldn't aim for university because she was probably going to fail her GCSEs. I can't believe they let ppl like that work with impressionable young kids. :mad:

 

 

-------------

 

Young women told to raise their sights on pay

 

· British wage gap among worst in Europe

· Anger as commission fails to back new legal rights

 

 

Polly Curtis and Tania Branigan

Tuesday February 28, 2006

The Guardian

 

 

Britain must re-educate schoolgirls to chose higher earning careers or condemn another generation of women to the pay and opportunities gap, a government-backed commission warned yesterday.

 

Female workers suffer one of the biggest pay gaps in Europe - 17% for full time staff and 38% for part time - because they are more likely to be in low paid jobs and then slip further down the career ladder after having children, the Women and Work Commission found.

 

Schools should challenge gender stereotypes by teaching all-girl computer classes, for example, while employers should improve the options for women who want to work part-time after having children, it concluded. But the commission was last night accused of "short-changing" women by failing to recommend new legally binding ways to force companies to tackle discriminatory pay.

 

The commission, made up of 15 members from equality groups, industry and education and backed by Tony Blair, recommended better careers guidance to prevent girls falling into low-paid "women's jobs" such as catering and cleaning, a £20m package to improve women's skills, and a £5m initiative to promote quality part-time work. More parents should have the right to request flexible working without penalising their careers and the chancellor should consider incentives to make it possible for smaller employers to meet such requests, it said.

 

The commission was split on the issue of compulsory equal pay audits, which some unions argue are crucial to exposing discrimination in pay and making employers accountable for making it fairer. Katherine Rake, director of the Fawcett Society, said by not introducing mandatory pay checks the commission had pandered to employers. "This report has short-changed a generation of women. If this government wants to go down in history as having closed the pay gap it's going to have to try a lot harder. The time is long overdue for rigorous measures."

 

John Cridland, deputy director general of the CBI, told a press conference: "I was staggered at how poor careers advice and education has become; we are failing a whole generation of young people - essentially young girls."

 

He described the report as a "win-win" for businesses which did not include any additional burdens. The report argues that there is a £23bn advantage for businesses in narrowing the pay gap because of the improvements in retention of staff. "Many women are working, day in, day out, far below their abilities," said the commission chairwoman, Lady Prosser. "This waste of talent is an outrage."

 

The commissioners also encouraged the ongoing discrimination law review to look sympathetically at allowing women workers to take class action suits rather than having to take individual pay claims to a tribunal and to use hypothetical comparison points in complex cases, where women were unable to compare themselves to male workers.

 

"The NHS and local government have thousands of little actions; class action would make life much easier," said Lady Prosser. "They have been seen to be successful in other countries."

 

Jenny Watson, chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, welcomed the report. She said: "Thirty years after the Sex Discrimination Act we need to think about the law too, where modernisation is needed. The WWC proposal for the government's discrimination law review to consider the adoption of class actions and hypothetical comparators is a good place to start."

 

Mr Blair described the report as a "superb, ground-breaking piece of work", as he appointed Tessa Jowell to produce an action plan to take forward its findings.

 

The Tories said unequal pay based on sex discrimination was "completely and totally unacceptable".

 

The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, announced a review of the party's childcare policies. He said: "In the past the Conservatives have given the impression that young mothers should stay at home. Today, the Labour party gives the impression that all young mothers should work. Both are wrong ... we should support the choice that mothers make for themselves." The party's social justice policy group would examine ways of offering wider childcare provision.

 

Recommendations

 

· Government action to tackle gender stereotypes at school

 

· Encourage skilled part-time jobs

 

· Support women returning to work

 

· Extend flexible working rights to parents of older children

 

· £5m to train union equality representatives to monitor pay iss

 

Source

[sheherazade]

I won.

 

Alhamdullilah.

 

Ain't no use pretending I didn't know I kicked ar*e on the day of the tribunal. Still it was no guarantee of a win. What I knew was that I had prepared very well, spoke honestly, handled the witnesses with dignity, cooperated with the Chairman, destroyed their evidence and advocated with panache.

 

It was a very rewarding experience, all 5 hours of it. By the end of the day, there wasn't enough time in which to make a decision and I was told I would have to wait for 3 months. My jaw fell- my only moment of unprofessionalism. I left feeling rather good, a little smug and happy that it had all gone to plan. I was at a disadvantage as it was up to me to provide evidence and as I had none I just tore into theirs and made them look ridiculous.

 

It was a very rewarding experience. I found out the other day that I had won on both counts- racial and religious discrimination. Somehow they found the time to make the right decision!! :cool: